robert brenner, "from theory to history..." [critique of mann]

(189): ok, important but not really powerful--mann's account of the rise of europe is internally contradictory, because it violates his theoretical commitments [since it requires him to presuppose the socio-geographical unity of Europe, even as he's argued for anti-holism in his four forms of 'social power' model'--see 190, 200-201, 205]

(193): why do people sit at the bottom of these hierarchies, for Mann? because they are out-organized. this will come again, and is quite critical to understanding the faults in what he's peddling.

(194): summarizing Mann's argument, which appears here as hogwash, confused/overdetermined/disorganized (formally complex--actually meaningless)

(203): key--there's no account of the economic reproduction of the agents that operate the organizations he's outlining (which, means, then, that there is no account of how they're able to hold sway)

(205): here this point emerges, again, in Mann's treatment of diffused power vs. authoritative power (but this is confused, obviously) -- he retreats to simple 'out-organization'

(207): key--why do those at the top carry any bite--why are those at the top able to carry out their will, at all? [and Brenner has more than hinted at the resolution--these instruments of domination will have to be intimately related to the economic distribution of resources, which these four networks cannot explain, but must presuppose]

(210): "capitalist is a captain of industry because he is a capitalist, not vice versa..."

(211): Brenner's account of why the economic and the political were merged, in feudalism--which has to do with the predominance of 'political accumulation', of course. it could also be come at, from the opposite direction--any class with the means of domination, in hand, would obviosuly use that authority to pursue the conditions for materially reproducing itself.

(217): rules of reproduction--no incentive to innovate, due to immense costs of specialization (safety first)

(220-222): key point--unlike Mann's account and others', Brenner is asserting that the centralized state, in feudalism, does not emerge because of capitalist dynamics. it is emphatically feudal--it emerges due to the material requirements of lords, pursuing its construction. they were obliged to rely on extensive growth, which pit them against rival lords.

(222): neither was this led by a monarch, who proceeded without a political community. he needed lordly followers, since he depended on them for "counsel, administration, finance and military backing. "

(222): thus, feudalism exhibits both a Malthusian dynamic--and a unilineal dynamic to ever larger, more centralized states.

(226): again, it cannot be the simple pursuit of a social need that determines whether you will be successful in establishing a social network with you at its head--this is voluntarist hogwash, and confronts countless counterfactuals which it cannot explain away. you need some account of why certain people triumph over others.

(226-227): similarly, political power is not set up to fulfill political functions, "per se for themselves." one rather can only conceive of states being set up to fulfill the political needs of some already-existing group. [Mann himself recognizes this!

(227): the separation of the economic and the political, under capitalism, becomes possible when economic surplus extraction no longer depends on extra-economic coercion, but on the dull compulsion of the economic structure.

(228-229): key, why does the State not move against the capitalists?

1. historically, it only emerged with the rise of the capitalist class--they pursued a state which could defend their property rights without plundering them (winning of Parliament in 1688-1689)
2. logically, the state--to pursue its own goals--needs dynamic economic growth, which means it needs vigorous capitalist accumulation. "only apparently autonomous, the state is dependent upon capital."