In Search of Wealth

1. In Search of Wealth Eric Wolf: ”Europe and the People Without History” (chapters 1-6)

2. Cultures/societies/nations/peoples are not billiard balls • What are the processes that unite and transform the different parts of the world? • Though fragmented, all social sciences have their roots in Political Economy (the relation between wealth, production, class, the State) • Marxian social science tries to maintain an integrated perspective: • ”Production” includes (1) human-environmental relations, (2) social relations, and (3) human consciousness

3. Weneed a theory of growth and (under)development • André Gunder Frank: Dependency theory (metropole-satellite relations) • Immanuel Wallerstein: World-system analysis (core-periphery relations) • Growth and development as accumulation • Accumulation by one social group occurs at the expense of other social groups

4. The world in 1400 • The Old World (Afroeurasia) comprised a web of agricultural societies united by long-distance trade in prestige goods (preciosities) • Trade routes were dominated by pastoral nomads such as Berbers, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols, who also gained political control over wide areas (such as the Ottoman Empire)

5. What is a ”mode of production”? • A specific set of social relations through which labor is used to extract energy from nature by means of particular tools, skills, organization, and knowledge • There are three main kinds: • The Kin-Ordered Mode (based on kinship) • The Tributary Mode (based on servitude) • The Capitalist Mode (based on wage labor)

6. 1. Kin-Ordered Mode • Access to other people’s labor is defined by kinship and marriage • Access to resources (such as land) is defined by membership in kin group • Surplus production can be invested in labor, for instance through brideprice

7. 2. Tributary Mode • Surplus is extracted from laborers through ”other than economic pressure”, such as threat of violence (e.g., slavery), control over irrigation systems, or supernatural legitimacy (theocracy) • Variation in terms of how centralized power is, from feudal lords in Europe to ”Asiatic mode of production” with central control of irrigation

8. 3. Capitalist Mode • Producers are separated from means of production (for instance land) and thus forced to sell their labor for money • Products are sold on the market at higher prices than the wages paid to producers • This surplus or profit can be increased by keeping wages low or increasing productivity • Symbiotically linked to other modes

9. The expansion of Europe • 1000-1300: Commercial and military expansion (alliance States/merchants to secure imports of prestige goods) • 14th century: Crisis of feudalism (limits of agricultural growth, epidemics, rebellions) • 15th century solution: External expansion (new agricultural land, gold and silver to pay for imports from Asia) through investments in armies and State power

10. The Industrial Revolution • 17th century: Economic crisis due to lack of investment opportunities • 18th century: England shifted from exporting wool to manufacturing textiles for export • Much of the capital invested in the English textile industry had been accumulated through international trade and conquest (e.g., spices, bullion, furs, and slaves)

11. Iberians in America • 1503-1660: 185 tons of gold and more than 3.000 tons of silver were shipped to Sevilla, Spain, from the New World • Europe’s supplies of gold thus increased by 20% and its supplies of silver by 300% • 1570-1780: almost 5.000 tons of silver were shipped across the Pacific from the New World to Manila in the Philippines

12. The fur trade in North America • Why did the Indians hunt all those animals and trade all those furs in exchange for European commodities of lower market value (e.g., glass beads, blankets, alcohol)? • European commodities served as prestige goods within indigenous societies on other continents