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Historical Materialism #28
The American Road to Capitalism: Studies in Class-Structure, Economic Development and Political Conflict, 1620-1877
Short Listed for the 2011 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize
Unable to analyze the dynamics of specific forms of social labour in the antebellum U.S., most historians of the US Civil War have ignored its deep social roots. To search out these roots, Post applies the theoretical insights from the transition debates to the historical literature on the U.S. to produce a new analysis of the origins of American capitalism.
Unable to analyze the dynamics of specific forms of social labour in the antebellum U.S., most historians of the US Civil War have ignored its deep social roots. To search out these roots, Post applies the theoretical insights from the transition debates to the historical literature on the U.S. to produce a new analysis of the origins of American capitalism.
300 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 20, 2015
Capitalism did not arrive in North America with the British colonists. In a convincing and powerful synthesis of historical evidence and the materialist method, Post shows that capitalism developed much later, thru the development of agriculture in the North as the end of readily available land and the growth of debt forced subsistence farmers to sell on the market to survive.
And capitalism in the US did not develop peacefully. Post puts the development of capitalism in the context of class struggle, from Shays rebellion through the Civil War. The final chapter, on how liberal democracy developed to oppose the radicalism of black Southern farmers and Northern white and black workers after the civil war, is especially good.
This was a challenging read, but very rewarding. In a way, I think Charlie has rewritten US history, finally putting it in the context of the development of capitalism -- and the struggles of workers and slaves for a different and better life.
And capitalism in the US did not develop peacefully. Post puts the development of capitalism in the context of class struggle, from Shays rebellion through the Civil War. The final chapter, on how liberal democracy developed to oppose the radicalism of black Southern farmers and Northern white and black workers after the civil war, is especially good.
This was a challenging read, but very rewarding. In a way, I think Charlie has rewritten US history, finally putting it in the context of the development of capitalism -- and the struggles of workers and slaves for a different and better life.
May 23, 2019
Easily one of the best books I’ve read in a while. There’s just tons of information, it’s extremely well-researched, as well as theoretically rigorous. According to the author, this books is a “Marxist intervention into the historiographical debates concerning the development of capitalism in America” with a special focus on the role of Northern agriculture and Southern plantation slavery in that development. Post, a member of the “political Marxist” school (à la Brenner and Wood), traces the development of capitalism as a process of interclass conflicts primarily over land-rights in America. Through a historical materialist lens he reveals how struggles between various classes of producers in America (independent yeomen farmers, proto-capitalist merchants, industrial capitalist, southern planters, etc.) were the basis for the social conflagrations and patterns of economic development in the 17th through 19th centuries (from farmer revolts like Shay’s Rebellion to the Civil War). He is theoretically consistent throughout and draws upon a ton of scholarship to support what I think is a very convincing story.
I’d say there are two main original claims that this book makes:
1) The industrial revolution that brought capitalist development to its completion in America was the result of a prior agrarian revolution in the Northern states in the decades following the revolution.
2) That plantation slavery played both a helpful and harmful role in the development of capitalist production relations at different times. It was a spur to capitalist expansion as long as merchant capital was the dominant engine of growth but became an obstacle to it as soon as industrial capital superseded the merchant class after the crisis of 1837-42.
In making his case, Post constantly centers the “social property relations” and their consequent “rules of reproduction” in his analysis making it a consistently Marxist perspective that properly illuminates the dynamics of class struggle, production, and history in the US. I will definitely be checking out more from the Historical Materialism series, of which this is the 28th installment.
I’d say there are two main original claims that this book makes:
1) The industrial revolution that brought capitalist development to its completion in America was the result of a prior agrarian revolution in the Northern states in the decades following the revolution.
2) That plantation slavery played both a helpful and harmful role in the development of capitalist production relations at different times. It was a spur to capitalist expansion as long as merchant capital was the dominant engine of growth but became an obstacle to it as soon as industrial capital superseded the merchant class after the crisis of 1837-42.
In making his case, Post constantly centers the “social property relations” and their consequent “rules of reproduction” in his analysis making it a consistently Marxist perspective that properly illuminates the dynamics of class struggle, production, and history in the US. I will definitely be checking out more from the Historical Materialism series, of which this is the 28th installment.
December 11, 2024
This book explores the development of capitalism in the US, reviewing various schools of thought in American history and then providing the author's own take.
His argument is that throughout much of American history, slavery acted as a catalyst for economic growth in the North, because merchants involved in the slave trade provided capital for construction of canals, railroads, etc. But without a standing army, the government was unable to enforce claims to land on the frontier, held by merchant land speculators. Farmers were not forced to produce for the market, but could grow multiple crops for their own subsistence. After the Revolutionary War, the military and administrative capacity of the state improved and squatting land on the frontier was no longer an option. Northern farmers, now required to pay merchants for land, and additionally burdened with high taxes to pay off the war debt, became petty commodity producers (self-employed market-dependent producers). Market competition forced them to adopt various labor-saving technologies, creating the first domestic market for industrial products.
In the South, chattel slavery blocked this type of industrialization. Plantation owners were unable to adopt labor-saving technologies, because they could not rapidly change the size of their workforce. Selling slaves is more difficult and time consuming than firing wage workers. Their only real option for economic growth was more land. And in order to make the most of their "investment" in slaves, they needed them to work year round. This led to the cultivation of other crops and production of handicrafts to achieve self-sufficiency. Without any domestic market for other crops or industrially produced tools, the South did not make the same capitalist transformation as the North.
Both regions were dependent on expanding their incompatible economic systems to new states. Slavery, once a catalyst for economic growth, was now an obstacle. Civil war was the result.
Excellent book. This seems like a truly novel work of serious scholarship.
His argument is that throughout much of American history, slavery acted as a catalyst for economic growth in the North, because merchants involved in the slave trade provided capital for construction of canals, railroads, etc. But without a standing army, the government was unable to enforce claims to land on the frontier, held by merchant land speculators. Farmers were not forced to produce for the market, but could grow multiple crops for their own subsistence. After the Revolutionary War, the military and administrative capacity of the state improved and squatting land on the frontier was no longer an option. Northern farmers, now required to pay merchants for land, and additionally burdened with high taxes to pay off the war debt, became petty commodity producers (self-employed market-dependent producers). Market competition forced them to adopt various labor-saving technologies, creating the first domestic market for industrial products.
In the South, chattel slavery blocked this type of industrialization. Plantation owners were unable to adopt labor-saving technologies, because they could not rapidly change the size of their workforce. Selling slaves is more difficult and time consuming than firing wage workers. Their only real option for economic growth was more land. And in order to make the most of their "investment" in slaves, they needed them to work year round. This led to the cultivation of other crops and production of handicrafts to achieve self-sufficiency. Without any domestic market for other crops or industrially produced tools, the South did not make the same capitalist transformation as the North.
Both regions were dependent on expanding their incompatible economic systems to new states. Slavery, once a catalyst for economic growth, was now an obstacle. Civil war was the result.
Excellent book. This seems like a truly novel work of serious scholarship.
January 14, 2021
This book definitely delivered. Not initially meant to be a book. It is compiled of essays written by the author throughout the years & because of this, the first two chapters can be a bit rough. That being said, you can clearly see his progression on the subject, no doubt helped by the demonstrable problematic views of his contemporaries which likely helped his development of his ideas in addition to his own research.
A tale of the collision course of two modes of production in the sea that is capitalism & how they were eventually defeated & co-opted because of social property relations & the rise of state institutions erected as a result of the war for independence which made it easier to enforce laws & subject the population to the will of merchants & capitalists. It is also a reminder, though not explicitly stated, that historical events are not isolated incidents but more often than not exist along a continuum, particularly for this book, the important social & economic events that connect the war for independence to the civil war that helped make the U.S. what it is today. That goes from wars, to labor disputes, subsistence living, slavery to class conflicts. All of these bumping up against the emergence of capitalism set many collision courses.
A definite must read for anyone who wants to understand the beginnings of the path of the U.S. to it’s position as a dominant economic & global power today.
A tale of the collision course of two modes of production in the sea that is capitalism & how they were eventually defeated & co-opted because of social property relations & the rise of state institutions erected as a result of the war for independence which made it easier to enforce laws & subject the population to the will of merchants & capitalists. It is also a reminder, though not explicitly stated, that historical events are not isolated incidents but more often than not exist along a continuum, particularly for this book, the important social & economic events that connect the war for independence to the civil war that helped make the U.S. what it is today. That goes from wars, to labor disputes, subsistence living, slavery to class conflicts. All of these bumping up against the emergence of capitalism set many collision courses.
A definite must read for anyone who wants to understand the beginnings of the path of the U.S. to it’s position as a dominant economic & global power today.
May 29, 2024
nice historical-materialist account of the causes of the US civil war in the Political Marxist tradition (in the company of Robert Brenner and Ellen Wood). sorta lacking a consistent narrative/argumentative structure and too much redundancy between sections. frustrating number of typos in the Haymarket edition.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews