I have complained about it before but I heard on of the guests from guerrilla history on the deprogram make this argument and it made me want to gouge my eyes out. This kind of trans historical argumentation is both stupid and unmarxist, just stop! Sorry I felt the need to vent.

These states were not imperialist and they weren't settler colonies. This framing doesn't make any fucking sense when transfered to a medieval context. Like the best you could say is that the Italian city states represented an early firm of merchant capital, but even then that is an incredibly complex phenomenon that has only a tenuous connection to modern capitalism. Calling these city states early capitalism is just a fancy way of saying "lol u hate capitalism yet you exchange good or service! Curious!"

Seriously just stop. I don't know why this set me off but it was like a week ago and I am still mad about it.

  • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    11 months ago

    Marx referred to gold/silver in his time and going back to the "new world" conquest as both a commodity and money. I think the reasoning goes that any commodity could be used as money, and it just so happened that silver (and gold) were rare enough and also considered valuable enough to adopt that role. I only remember this because that chapter (3 I think) is apparently very disliked by readers of Capital, but I enjoyed it for the historical background. He talks about the astronomical inflation in Spain mostly but also all of Europe due to the massive amounts of silver and gold being extracted from new mines in South America.

    I think I'm gonna give that chapter a reread now that my curiosity is sparked.

    • Greenleaf [he/him]
      ·
      11 months ago

      Yes. What’s fascinating is that Spain and Portugal didn’t even have a form of early capitalism in place like they had in England, Holland, or maybe the Italian city-states. So instead of using that gold and silver to develop the productive forces, the Iberian kingdoms built massive armies, navies, cathedrals, commissioned art, and otherwise just blew it all while other parts of Europe were happy to take their gold and silver and use it productively.