neil davidson, how revolutionary were the bourgeois revolutions, 2005

(4): purpose--"Therefore, although I will occasionally refer to the specifics of the Scottish experience, my task is the more general one of persuading comrades – particularly those who think me engaged in an outmoded form of knight errantry – of the necessity for a theory of bourgeois revolution."

(4): classic (and classically wrong) paradigm--"Bourgeois revolutions are supposed to have two main characteristics. Beforehand, an urban class of capitalists is in conflict with a rural class of feudal lords, whose interests are represented by the absolutist state. Afterwards, the former have taken control of the state from the latter and, in some versions at least, reconstructed it on the basis of representative democracy. Socialists have found this model of bourgeois revolution ideologically useful in two ways. On the one hand, the examples of decisive historical change associated with it allow us to argue that, having happened before, revolutions can happen again, albeit on a different class basis."

(5): the classic revisionist take: "Whether this model actually corresponds to the historical record is, however, another matter. Their arguments are broadly similar, irrespective of national origin: [1] prior to the revolution, the bourgeoisie was not ‘rising’ and may even have been indistinguishable from the feudal lords; [2] during the revolution, the bourgeoisie was not in the vanguard of the movement and may even have been found on the opposing side; [3] after the revolution, the bourgeoisie was not in power and may even have been further removed from control of the state than previously. In short, these conflicts were just what they appeared to be on the surface, expressions of inter-élite competition, religious difference or regional autonomy."

(5): "There are, of course, different and conflicting schools of thought concerning why
they are irrelevant, four of which have been particularly influential."

1. (5-7) "The first retains the term ‘bourgeois revolution’, but dilutes its social content until it becomes almost entirely political in nature. The theoretical starting point here is the claim, by Arno Mayer, that the landed ruling classes of Europe effectively remained in power until nearly half-way through the twentieth century, long after the events usually described as the bourgeois revolutions took place. One conclusion drawn from Mayer’s work by Perry Anderson was that the completion of the bourgeois revolution, in Western Europe and Japan at least, was the result of invasion and occupation by the American-led Allies during the Second World War... From being a decisive sociopolitical turning-point which removes obstacles to capitalist development, the concept is stretched to include subsequent changes to the state systems of existing capitalist social formations which bring them into more perfect alignment with the requirements of the system. But there can be no end to these realignments this side of the socialist revolution, which suggests that bourgeois revolutions are a permanent feature of capitalism, rather than one associated with its consolidation and extension."
   
2. (7-8) "A second way in which the meaning of bourgeois revolution has been reduced in significance is through extending its duration in time until it becomes indistinguishable from the general process of historical development. The first interpretations of bourgeois revolution as a process were serious attempts to deal with perceived weaknesses in the theory. And there is nothing inherently implausible about bourgeois revolutions taking this form rather than that of a single decisive event. (In fact, I argue precisely this in relation to the Scottish Revolution.) The problem is, rather, that adherents of ‘process’ have tended to expand the chronological boundaries of the bourgeois revolutions to such an extent that it is difficult to see how the term ‘revolution’ can be applied in any meaningful way, other than, perhaps, as a metaphor."
3. (8-10): "The third position that I want to consider is a component of the capitalist world-system theory associated with Immanuel Wallerstein and his co-thinkers. Here, the focus completely shifts from revolution – however conceived – to the transition to capitalism itself. Unlike the first two positions, Wallerstein thinks that bourgeois revolutions are no longer necessary, but his position is also more extreme in that he thinks they have never been necessary. Wallerstein regards the feudal states of the sixteenth century, like the nominally socialist states of the twentieth, as inherently capitalist through their participation in the world economy. Bourgeois revolutions are, therefore, not irrelevant because they failed to completely overthrow the feudal landed classes, but because, long before these revolutions took place, the lords had already transformed themselves into capitalist landowners... The key issue, which Robert Brenner more than anyone else has placed on the agenda, is whether the formation of a world market is equivalent to the establishment of capitalism. As Brenner has pointed out, the argument that expansion of trade is the prime mover in generating capitalist development is often assumed to be that of Marx himself, but it is, in fact, derived from Adam Smith.
4. (10-end) "The fourth and final position that I want to consider is the ‘capitalist social-property relations’ approach of Brenner himself. Unlike Wallerstein, Brenner does not see the mechanism by which capitalist development occurs as being the expansion of trade and commerce, but, rather, the introduction of a distinctive set of ‘social-property relations’. Like Wallerstein, Brenner
   treats bourgeois revolution as irrelevant and does so for essentially the same
   reasons, namely that capitalist development – albeit confined to a very limited number of countries – occurred prior to and independently of the events which are usually described in this way....
   

(11): "What is more important is that the Brenner school has rightly challenged several positions which Marxists have carelessly adopted in common with their intellectual opponents – above all, the assumption that capitalism is somehow innate, always existing in some subordinate form, and only waiting to be released from feudal or other constraints."

(12): "Brenner argues that ‘modern economic growth’ – the systematic growth associated with capitalism and with no other exploitative mode of production – only takes place when two conditions are satisfied. One is that the direct producers are separated from both their means of production and their means of subsistence, and therefore have no alternative but to satisfy their needs by recourse to the market. The other is where the exploiters can no longer sustain themselves by simply intensifying extra-economic pressure on the direct producers, but, instead, have to increase their efficiency."

(13): Brenner's 'closed circuit' of feudalism:

their potential for growth was strictly limited because urban industry was almost entirely dependent upon lordly demand (as subsistence-orientated peasants had only limited ability to make market purchases) and lordly demand was itself limited by the size of agricultural surplus, which was itself constrained by limited growth potential of the agrarian productive forces.

(14): key, summary of Brenner thesis: "Brenner argues that, by the accession of the Tudor dynasty in 1485, non-economic coercion was of declining significance to the English lords, since the peasantry were no longer subject to the serfdom which required it and, in the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses, an exhausted nobility faced a strengthened state which would no longer tolerate magnate insubordination. But they could increase their incomes through the exploitation of their lands, or, more precisely, the exploitation of commercial tenants who increasingly came to occupy their lands. We are offered an explanation here for why the lords were increasingly compelled to turn to systematic commercialisation of their estates, but what allowed the peasants to abolish serfdom while preventing them from successfully resisting when the lords attempt to turn them into commercial tenants? Brenner has a two-fold answer to this question,

1. "The first part concerns different outcomes of the class struggle in Eastern and Western Europe. After the period of demographic collapse during the second half of the fourteenth century, the lords attempted to discipline a numerically reduced peasantry which was consequently in a much stronger bargaining position. Successful peasant resistance to these impositions permanently ended serfdom in Western Europe, but failed to do so in Eastern Europe, where it was either re-imposed in areas where it had been weakened, or imposed for the first time in areas which had previously escaped subjugation."
   
2. "The second part of his answer identifies the source of this further divergence as the extent to which the various peasantries of Western Europe were able to retain possession of the land, won during the late feudal revolts from actual or potential exploiters..."

(15): England vs. France--"It is the last point which is crucial for Brenner in explaining the difference between England and France. The English feudal state was centralised, but not in the sense that it drew in power from the periphery. It was established with the consent of the feudal ruling class, and largely ruled in alliance with it. As a result, its power was less than the French state, which centralised later on an absolutist basis and in opposition to the individual interests of the lords. In England, the absolutist project was aborted, leaving the peasants free from the burden of state taxation, but also without protection from the lords..."

(16): in sum--"In the Brenner thesis, the emergence of capitalism is, therefore, an unintended outcome of the actions of the two main feudal social classes, peasants and
lords."

(16): beginnings of critique--"In a position which has curious parallels with Althusserianism, Brenner conceives of feudalism as of a self-enclosed, self-perpetuating system which cannot be undermined by its own internal contradictions. It is claimed that Brenner has an explanation for the – in his terms, highly unlikely – appearance of capitalism: the class struggle. Even outside the Brenner school proper, the claim is repeated by writers with quite different attitudes to the thesis. Consequently, many socialist readers must have gone to Brenner’s key articles, eagerly anticipating detailed accounts of peasant resistance to the lords, only to be disappointed by the scant attention which he actually devotes to the subject. In fact, it is the outcome of such class conflicts that Brenner is interested in, not the conflicts themselves."

(18): yes, all these charges seem fair-- "If, as I have suggested, the argument from contingency is a speculative answer to a non-question, then it may explain why Brenner has some difficulty explaining why the class struggle resulted in such different outcomes across Europe. His attempts to deal with this problem are among the least convincing aspects of the entire thesis. Brenner points to the different capacities deployed by the classes involved: these lords had better organisation, those peasants displayed less solidarity; but, without an explanation for the prior processes by which these classes acquired their organisational or solidaristic qualities, these are mere descriptions which, to borrow a favourite expression of Ellen Wood’s, ‘assume precisely what has to be explained’. His inability to explain the differing levels of peasant resistance to the lords (as opposed to the consequences of that resistance) means that he has to fall back on what Stephen Rigby calls ‘a host of particular historical factors which cannot be reduced to expressions of class structure or of class struggle’. It was for this quite specific reason that Guy Bois described Brenner’s Marxism as involving ‘a voluntarist vision of history in which the class struggle is divorced from all other objective contingencies’. But he is only a voluntarist in relation to that part of the period before the different settlements of the land question occurred. After, precisely the opposite applies, and his interpretation becomes overly determinist."

(19): "I am not suggesting, of course, that agrarian capitalism had no effect on other sectors of the economy. It both transformed the existing service sector and generated a requirement for new services, but this does not explain the emergence of capitalist production in the towns or – for that matter – the non-agricultural areas of the countryside. I understand how the Brenner school accounts for the establishment of capitalism in the English countryside. I also understand how the Brenner school accounts for the spread of capitalism beyond Britain. I do not understand how capitalist social-property relations spread from the English countryside to the rest of England."

(20-21): defining capitalism: "For the members of the Brenner school, capitalism is defined by the existence of what they call market compulsion – the removal of the means of production
and subsistence from the direct producers, so that they are forced to rely on the market to survive. There is, of course, a venerable tradition of thought which defines capitalism solely in market terms, but it is not Marxism, it is the Austrian economic school whose leading representatives were Ludwig von Mises and Frederick von Hayek... For Marx, capitalism was defined, not as a system of market compulsion, but as one of competitive accumulation based on wage-labour. Both aspects are equally important."

(22): question of surplus-value, which follows from this: "If capitalism is based on a particular form of exploitation, on the extraction of surplus-value from the direct producers through wage-labour, then I fail to see how capitalism can exist in the absence of wage-labourers. Where does surplus-value come from in a model which contains only capitalist landlords and capitalist farmers? Surplus-value may be realised through market transactions, but it can scarcely be produced by them."

(24): a Hayekian Marxism? "As Ricardo Duchesne writes: ‘[Wood] thinks that capitalism is too unnatural and too destructive of human relations for anyone to have wanted it, least of all a collectivist peasantry’. But there are as many problems with a conception of human nature which sees it as being uninterested in economic development as there are with a definition of capitalism based on the existence of market compulsion. The rejection of one form of bourgeois ideology should not blind us to the dangers of accepting another, albeit with the inversion of its value system; there is no advantage to us in rejecting Smithian Marxism only to embrace Hayekian Marxism instead."

(25): "One does not have to accept, in classic Second-International or Stalinist style, that human social development has gone through a succession of inevitable stages to reject the ascription of absolute randomness to key historical turning points as a viable alternative."

(25-26): the productive forces: "Whatever their differences with the capitalist world-systems theorists, members of the Brenner school are equally dismissive of the development of the productive forces in explaining the transition from feudalism to capitalism. One consequence is a tendency to portray peasant life before capitalism as essentially based on a natural economy of self-governing communities, which have no incentive to develop the productive forces, and into which the lords or the Church only intrude superficially and occasionally in order to acquire their surplus. I do not recognise this picture... Developing the productive forces seems to me to be at least as rational a response to the feudal exploitation it so vividly describes as ‘fight or flight’, the alternatives which are usually posed."

(27-28): this strikes me as the central point: "The theory of bourgeois revolution is not about the origins and development of capitalism as a socio-economic system, but the removal of backward-looking threats to its continued existence and the overthrow of restrictions to its further expansion. The source of these threats and restrictions has, historically, been the precapitalist state, whether estates-monarchy, absolutist or tributary in nature. It is perfectly possible for capitalism to erode the feudal social order in the way Brenner describes while leaving the feudal state intact and still requiring to be overthrown if the capitalist triumph is to be complete and secure."

(30): on the French Revolution as a political, not social revolution: "By ‘intra-class conflict’, Comninel means that the Revolution involved a struggle over the possession of state offices between different wings of a ruling class which combined both nobles and bourgeoisie. So, the most cataclysmic event of the eighteenth century, perhaps of human history down to that point, whose effects were felt across the world from Ireland to Egypt, and which, until 1917 at least, defined the very nature of revolution itself, was . . . a squabble over who gets to be the local tax-farmer in Picardy."