Capitalism

History of Capitalism

England was the first country in the world to transition from feudalism to capitalism from the 16th to 17th centuries. Capitalism developed out of existing feudal relations because it became profitable for a whole new set of people to contend with the former power and wealth of the old lords of the manor. Richard Lachman argues that the ideological value of private property among the new wealthy grew as peasants in France and England began to organize against the exploitation of the feudal landlords.

These organized peasants won personal freedoms in addition to the right to own land. Subsequently, the new wealthy classes began using the political system to protect and expand their surplus of wealth and land at the expense of the poor. As private property ownership flourished among the former nobility classes, classes of landless laborers remained to be exploited in the developing capitalist economic system. Additionally, a struggle ensued between the monarchy and the new wealthy for power, land, and money.

The first capitalists in England were commercial farmers and ranchers as well as merchants. Thus, national political systems grew from the class struggles between the poor, the political elite, and the new rich. Evidence of this can be seen in the state efforts to make war in order to gain taxable land and thus increase power and income. Furthermore, wars made explicit the need for war materials, which then bolstered the early development of capitalism. Meanwhile, national taxes further impoverished peasants forcing them to sell their land to commercial development projects, increasing the wealth of the bourgeois class and making independent peasants into proletariats or dependent workers. The[Page 132] use of taxes in France (and in the American colonies) to increase the wealth and power of the state fueled the development of the French and American Revolutions in the late 18th century.

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