IV SCIENCE & CAPITAL IN HISTORICAL `BECOMING’

Dr. Debabrata Banerjee

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Sciences’ are not independent of society, production and history. Science isindependent only as free, when it begins as a self-relation – taking pure self-relation to designate `independence’ – with its beginning, with the moment of itsdiscovery and self-development. But science also has it’s [stipulated] `arche’ pointof departure that should not be confused with `myth of origins’ or any accountingof origins of science from mythopoeia. All sciences have their own concrete realityin nature/cosmos/society and their own practice in the shapes ofentities/operationality, which unfolds in history, over time. But these sciences allhave their beginning in different moments of time and the knowledgecorresponding to their own reality. Only the concept/notion can embrace allsciences by its own activity beginning as logical exposition of thinking that thinksitself. The dialectic of the concept begins with its own beginning where the resultsof all sciences are abandoned in their absolute otherness. Science has reality as itspoint of departure, in the obscure regions of sense experience but as it develops asconscious activity or unfolds in time, it ascends from simple, experiencingconsciousness, from instincts and so forth to a level where it becomes as a resultof its own activity/labour its own reality. There is an immanent dialectic at work inthis progression which raises itself to the level of understanding [vernauft]. Thedialectic has its genesis or the unconditional condition in reality at first, which isrecognized by confronting it and it is also resolved into itself from a series orphases of confrontation into categories of understanding. It is only as consciousunderstanding that sciences find their own determination, which is the innerprinciple of progression. This process can be observed as the labour process ingeneral that Marx discussed in Capital. `Labour is, first of all, a process betweenman and nature, a process by which man, by his actions mediates’ between`himself and nature. He confronts the materials of nature as a force of nature…Through this movement he acts upon external nature and changes it, and in thisway simultaneously changes his own nature. He develops the potentialitiesslumbering within nature, and subjects the play of its forces to his own sovereignpowers.’1 Marx immediately proceeds to mention that `we are not dealing withthose first, instinctive forms of labour’ since it remains on the animal level. This isnoted for indicating that an `immense interval of time’ separates from the momentof blind, instinctual entanglement with nature to a `situation when human labour

1 Marx K, Capital, vol 1, London, p. 283

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has cast off its first instinctive form’, meaning when labour is `an exclusivelyhuman characteristic’ which is `mind’. `At the end of every labour process, aresult emerges which had already been conceived by the worker in the beginning,hence already existed ideally.’ By now we have arrived at the level where it is nolonger undifferentiated, raw nature but its presupposition as `raw materials’ or`objects of labour’, after the material has undergone `alteration by means of livinglabour.’2 This illustrates the immanent dialectic. We get a movement with the mostobscure genesis validated by immediate need to the point when the movement has`cast off’ or freed itself from instinctual engagement in order to appear distinctly ashuman activity, which is activity that is first conceptualized in mind and thenworked upon according to the conception. Labour, here is transformed into its ownobject, the product of human activity, and its subject as raw materials that waspreviously fashioned by human labour now constitute its basis. Human activitynow takes itself as the result for further activity. Whereas `all raw material’ is theobject of labour’, not all objects of labour are raw materials because some of theseobjects are a further refinement as instruments that human labour interposesbetween itself and the result which serve some ends/purpose.3 In the instrumenttherefore, human labour has to draw upon itself to become the object, or it makesthe external material into substance by giving its own subjectivity to it fordepriving the object from being a particularity and so converts into a means orinstrument. Instrumentalism, through mechanical or chemical or technologicalprocess is also the beginning of dissolution of living labour. Since it is a powerdominating over the process, labour returns to the living being, to its species natureof reproduction. However, through the labour process, living being posits its ownbeing in and for-itself in its otherness, or particularity posited as a means

2 Ibid., pp, 284-285

3 It seems like a judgment of pure reflection from the editors of the English edition of Capital, 1976, introduce the`cunning of reason’ from Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic because Hegel is also talking about the `life process’ thatbegins with a need’, which is to posit the `other’/external world as his own but as it at `the same time identical withitself’, this is `absolute contradiction’, disparity, `disharmony’ that is felt as pain. Now the need is the urge to a`transition’ by which the `individual’ [meant and used in the species sense], human, can become his own explicitidentity. As an urge it is `a subjective certainty’ that finds the external world to be indifferent to the urge, to the`determinateness’, to the end for whatever reason/`specification’ to act upon its `cause’.` The living being is an urge’`externality’ cannot approach it except when its own nature is already there in the living subject. Therefore thesubject acts by making some particular side of the externality confronting it conformable. The subject finding itsneed as externality acts on it, not as a totality but through particularity, making the external relationship particular. Inthis `specific’ relationship, the subject is itself an instrument. Hegel G W F, Science of Logic, [tr] Miller AV,London, 1976, p. 770-771 ( Hereafter SL]

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indifferent to it. By this coming together of human labour and its object, orindividuality and its objectivity [in the species sense], what was earlier, in the firstinstance presupposed as indifferent is now constituted in unity. Its particularityconsisted in the process of alienation by which labour produced its externalobjectivity and by returning to itself posit its species reproduction. The individual,after constituting this unity finds himself in a situation to `sublate his particularityand raise itself to universality.4 External labour process and the individualsubjectivity have posited universal life, i.e., as `genus’.

We find in the entire process, a movement from feeling and need to the self/speciesemergence of the concept of labour and its actualization in the products of labour.The concept then self alienates itself from life into the labour process for positingits own being in externality, in the other that is lifeless particularity. Speciesactivity returns the individual after this positing to itself as life that reproduces.Both production and reproduction can be seen as results of concept’s own selfactivity, which is the immanent dialectic of the process. It may equally be seen asthe movement or a phenomenological unfolding of consciousness from pure sense-experience to understanding. Understanding as the consciousness of particularity isalso the movement of the self to its immediate alienation in the other and findingitself in unity with the other. Here understanding is the property of self-consciousness as `something’ that is a negation of the moment of otherness ofparticularity, a `negation of negation’ as a simple self-relation. Unable to movebeyond by taking the process and raising that into a dynamic which wouldtransform it into becoming something concrete, understanding collapses thesomething into a simple one-ness with being. The immanent dialectic is arrestedand fixed by understanding while becoming that has the unity of both the momentsdetermined into its opposites vanishes or ceases to be for understanding since itviews the process as self-contradictory. This is stated in the proposition that the`one is’, when the one is extracted from many one’s. Similarly the Eleatic being orSpinoza’s `substance’ while being negative determinations – determinatio estnegatio, according to Spinoza – are both abstract negations of all determinatenessof `all one’s’, and do not have the higher determinate moment of becoming.5 Theinner dialectic of being is raised by understanding as abstract universality insofar4 SL, p. 772

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as only universality is the pure negative and dialectic turns out to be like anexternal procedure. Labour can be both a thing and substance from the standpointof understanding but not the becoming of both the thing and substance in theprocess which posits the universal that is altered from the abstract to the concretewith positive content. Abstract understanding mistakes the vanishing of momentsas becoming, thus holding fast to the finite being that ceases becoming or theprocess. With science, the dialectic of the concept only has itself as beginning, notconsciousness. The concept has the universal as its beginning, i.e., the empty,abstract universal that is posited by subjectivity of the concept as `universal life’;or, it is the process of sublation itself. Thus, one has to face the question ofbeginning to be faithful to dialectic. French philosophers like Badiou are hardlyserving philosophy with their claims to move `philosophy beyond its obsessionwith foundations, origins and beginnings.’6 Let us be clear that these three termsare not the same and the beginning of philosophy [Wissenschaft ] of logic is non-foundational and foundational when it validates its principles from resultsdeductively; besides it is not similar to the beginning of philosophies of nature orspirit.

The question of beginning could be `when’ on the one hand and `what’ on theother. Whereas `when’ already presupposes or knows about the `what’ or since`when’ cannot begin with what began, thus `what is the first being; the `what’ ofbeginning is unknown to `when’ and thus has itself to be addressed first. As we areasking about beginning of science, it has to be asked as a principle, not the date orperiod. The principle of beginning is thought in and for itself that finds sensuousand perceptual reality as disappeared in the groundless and empty immediacy.Only in the face of a disappeared, empty reality can thought think itself beforeimmediacy about beginning with positing its own reality. This is more the greyregion instead of the green. This self-thinking has a partition principle stipulatingits arche moment of beginning. How this principle appears as a logical beginningcan only be the immediate anything, anywhere and anytime. Here there is nothingwithin or before, in the sky, nature and mind that is not immediate and not-

5 SL, p. 161, 538-539

6 Cf Smith B A, The limits of Subject in Badiou’s `Being and Event’, in Cosmos and History, vol 2., nos. 1-2, p.137

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immediate or immediate and mediate, i.e., they are un-separate, inseparable so thattheir opposition is a nullity.7 The beginning is logical in that thinking [thought thatis free] is its element. This is `pure knowing’ in its immediacy. Pure Consciousnessis the `idea as pure knowledge’, which is the result of knowing itself as theultimate consciousness – phenomenology8 – at one with its self-alienation havingas its result the abstract concept of science. It may be pertinent to point out whatMarx had noted about the position of the capitalist and worker [both as individualand class]. The capitalist has its roots in the process of alienation, inversion and soforth since he finds `absolute satisfaction’ in it whereas `the worker stands at ahigher plane than the capitalist...who confronts it as a rebel and experiences it as aprocess of enslavement.’9 The worker therefore confronts consciousness asinversion `manifested’ as the rule of the past over present, dead over living, ofthings over men, and the alienated other as absolutely negative relation. Heconfronts it as a Person and returns back to himself emptied of all content with thejudgment on the `improper’, `forcibly imposed’ objectivity. Seen as a level of itsself-becoming the worker stands on a higher plane, which result hasemptied/dissolved the reality of its negative/contradictory unity with the other andthereby provides the immediate conditions for beginning its own reality and nature,`independent of will and consciousness.’ He is `free in the double sense as a freeindividual he can dispose off his labour power’ and having nothing else to sell, heis free of all the objects needed for the realization of his labour-power.’10 It isanother matter, pertaining to the preconditions of capital’s own epoch that therealso occurs an alternation in the very `physiognomy’ of the worker when he dailysubmits himself to domination of capital wearing the appropriate moral character-armor of submission to inauthenticity.11

7 Hegel G W F , Science of Logic, < hereafter SL > [tr], A V Miller, London 1969, p. 68; as Hegel asks : `with whatmust science begin ?’. It has been asked recurrently

8 `In logic, the presupposition is that which has proved itself to be the result of phenomenological consideration’; or`Logic as for its presupposition the science of manifested spirit’, SL, p. 69 `Logic is pure science’

9 Marx K, Capital , vol 1, Results of the Immediate process of production, p.

10 Marx K, Capital vol. 1, p 272-273

11 `Determination of the value of labour power contains a historical and moral element’ Marx K, Op Cit, p 275

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The beginning of philosophy [wissenschaft] including all philosophies or as aprinciple applicable to all philosophies was generalized in a self-confused way byFeuerbach, one of Hegel’s students from 1830’s who had criticized Hegel fordenying incarnation in philosophy, then denying Hegel’s claim to presupposition-less beginning and proposing instead that philosophy can begin with `essence orspirit or consciousness’.12 This is the position that appeared soon after Hegel’sdeath, specifically with young Hegelians, as if Hegel’s critique of Kant never tookplace. Pure immediacy of beginning a science of the universal seemed to getconfounded in the sense that even beginning with essence can be seen aspresupposition-less having being as absolute indifference of pure equivalence,indeterminate since pure quantity does not have any internal, immanent relation.Indifference has an implicit `totality’ that is groundless, or connected as inequilibrium whose correlates vanish and this being so what appears is disturbanceof equilibrium. Hegel takes Spinoza’s substance to be absolute indifference, itssole determination being the negative [negatio] that absorbs everything. Spinozaintroduces all his moments of difference – thought, extension, attribute, mode, etc.quite empirically whereby difference is either implicit, abstract and not immanent,as self-differentiating, as subject with the result that it does not sublate itself, doesnot raise or attain itself to essence but dissolves into the same.13 Thinking that stopsshort of conceiving differences in themselves cannot grasp them in their unity, thusfinds itself outside of relations in external reflection. Their unity, on the other hand,is the absolute negativity or indifferent that is absolutely indifferent to itself, whichis indifferent to its other and itself. Implicit being vanishes in the unity which is thesimple self relation that results from sublating its immediate presupposition. Beingsublating being is being with itself. This would be `finite transcendence’. Thusessence would have its beginning with the pure negative self-relation as much asbeing too begins in the simple negative of immediate presupposition. The onlyrefutation of Spinoza’s substance arises from recognizing its standpoint asnecessary and essential. The unveiling of substance is the genesis ofconcept/notion. Unity of substance is its inner necessity and its moment of positingnegativity is freedom. It posits this other of itself as another substance that is

12 Feurbach L, Thoughts on death and immortality, California, 1980, p. 107-108; his treatise, Gedanken Uber Todund Unsterblichkeit

13 Hegel G W F, SL, p.379, 383

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identical with notion/concept. The concept/notion enters into a reciprocal relationin the unity of two substances. The substances pass over to illusory being, intomoments of reflection.

Later, Feuerbach stated his position differently: “Every philosophy appearstherefore as a specific phenomenon of its time with presuppositions. It appears toitself as presupposition-less and indeed it is relative to earlier systems. But a latertime recognizes that this philosophy also has its presuppositions.’14 This is the sortof standpoint that besides the apparent oblivion of dialectic, does not suggestanything vaguer than historicism or a pre-Kuhnian abstract model ofpredecessor/successor sequence of science paradigms relativized by the historicaldynamic. While this position makes provisional sense, this cannot be generalizedfor `all’ philosophies/sciences. Some sciences, say physics or anthropology mayindicate lesser time/duration between one paradigm/system and the next whereassome other like cosmology or phenomenology may indicate vastly different timevariations between one paradigm/system and the next. Then there are also newsciences that come to being for the first time, like genetics or psychoanalysis. Yet,this model would hardly be in a position to explain why science of logic remainedfrozen for 2000 years since Aristotle in the `western’ tradition or more important,answer why this science should not be taken as an Organon, as cross/trans-paradigmatic. Similarly the Feuerbachian postulate would be extremely pressed toexplain the case of Encyclopedia of Philosophical sciences having both a canonicalimport in parts and also not so when these parts are fused with the whole. Toremain with logic, however, when Hegel says `pure logic’ is `followed up by`applied logic’, with subject `matter’ that is concrete `or if you will, real’, thedifference that is there is that of levels or boundary conditions of different sciences.Logic as pure science has the notion/concept itself as its object insofar as they are`pure thoughts or abstract essentialities’ while in respect to `cognition’ logic dealswith it only insofar as it is itself, as `idea’.15The concrete/real science takes itssubject `for itself’ and its relation to its other, the sublated other to be sure. Logic isimplicit in them which is why unlike concrete sciences it does not deal with objects

14 Wartofsky M, Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 179

15 Hegel G W F, SL, p. 761

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in their manifestation, `with their immediate determinateness with material things’.Logic takes the idea whose concrete progress is already behind it or still before it -`the former when logic is taken as the `last’ science, the latter when logic is takenas the first science out of which the idea passes over into nature.’16 Which isprecisely why in Logic, the problem arises with its beginning and the universal. Itis not as simple to grasp the universal as it is said. It cannot be perceived or sensednor heard. The universal can only be thought. It is apprehended by individual in theopposition, negativity which marks/characterizes the universal. Even as anabstraction the universal occurs in the mind, as inward, or within, and opposed tothe external world of immediacy.17 But Hegel demands that we grasp the universalin and for itself, in the unity of the difference of the inner and outer as becoming,in the sense of Platonic autocatalysis. With Hegel, it begins with speculation oreven as an `objective insight’. The mediate is the other of immediate or thenegative unity of immediate. The immediate, sublated by mediate is the content ofthe negative, which makes it determinate. The first [immediate] ispreserved/retained in the other. To hold fast to the positive in the negative is themost important feature of rational cognition. Accordingly what we have before isthe mediated and at the same time the mediating determination. In the first it is asimple determination but it is also a relationship, as the negative it is the `negativeof the positive’. Thus it is the other, but not an indifferent one, the other ofsomething. It is the other in itself/of its own self, includes the other in itself andconsequently is contradiction – the posited dialectic of itself.18 The dialecticalmovement consists in positing the difference that it implicitly contains and also therelationship by positing the unity of the difference contained in it.

In his thesis on Feuerbach, Marx is referring to `human species essence’ whose`reality’ is the `ensemble’ of `social relations’ and this ensemble is not the productof 18th c, `civil society’ but its sublation and free comprehension by socializedhumanity. Further, Marx refers to the `world’ that is changing since human activity

16 Hegel G W F , SL, p. 782; it can be well derived that logic is the last with respect to contemporary social/humansciences, like anthropology or psychology that have `advanced’ their contents from that of Hegel’s; while it is thefirst for applied, experimental science and technology.

17 See for example Stern R, Introduction, in Hegel. A critical assessment, p. 2-5

18 SL, pp..832-835

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is practical-critical activity. There is a critique of `materialist doctrine’ that dividessociety in two parts but cannot grasp it through rational cognition or see the `co-incidence of changing of circumstances and of human activity as self-change’.19

Marx is proposing tenets that expressed the dialectical sense of the dynamic natureof all reality. Change is at the very heart of dialectical thought going back to `beingisn’t’ or `this too shall pass away’ formulations of Heraclitus. Later when Marxrefers to reality as the point of departure `for observation and conception’, it ischanging reality, not something constant and fixed. But this at first presents itselfas `chaotic’, which is as presupposition-less, indeterminate as simple immediacy.Both have their origination in the negative of `abstraction’. Apart from that,chaotic immediacy is richer in terms of its level of becoming as the unity of `manydeterminations. Further, the `subject, society is the presupposed concept that `mustbe kept in mind’. When Marx says that `Hegel fell into the illusion of conceivingthe real as the product of thought concentrating itself, probing its own depths andunfolding out of itself’ it is like a mental mark [ gedechte]/ mark of distinction ordifferentia specifica rather than `illusory essence’ with which the doctrine ofessence begins in Wissenschaft Logic.20 As for `product of thought concentratingitself’ and so forth, there is nothing of that in simple immediacy or abstractbeing/non-being. The sublation of Hegel by Marx has to do with theconcept/notion of beginning with the concrete. Logic disappears from the concrete,to take the cantilever bridge or the first High Rises of Chicago as examples and itstarts to appear only after enquiring the said concrete. Each advance in enquirydraws one deeper into its notion and logic; rather each advance into grasping theconcrete is equally a retreat of logic into unraveling itself. Each advance in Logicis simultaneously a retreat into the ground of unfolding/retreat. Marx also indicatesthe dialectic of the real and ideal as in `the dialectical process of becoming is onlythe ideal expression of the real movement through which capital comes intobeing.’21 However, we would here bring to notice that this position is distinct and

19 Marx K, Thesis on Feuerbach, nos. 3, 6 & 10 from the manuscript, German Ideology, Moscow, 1975

20 Marx K, Grundrisse, London, 1968, Introduction/Einleitung p. 101,275, 331, 450

21 Marx K, Grundrisse, p. 310; see also Schneider D, The High Rise, Introduction to 19 th c. American Hegelians inGoetzman H [ed], The American Hegelians, 1969,

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opposed to, among others those who have claimed that `in Marx’s non-dialectical,materialist inversion of Hegel’s theory…the dialectic vanishes’.22

What is before us is pure knowing that has `sublated’ < preserved and superseded >all the relations and references to the other, having mediated them withoutdistinction, whether `subjective’ or `objective’ and thus sans any distinction, ceasesto be any knowledge and presents before as simple immediacy. Thus beginning ismade with `what’ has come through pure knowing that has sublated itself, as theoutcome of finite knowing, but, if no presupposition is made beginning can bemade immediately whose only principle would be that of logic, thought as such.Here the beginning does not have any presuppositions, resolved to the abstract, anabstract beginning, absolute without any presuppositions, mediation or ground as itis itself all of that. The beginning is then simple immediate, without any content,relations, determinations or mediation. Consciousness has abandoned itself inimmediacy, in the result and by a reversal of its position from where it ended isnow transformed into a beginning, while all that preceded the result has retreatedand returned into the ground. Considered as the result of a movement that hasreturned into ground, it follows that what is the base or the beginning for furtherdevelopment remains the ground for all that follows, and here Hegel is referring tothe foundation as the beginning of science. Through its development, the beginninglooses its simple immediacy, turns to something mediated, `and hence the line ofscientific advance becomes a circle’.23 When the result appears as the absoluteground in the beginning, the progress has nothing hypothetical or provisional aboutit, nor is it tentative or like a geometrical theorem requiring proof; the subject andcontent of beginning determines the advance. When the beginning is made with`pure being’, its reason or ground is given in science itself, i.e., as absoluteimmediacy it is equally absolute mediation. Immediacy is now pure indeterminate,without determination because if it were determinate then some mediation would

22 Tuschling B, Rechtsform und Produktionverhaltnis : Zur materialische theorie des Rechtstaat, Frankfurt, 1977, p.70-71, 160,

23 SL, p. 72

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have already carried a stage further. Pure being into which pure knowing hascollapsed at an extreme point, or knowing has vanished at that point so that there isnothing present or any content which can be used to determine. Any refutation ofthis beginning cannot be asserted by bringing random thoughts from the outside. Ifany refutation wants to show its defective character, it would have to develop fromthe root of the matter, developed from the principle itself since refutation wouldhave to relate to the basis of the system.` Pure self-recognition in absoluteotherness’ is the ground and soil of scientific knowledge. Pure spirituality that isuniversal in its manner of immediacy is required by scientific knowledge so thathaving raised itself to this `ethereal element’ it is able to live within scientificknowledge.24 Conversely, individuals have the right, by virtue of beingindependent and unconditionally free, to demand that science provide them with aladder to exhibit this standpoint within them, that is to say, the immediate certaintyof themselves as unconditional beings. Since self-consciousness stands outsidescience, on its own ground, science only needs to assimilate the self-certainty andif not science can well remain as inward as `spiritual’ substance, not as `spirit’.Individuals whose substance is `spirit’ go though the past formative stages, asshapes that are left behind in the same way that a scientist has to go throughpreparatory studies or recall the recollection of the contents of `spirit’.

The beginning therefore has being and nothing/non-being, or a unity with non-being. Being is nothing and nothing is at the same time being. There is no concretesomething in the becoming because that conjunction demands proof, which themovement from simple immediacy cannot provide In this sense beginning is justan empty word and being with no other meaning; this `emptiness’ is the beginningof `Wissenschaft Logik’.

This pure indeterminate being whether in intuition or thinking is just as much pureintuition or pure thinking. Nothing can be thought of the indeterminate emptybeing. Being indeterminate is no more or less than nothing. Pure indeterminatenothing too is self- equal, complete emptiness. Here intuition or thinking too is

24 Hegel G W F, Phenomenology of Consciousness, Preface, in G W F Hegel, the theologian of spirit, [ed] HodgsonMinneapolis, 1997, pp. 96-97

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nothing after it `counts’ the nothing as nothing in distinction to something. 25Thisdistinguishing has a meaning, since it is distinguished from something, nothing isor exists. It exists in our thinking, intuition, just as empty intuition and emptythinking as pure being. Pure being and nothing are the same but in their truth beinghas passed over into nothing and vice versa. They are distinct and inseparable atthe same time, each `immediacy vanishes into its opposite’ and its truth is thismovement of `immediate vanishing’. In `becoming’ both are distinguished inmovement though this difference immediately resolves itself. Now, as nothing isthe determinate of being when it is opposed to something, that is the being ofsomething determinate, it may as well be simply indeterminate because it is theabstract, immediate relation contained in becoming and not so much as oppositionthat is of concern as we now address the `when’ question. When simple thoughtfirst apprehended itself in the thought of pure being, that `being is, nothingabsolutely is not’, this was enunciated enthusiastically no doubt by Parmenides, for`truth [aletheia] is its companion’ and `the other that is not and need not be for youcannot know or speak of that which is not.’26 Buddha apprehended pure nothing asthe absolute principle, though in another context around the same time. Parmenidesfigurates this truth [aletheia] in a poem where a goddess shows the way of `theperfect circle of truth’ to him suggesting how truth is revealed at the end productof a mythical journey, though this also had to be demonstrated, argued , put to testof refutation.27 But the pure being of Parmenides is based on the principle ofexclusion. Thought is its abstract element has been expressed by Parmenides as,`the same, indeed is at once to think and to be.’28 Here being is sundered fromnothing and fixed by understanding, the `reasoning of abstract understanding’ asHegel puts it. The principle of exclusion has been stated by Plato’s `Parmenides’ inthe proposition: `The one is’ as the derivation of the one from many ones. It is onlythe abstract negation of all determinateness, the principle of exclusion means that

25 SL, p. 82

26 Thompson G The first Philosophers, SL, p. 83

27 For two approaches to Parmenides see Furley D, Truth as what survives the Elenchos : An idea of Parmenides, inHuby P et al [eds], The criterion of Truth, Liverpool, 1989, pp 1-13, Garnet L, The origins of Greek Philosophy, inLoraux N, et al [eds], Postwar French Thought – Antiquities, New York, 2001, p.42

28 Cited by Badiou A, What is a Philosophical Institution? or Address, Transmission and Inscription, Cosmos andHistory – Journal of social and natural philosophy, vol, 2, nos. 1-2, p. 12

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the one is devoid of all relations29 and the consequence of this has been the settingup of a barrier by, what can be termed the Parmenidean linear constant. Yet, insofaras the element of pure thought as being gets enunciated, Hegel considers this as a`creation of the element of science.’, further adding `what is first in science had ofnecessity to show itself historically as the first.30

The history of archaic Greece has been explored from different perspectives ofphilologists won over by P Bourdieu, linguistics inspired by E Cassirer’s andAntonie Millet’s hypothesis that language guides ideas, that vocabulary may bemore of a conceptual system than a lexicon, ethnological and anthropologicalviews of C Levi-Strauss on ways of theorizing mythical thoughts have beenadmirably put together by the classicist M Detienne.31. Detienne is interested indeveloping `thoughts of a global nature’ and critical of attitudes that show somepurported superiority and distinctness of ancient Greeks in an essay ironically titled`The Greeks are not like others’.32 Detienne can show the adequacy of thesecombined approaches to study the course of cultural, relativist construct likealetheia33 in a landscape of nascent cities with its schemas and procedures fororacular pronouncements, approved by assemblies where decisions taken wereengraved in stones at any place within the city. All those who desired to speak thetruth in these assemblies are called `masters of truth’- earliest ones being Apollo’sbee-women, followed by Hesiod’s muses. There is a shift to complexity in thecourse from Apollo’s muses to Hesiod’s `speakers. Apollo’s muses are all knowingand the poet can see both the bard’s and the daughters camp [in Iliad] while inHesiod, speech is both the first person and the third, both the poet and the prophet,Here the muses reflect on the narrative subject and the order of `speech’ [ logos ] isput down in two registers, one being fiction / narrative and the other, it’s `trueunderstanding’. Lethe or forgetting in Hesiod’s Theogny is not the awareness of

29 SL, p., 161, 172, 215-216

30 SL , p. 88, adding that `we must regard the Eleatic being as the first step in knowledge of thought.’

31 Detienne M, Return to the Mouth of Truth, in Loraux Nicole, et al, [eds], Op Cit, p. 208

32 Cited in Loraux Niocole, Nagy G and Slatkin Laura, Introduction, in Laroux N, Op Cit., p.12

33 The Greek word for truth; other meanings would include expressions like `immediate transparency of meaning’,`level of true comprehension’ , `symbolism of structure’ [Wismann]; or Heidegger’s attempts to elucidate whatGreeks themselves could not, `enigma’, `concealment’, `where veiling and unveiling of Being meet’ – Why not ?

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`the fountain of oblivion’ but words of deception from `divine powers’. Thequestion concerns `mythical thought, but Detienne takes the trajectory of aletheiafrom Hesiod to Parmenides to observe changes in thinking at work in thebeginnings of philosophic thought. Instead of hanging the inquiry on the contrastbetween the `principle of ambiguity’ and `the principle of contradiction’, thecontrast develops to the frameworks of diversity of configurations of speech-actsthat include aletheia. Comparisons boil down to different ways of beginningmainly because the Greek data is full of abortive `beginnings’, which Greeks areaware through reflection animating these knowledge’s. Then there emergesituations of abrupt breaks involving profound change with the past. BetweenHesiod and Parmenides passage of time and change in context begins to appearfrom contrasting the comparison of configurations – one, the discontinuity showingup in two models of speech, the `mythico-religious’ and `dialogue-speech’ andchanges in assembly practices towards egalitarianism in warrior circles post`hoplite reforms’ away from the increasing importance of agora (laid out on theground by founders of Magna Graecia) in 8th c. to development of unprecedentedpolitical structures accompanying new social relations like the model of isonomiain the political world of Parmenides [6th c.]34 The stark contrast is thus the large gapseen between the kind of egalitarian and secular scene and the formulation of theprinciple of pure thought by Parmenides or the debate on `common matters’ withina space of equality does not seem to be related to the philosophical debates on rulesof reasoning. Parmenides’ `principle of non-contradiction’ and geometrical proofsdo not seem to be the historical reference point that Hegel had insisted. By nomeans does this imply that the eruption of a certain kind of thinking being andtruth, one and the same is invalidated on account of this gap between society andthe marginality of philosophical circles.

What Detienne marks out as discontinuous, registered in different attempts atbeginning and impulses moved by apprehension of new knowledge in the socio-political landscape may well serve the background horizon that Heraclitus hasbequeathed in his fragments. It is irrelevant whether he preceded Parmenides or notas Heraclitus, whose written fragments offer a wealth of insights into theconditions of 6th c. B C Greece has no reference to Parmenides. He committed his34 Detienne M, in Loraux Nicole, Op Cit., pp. 215-216

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philosophy to writing. In his time [? born 535 B C], Heraclitus withdrewphilosophy from the public `that had turned into mob, taking the crowd as theirteacher, without any sense and thought.’ Observing from distance, he sees [ # `eyesare more accurate witnesses than ears’] if the crowd in the cities `did not make aprocession for Dionysus and make a paean to his phallus, they would act mostshamelessly…Hades is the same as Dionysus for whom they rave and celebratetheir rites’ 35 Among the surviving traditions from mythopoeia, Dionysus appearsto relate to `libidinal’ forces , surplus sexual energy appearing as deliriumconstantly `on the verge of madness’, as Garnet wrote in an article.36 Dionysus isalso someone who teaches by example to a seated secular public through thetragedies in the heart of civic life, showing by representing the dangers that areinvolved to a city that retrenches into the `same’ world by refusing to absorb theelement of `otherness’ that everyone carries within oneself. Refusal to recognizethe other leads the same to collapse while the other assumes the aspect of `absoluteotherness and a return to chaos’, appearing as `the sinister truth, the other,inauthentic, horrifying face of the same’.37 By contrast, none of this entangledworld of self-consciousness has anything to do with the `same’ of Heraclitus,becoming, the idea that everything is undergoing change, the subject and the objectthat contemplates them.38 According to Diogenes Laertius’ `questionable’ accountEphesians who had asked him to make laws were told that it was better to play atdice with children than `meddle with public affairs in your company’; his refusalhas also been reported as `the constitution [politea] was ponera [basically wrong orhe considered it toilsome]. The `reviler of the public’, according to Timon stoodapart, saying of the crowds having no` sense or thought’ [ Proclus, Commentaries ]`# `deceived, as to their knowledge of what is apparent in the same way as Homerwas, and he was the wisest of the Greeks’.39’

35 From Barnes J, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, London, 1982

36 Garnet L, Dionysus, in Loraux, et al, eds], Op Cit.,p. 331, the pre-eminent place of women in this cultic rite fallsin a pattern; besides, Dionysus is also the `truth’ figure, most historical of the gods and universal, ,not specificallyGreek ; Herodotus, unlike Heraclitus, remarked that Dionysus was `incompatible with Greek temperament,

37 Vernant J-P, The masked Dionysus of Erupides’ Bachhae, in Loraux N, et al [eds], Op Cit, pp. 342-343

38 Thus only change is the `same’. However, continuing with the flux brings uncertainty to senses. Flux escapesnotice and can be perceived by reason alone. See Eardmann J E, History of Philosophy, vol I, p. 43,52

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Above all, Heraclitus explicitly attacks `polymathy’ [ among those Xenopheneswho was critical of Homer and Hesiod for their scandalous stories] , a practice thatimpedes `understanding’ [vernauft] and polymaths, # ` Polymathy does not teachunderstanding; for it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and alsoXenophanes and Hecataeus’ [ Hesiod was an epic poet, Pythagoras a moral andspiritual teacher, Hecataeus of Miletus wrote a mythography, was also ageographer committed to research (histores) ] .Heraclitus groups together Hesiodand Pythagoras and sets them apart from Xenophanes and Hecataeus, who in theirown ways tried to abandon Greek mythology. However, Pythagoras comes underspecific attack: # ` Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus pursued inquiry further than allmen, and selecting from those books made a wisdom of his own, polymathy,malpractice’. Pythagoras and his school had borrowed considerably from folkwisdom and superstitions and there are a number of similarities betweenPythagorian ideas and Greek mystery cults. Heraclitus particularly mentions`books’ and `book-learning’ and their reader Pythagoras `pursued enquiry’ intobooks further than all and selected from the `books’ what he liked, and made aprivate wisdom of his own’, thus falling in with the rest of mankind who are likesleepers turning away from the wakeful world into their `private’ world of dreams.The wisdom of Pythagoras appears as nothing other than derived from his readingof `books’ and by contrast Heraclitus stresses thinking for oneself, when he says`not to heed to him but to the logos’, by `which all things come to be’ otherwisemen `end up making endless conjectures about the most important things’.40

Though he indicates a low regard for books this does not imply he is unfamiliar,#`for philosophical men must be well versed in many things’, none of the books,logoi that `he had heard reaches truth’ and the number of authors he castigatestestifies to his vast reading. Besides, it is second-hand learning that requires

39 This is a different estimation of Homer than what we find in Diogenes Laertius’ `Lives and Opinions ofPhilosophers, Book IX C1, on Heraclitus, [tr] Yonge C D, London 1853, where he is reported to have said that`Homer should be expelled from the games, and so too Archilocus. Diogenes should be read critically especiallyafter he has been questioned about the validity of his account as a `tissue of Hellenistic Anecdotes, most of themobviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments, See Bakalis Nikolas, Handbook of GreekPhilosophy : from Thales to Stoics – Analysis and Fragments, Trafford, 2005, pp 22-45

40 `..for humans prove inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out…just as they fail tonotice what they do when they are awake as they forget what they do when asleep’, & `..as the `account’ [ logos ] iscommon, most men live as though they had an understanding of their own’; Granger H, Heraclitus’ quarrel withPolymathy and Historie’, Wayne State University, Transactions of American Philological Association, 134, 2004,pp. 236, 239-240

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confirmation; thus # `whatever comes from sight, hearing, learning fromexperience, these I honour above all’.41 Poets for their dependence on muses andcosmologists for their refashioning of poetic beliefs about world order into theirnaturalist cosmogony are equally dependent on second-hand learning, withoutindependent confirmation. Heraclitus explicitly rejects cosmogony while makingindependent speculations about the cosmos, about which humans prove #`incomprehensible as I set out, distinguishing each according to its nature andsaying how it is.’ The only natural philosopher to get assent from Heraclitus wasThales, as he ` # foretold the eclipse’.42 Heraclitus makes fire as the `imperishableelement’, not air, wind or water, which is the higher movement of reason, thedialectic, into which all terms pass over into each other, into which `all things’change themselves in a higher unity, in their `coming-to-be and vanishing, or`sublate, to preserve and cease, # ` the created world becomes the maker andcreator of itself’, `as it was before it and came to be’, that `this created world itselfis fire’.. This is a `profoundly speculative thought that has resolved thecomplexities of thought by holding on to the activity of thinking, which enunciatesall existence as `becoming’, the element in which all differences vanish, as withanything `mixed with fire’ and `# all things exchange for fire’ `come-to-be’, just `as goods are exchanged for gold and gold for goods’, `the sum of all things flowslike a stream’.43 # `Out of all things can be made a unity and out of unity allthings’. When Heraclitus says ` being is no more than non-being’, this raises bothbeing and non-being to the `flowing’. Both vanish and flow in the same, hence`sublated’ in flowing or becoming – the `first’ clear expression of speculativedialectics that has the unity of opposites – raised to determinate beginning. ` # Ihave enquired into myself’ and `found the soul, logos changing’, the soul inbecoming, # `..For soul it is death to become water, water death is to become earth;but from earth water comes into being, from water soul’44 since # `unapparent

41 All the quotes starting with # are from Heraclitus’ fragments, Barnes J, Op Cit, Robinson T M, Heraclitus:Fragments. A text and translation with commentary, Toronto, 1987, Guy D, [tr] Herakleitos and Diogenes –complete fragments of Heraclitus in English, Bolinas, Grey Fox Press, 1979; Kirk G S, Heraclitus . The CosmicFragments,

42 Also mentioned by Herodotus, the eclipse, `foretold to the Ionians by Thales of Miletus’ which broke off the warbetween Lydians and Medes `when they saw the darkening of the day’; getting `more anxious than they had been toconclude peace’ Herodotus, Histories, Bk 1, p. 70

43 Granger H, Op Cit, pp. 253-254; Hegel G W F, SL, p. 198

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connections are better than apparent’ or, `invisible is more than visible.45 #`Teacher of many men is Hesiod; they are sure he knows many things, whocontinually fail to recognize day and night, for they are one.’ Heraclitus is not justsaying that the `dialectic’ expresses a law that is felt in all kinds of consciousness,or experience in general; `everything that surrounds us may be viewed as aninstance of dialectic.’46 The `eye’ of simple self-related consciousness havingturned to itself, `seeing by its own light’ turns its work into self-creation that evenmakes daylight look younger than it and night when all being, the manifoldness ofthe finite emerges. The first vision, the first contact is not the positing of contentbut opening a dimension that can never be closed; it is the establishment of a levelfor situating all experience. `The idea is this level’ – not a de facto invisible, like ahidden object, neither an absolute invisible, the nothing of any visible, but `theinvisible of the world with that which inhabits it, sustains it and renders it visible,its own interior possibility.’47

The question of philosophy is not posed to us by the spectator, the question is first,how, upon what ground the spectator is established, what is the source from whichit draws. The `dry bones of logic’ can be quickened by consciousness, so thatpossessed of content logic can set to work its distinct method that makes it ascience. A close contemporary of Heraclitus, Alcemeon of Creaton who left hisimpact on Plato and Aristotle, was a medical writer and a philosopher-scientistwho is believed to have written a book sometime between 500-450 B C. He wasthe first among the ancient Greeks to say that the brain was the seat ofunderstanding as well as to distinguish understanding from perception. He thoughtthat sense organs were connected to the brain by channels – poroi – including theone connecting the eye [optic nerve] to the brain. A physician, though non-vivisectionist, his patients would be the source of his science while the polis theseat of his work. The primary term used by him to define `health’ and `disease’ was

44 It seems that a strain from eastern Sibylline verses left its trace on the `soul’ of Heraclitus. `# The Sibyl withraving mouth, uttering things mirthless, unadorned and unperfumed reaches over a 1000 years with her voicethrough the Gods’ attributed to Heraclitus by Plutarch de Pyth 404 A D

45 See Hegel G W F, Lectures on History of Philosophy, vol 1, p. 271, 294;Barnes J, Op cit,

46 Hegel G W F, Encyclopedia Logic, Pt 1, [tr] Wallace ,p. 120

47 Merleau-Ponty M, The Visible and the Invisible, Northwestern University, 1980, p. 151

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a political one, `isonomia’. In the 6th c. B C Greek polis all its citizens conceivedthemselves equal to each other under `isonomia’ [from isoi meaning equal], i.e., theequal participation of all citizens in conducting the affairs of the polis. `Isonomia’was the basis of popular access by the `demos’ to power contrasted to `monarkhia’or `tyrannis’, power in one man or oligarchy. As summed up by Otanes inHerodotus’ histories, `the rule of the people has the finest name to describe it,`isonomia’…Under the government of the people a magistrate is appointed bylot.’48 Alcemeon defined health as `isonomy or equality of opposing powers [dunameis ] which make up the body such as wet and dry, hot and cold, sweet andbitter, etc. whereas monarchy of any one of them produced `disease’.49 ForAlcemeon, isonomia, a purely political notion, made it possible to raise it to unitywith health. Basically the concept/notion in either case means the good, equal,democratic and power other than its merit in terms of its use in the vocabulary ofcommunication for citizens, public and so forth, in the simplest sense possible.Thus it should not be overlooked when Diogenes Leartius talks of Heraclitus that`the most stupid man could understand him and receive elevation from him’50

Heraclitus meant ` listen not to me but to the account/logos’ for `thinking iscommon to all’. By committing himself to writing he fulfilled one of the mainprerequisites of science, namely `it is the right of every human being, on whatevergrade of culture or mental growth he might stand’. It is `something thoroughlyfamiliar, something everyone finds in himself, which can form the starting point offurther reflection.’51 Heraclitus deposited his writings in the temple of Artemis atEphesus in the form of `parapegmata’, which are monumental inscriptions onstone, used by many citizens [ to have their names or record astronomicalobservations, chronological tables, etc ] for the purpose of setting forth a message

48 Herodotus, Histories, revised Burn A R, p.238, Otanes goes on to declare that for these `reasons I propose that wedo away with monarchy and raise people to power for everything resides in number’ ; Herodotus observed that`equality – isegorie – prevails not only in isolated instances but generally’; on the eve of Ionian revolt, around 500 BC, Aristagoras abdicated from tyranny and established equal rights in Miletus, isonomie’ bk. 5: 37-38; described byAristotle, `where men rule by reason of wealth it is oligarchy and when the poor rule, that is democracy, Aristotle,Politics, b34- ; Leveque P & Vernant J-P, Cleisthenes the Athenian, in Laroux Nicole et al [eds], Op Cit, p. 52,also p. 26

49 Stanford free access online, published, 28/4/2008; also Leveque P et al, Op Cit, p.51

50 Diogenes Leartius, `Lives…’, [tr] Yongue C D, London, 1853

51 Hegel G W F, Encyclopedia Logic, Part 1, p. 120; WL, p. 76

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– es to meson - `in the middle’ for making it the common property of many.52

Committing wisdom to such writing simply meant being displayed for one andbefore the view of all. For stone inscriptions can be easily be written to be read,functioning like a hard copy. It is also claimed that he wrote a papyri scroll anddeposited it at the same temple. He died a misanthrope under strangely deliveredself cure; to dry out the effects of dropsy he apparently covered himself undercattle dung [expecting it to dry out his body as it dried out itself] and also thoughtthat opinion [doxa] is the sacred disease.

Heraclitus was seen by Hegel as the first thinker who `revolutionized’ philosophyby overthrowing the previous systems of thought. No fixed understanding[verstand] has the principle of development in it. Hegel says that when contrastedwith the speculative cognition of Heraclitus, the `reasoning of Parmenides andZeno is only abstract understanding’. This fixity is broken, negated and sublated byHeraclitus. The `breaking away’ is like any birthing because it proceeds frommatter or from a pregnant body that already contains the next moment of advancewithin itself. The separation in its simplicity is a self-becoming through pure[inherent] operativity/ operationalization or the self-contained dynamisis, thepower which shows itself as self-determining. Immediacy at first is that co-mingled, dense, opaque reality of matter containing in-itself the power[ operativity] to pass out of opacity as matter or the opaque idea [e.g. emptiness]into something opposed to matter, as a point/centre to which matter seemed to haveaspired. Matter/ immediacy is thus self-determining/ self-operative 53`within itselfby having being-for self developed within it’54 or as `materialized determination ofform grasped in their double manner : in their immediacy and their positedness’ inthe same manner as `logical transitions’ such as essence, as being coming intomediation with itself through negativity of itself’ is self-relation only insofar as it isrelated to an other that `comes into view’ as something posited, as a postulate or

52 Vernant J-P, The Spiritual Universe of the Polis, in Laroux Nicole et al , Op Cit, p 22

53 Relationship which exists `solely as operation’, `as that which is not’, which comes from Badiou’s rigorousmeditation in Badiou A, Being and Event, [tr] Feltham O, London, 2005,

54 I am intentionally citing from Hegel’s natural philosophy where immediacy of matter is a process of passing byself-determination of itself into another point/individuality or body, `opposed to matter’ e.g., `matter breaks awayfrom gravity and manifests itself as implicitly self-determining’ Hegel G W F, Philosophy of Nature, vol. II,, sec. 2,Physics, zusatz # 272

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hypothesis.55 For instance, in function language, the dialectic is called a` functionof itself’, also called a `reflexive function’. In recent mathematical discourse, aself-operation is called a `non-linear term’ or a `self-product’ term which containsan unknown function. That is, in that term the generic value of the unknownfunction occurs in a form multiplied against itself number of times, or it occurs as a`power’, an exponent greater or less than 1. 56The crucial/critical moment is theprocess wherein the determinations of each other of the first two moments havedisappeared in the `logical transition’ to essence as shapes of intro-reflections orintro-duality of the inner from outer having vanished in the process. It wasHeraclitus who grasped the process as the truth of essence-[ed] being andrepresented the process as merely infinite, a process in itself, not as being or theone of Parmenides but un-representable becoming as the ground principle ofceaseless motion; not as ontological entity but as the process-principle in/fromimmediacy to non-immediacy when he maintained fire as the elementary principle– the `soul and substance of nature-process, absolute unrest, physical time,absolute disintegration of existence, not only the passing away of other but itself’.57

Breaking the Parmenidean barrier of linearity Hegel refers to a nature-process,Heraclitan `fire’ like a process-event. In this `genera’ there are species-process/`event-entities’ such as tornadoes, in the sense of lacking any cumulative,depletive conversion-dimension and appear to build toward no irreversible self-bifurcation even though it self-terminates, self-mediates and model parametershifts upon its control space by shutting down and terminate . At the level ofabstract becoming they constitute contra-ontic, trans-oscillatory, coming-to-be andceasing-to-be entities with the capacity of self-birthing and self-collapsing, which

55 Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, [tr] Wallace, Oxford, 1963, p. 207 where terms in essence are always mere pairs ofcorrelatives, e.g. Identity and Difference

56 Another example could be `time varying’ or `dynamical’ non-linear term occurring in `dynamical’ differentialequation : d(x(t)/dt = d(xt)/dt = ax(t)2 wherein x(t)2 = x(t) . x(t) = xt(xt) ; this says that `instantaneous rate of change’– differential – of x(t) with respect to the differential of t , denoted dt by a factor denoted a to a second degree ofx(t), i..e to a two-fold self-operation of the function value, x(t) of that function unknown, x , for the generic value oftime variable, t , i. e. to the operation of the operator upon itself.

57 Thus Parmenides has to reckon with illusion and opinion, the opposite of being and truth; Spinoza likewise withattributes, modes, extension, movement, understanding and so on’ whereas the principle of synthesis is not merelythe principle of all things, beings but a `speculative determination’ like the `void as the source/ground of all motion.`The view that void constitutes the ground of all movement contains the profounder thought than in the negative assuch there lies the ground of becoming,, of unrest of self-movement’ Hegel G W F, Science of Logic [tr] Miller A V,,p 98, 166; for fire as `a] purged of all materiature and b] materialized in determinate being, raised by Heraclitus tothe synthetic level of ideality, of objective time, imperishable fire, Ph of Nature, Op Cit, zusatz # 336, p.83,217, 222

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can be termed, sublation/ to sublate [aufheben], a concept central to speculativephilosophy. The term has a two-fold, contradictory meaning: it means to preserveafter removing from the immediate or negating its immediacy or that which issublated is preserved and it equally means to cease, having ended, i.e., a term thatcarries the ideal moment from the ground of essence / essential ground.58 There is adialectical self-cancellation, self-similar to the `act of passive substance to unitewith itself and make itself as cause’ also reactive and `bent around’ to return toitself as a negative self-relation or, to return to oneself is also to leave one self.59

That is why, it must be stated that in the process of thinking or when we think thereis no consideration of method other that considering what happens when we think.

At the same time, in intra-duality, passive substance only [re]acts; the activesubstance causes the necessary [by no means justifiable] violence on passivesubstance by action/self-operation before differentiating itself as the sublatingsubstance or, sublates into simple, transparent difference, the process-moment oflogical transition to freedom and into the concept. In concrete terms this implies athird level expositing how the concept builds up in and from itself the reality thathad vanished. Here , the determined beginning is subjectivity that has reflected onthe idea of logic qua logic- not as understanding, representation, intuition, etc – asabsolute; otherwise logic will simply fall , collapse or turn into psychologism,`subjective idealism’ of Kant as [re]-stated clearly by di Giovanni in a criticalreview.60 It may be pertinent to give an elaboration from Encyclopedia Logic: “Theusefulness of logic is a matter of its relationship to the subject insofar as one givesoneself a certain formation for other purposes. The formation of the subjectthrough logic consists in becoming proficient in thinking – since this science is thethinking of thinking – and one’s coming to have thoughts in one’s own head and toknow them also as thoughts.”61 58 Hegel, G W F, Science of Logic, p. 107

59 Hegel G W F, Op Cit., p. 567, 569, 571

60 George di Giovanni, Burbige and Hegel on Logic : On Hegel’s Logic, fragments of a commentary by JohnBurbige, The Owl of Minerva, vol. , 14, no. 1, pp 1-6

61 Hegel G W F, Encyclopedia Logic, Pt 1, [ trs] Garaets, T F, Suchtimp W A, Harris H S, , Indianopolis, 1991;basically this shows Hegel a non-metaphysical thinker, who thought moments of logic are significant in relation tothe world in their specific totalities/wholes or the natural , historical encounters that are experiences, but they are notaspects of the way subject thinks.

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Subjective qua subjective determination is thinking as reason, in its simpledeterminateness it is thought as such. Man is thinking as such in himself insofar asthis activity distinguishes him from his being for other, from his natural existence /sense-nature that directly connects him to the other. Yet, in thinking, thought is alsopresent in him; man exists as thinking and that makes him a determinate being sothat thought should be taken as having content, it is filling of this in-itself withdetermination which is distinct from determination for the being-for-other as it isoutside/ external to the self-filling. The self-filling, intro-accumulation which manhas within himself divides itself from external side as something external, or someexternal determination does not belong to something in-itself, nor constitutingitself. As a self-driven process it constitutes in terms of a dynamic that is social andontologically self-expanding, as net expanding historical accumulation of richer,elevated and sublated to involution, inwardness into which the social- ontology isinteriorized by subjectivity. Human agency carries out this intra-appropriation ofnon/extra-human nature into itself by operation that applies the appropriated intoitself towards its determinateness, as it happens at the point of digestion. Thesublation/ aufheben also raises itself to a Heraclitan degree of non-linearappropriation as the appropriation of appropriation – appropriation squared –would be like the work over long duration by human agency in the intentionalstriking of one kind of stone upon and against an appropriately another kind ofstone, to form a burin during middle and upper Paleolithic times. This active-process epitomizes the transition from the earlier stage, limited to mereappropriation of raw nature that also returns to itself at the point of digestionresulting in needs, to appropriation plus an increasingly skillful hand crafting ofincreasingly refined goods, i.e., worked up, finished or refined art/ artisanship/artifacuality and therefore for human consumption, human improvement of natureor humanizing nature point of departure `mental mark’ [ as phenotypeirruption/event-entity]. This deepening appropriation is the striking of one rockheld in one hand, say a somewhat hard rock, thus fitted by its compositional natureto hold a sharp edge after fracture – a fact then know to minds that held the handthat held the rock, say of species harder rocks, fitted by their compositionalcharacteristics to fracture the glassier rock upon impact, creating tools, burins,`blade’ edged rocks, or making objects existent in pre-human `nature’ by deliberate

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activity , necessarily producing result and not as contingent. It follows thatdialectical being is out and out diachronic. It is not merely self-changing process, itis self-changing all the way to the point of termination and self-sublation, thecumulative self-change `leaping’ beyond itself or a change into something elseshould force us to recognize the `non-eternity’ of the present, or an `indeterminatepresent’, incorporating Bergson’s insight - `continuity of change, preservation ofthe past in the present, real duration’.62

The action of con-current, co-appropriation of two natural products with twodifferent qualities, harder and glassier brings two contrasting `raw’ properties in amanner that enacts a `cross-appropriation’ of these two qualities resulting in thecreation of a species of products with predicates. Cross-appropriation would beself-appropriation of appropriation, or serial appropriation, iterated re-appropriation, deepening appropriation of the already appropriated. The latter isexemplified by the use value added hand-making operations upon previousappropriating activity as in neo-lithic / chalcolithic emergent molding of clay andlater, early-/proto-metallurgical firing of earthen clay jars.

Starting with `modern’ science as this epoch’s positivity, which echoes that itcannot dispense with its `arche’ moment- it stays on as `original sin’, blindly in theincessantly circulating economic world, `the entire commercial world’, e.g. 17th c.Holland [ re-birth of mature capitalism after 100-year war] which was the centre,`the model of economic development as England would be in the 19th’, wheremoney dealings developed together with commerce and manufacture’, where`interest-bearing capital was subordinated to industrial and commercial capital’.63

In any event, as the world-market is where materialized constructs of `science’ areplaced together with its spiritual goods, these forms of knowledge shows up in theexcess of `physics’ over nature or the power of abstract over concrete, the simpleover complex, technology over logos, but above all subject to the `basic principleof capitalist production’, namely to the independent value form, money that stands

62 Bergson H, Creative Evolution [tr] Mitchell A, London 1964, p. 24, pp 21-23

63 Marx, Capital, v.3, MEGA, v 37, p. 555 for `commercial world’; for references to Holland and England asmodels, p. 602,

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opposed to all other commodities. It is by a fantastic semblance that these productsas elements discharged by capitalist `production process’ comes under the mostabstract sphere of money circulation, no different from Ricardo’s discovery of lawsgoverning metallic currency finding its way into the `school of bank theorists’ fromOverstone & Co. before taking the shape of a `fundamental principle’ that`dictated’ the bank legislations of Robert Peel in 1844-’45.64 Ricardo’s `principlediscoveries’ would, like scientific laws pressed into service by the Overstoneschool of bank theorists [Tooke, Fullerton and James Wilson] for no other reasonthat it provided a tautological semblance by statements of causal relationship,which hardly explained the `phenomenon’ of `violent storms in the world-market’or disturbances in `international commerce’, or `incomplete’/ unclear ideas on therelation between money and capital. The immediate results of their applicationrevealed how enforcement served the interests of money dealers, bankers, bigmoney-lenders, usurers surrounding them, directors of Bank of England frompersonal profits accruing from bonuses, increased dividends, value added assets,net profits and so forth.65Putting the `discoveries’ of science in the service ofwindfall money making during periods marked by turbulence in the worldeconomy remains the same, except for differences in size and magnitude, thoughnon-comparable to a threshold level of some transition akin to sublation/raisingand superseding [aufheben]. Mention may be made of the recent, effective [hyper-profitable] use of `human capital’ by Wall Street in the calculation of zero-risk,transaction specific hedge—funds using variation of physics inspired Noble Prizewinning Black-Scholes asset valuation model for valuation of `derivatives’, i.e., for`value’ formation of various kinds of transactions - `fictitious’, `transient’,`ephemeral’, `toxic paper’ based, etc . Though `risk management’ of investments[ against collaterals] was its ostensible purpose, it resulted in speculation driven`risk-creation’ in global financial markets, given the volatility and bubble burstingof many derivatives or `meta-securities’ instruments. A typical example of bubblebursting would be speculative investments around national currencies so that thetarget currency gets tied up in the financial architecture of global investment[money managing] funds and private banks, away from the economy. Speculationaround the currency creates a bubble as huge amounts of the currency are bought

64 Marx K, MEGA, v. 37, p. 547

65 Marx K, Op Cit., p. 516, 544, 547

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up, made `convertible’. At a certain moment, when currency/-ies tend to beingdependent on the monies of account of investment firms, when the exchange valueof the currency gets inflated far above its value, short selling of the currencycreates a run on the bubble. For example, in 1998, anticipating such a run,Malaysia with Stiglitz’s support when he was the chief of World Bank, pulled outits currency the ringitt from the convertible capital accounts, made it unconvertibleand pegged it low enough to favour exports. The Malaysian prime minister thenput controls/restrictions on foreign capital `exports’, raised tariffs and startedadjusting regulations on the `national economy’. That is when Malaysia was`expelled’ by the investment firm, Morgan Stanley, running the `Asian economicindex’.66 But Malaysian economy survived the bubble collapse by taking the rightmeasures at the right time, something that Nazi Germany had also taken afterHitler came to power, pulling out its currency from the speculative exchangemarkets, thus firming up the sovereign position of national currency.67 In 2000,however, Stilitz left the World Bank and Malaysia was `readmitted’ to the MorganStanley economic index , but before leaving Stiglitz attacked the assumptions ofcapital markets liberalization, blaming it for creating economic crisis in the regionsthat were following its rules, with `wages falling by 20-30 % and unemploymentgoing up by a factor of two’.68In the meanwhile, long term capital management,based upon the formulations of the Black-Scholes model has brought down theglobal financial system to the brink of collapse without any scope or signs of`recovery’.69 Earlier Wall street banks entering the so called `emerging marketeconomies’ to generate a price bubble within it, make speculative profits and

66 Saul J R, The Collapse of Globalism and the reinvention of the world, London, 2005, p 164-165

67 In 1933 the Reichsbank was put under strict regulation and prompt measures were taken to eliminate easy accessto loans of bank-created money. Henry C K Liu talks of financing sovereign credit in 1933 through planned publicworks paid for with `currency’ generated by the government. Non-inflationary bills of exchange called LabourTreasury Certificates were used to pay the workers. These Certificates were not debt-free but were issued as bondson which the government paid interest to the bearers. In essence they were securitized loans. These certificatescirculated freely, were renewed indefinitely thus making them de fact currency, which did not trade at foreigncurrency markets since there were none to sell them to. They retained their value without raising sovereign credit-worthiness problems. In effect a shadow economy was created and guaranteed, much like Collateral DebtObligations [ CDO’s] and Credit default swaps [CDS’s] tied up with Anglo-American banks not requiring capital ascollateral after `derivative specialists’ from J P Morgan Chase used persuasion with AIG in 1998. This was the basisfor the expansion of over the counter derivative markets without secondary markets to determine prices, far less anorganized market. When they were junked in 2007, it left behind a close to $ 20 trillion mountain of over the countercredit and default derivatives. See Ellen Brown, The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it happen Again?, 19/05/2009,Centre for Research on Globalization

68 Saul J R, Op Cit,, p. 168

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withdraw and burst bubble’s in 1990’s; later the commercial/investmentbanks/federal treasury nexus entered the `heartland’ in the shape of a consciouscabal – minimally represented by Greenspan- Rubin- Paulson combine – who hadalways accepted that financial markets tend to blow outs, that risk models andtheory worked more as smokescreen rather than working doctrines. Otherwise,without the tacit understanding the speculative flourishing of over the countercredit derivative markets till they were junked in 2007 followed by central bankfunding involving $ 5 trillion of credit from Federal Reserve, E C B, Bank ofEngland for credit operations from April-October 2008 makes no sense.70 Thesame set of people, bandits, parasites, stock-jabbers, etc. noted by Marx, can befound in addition to securities firms, investment and commercial banks, treasurybureaucrats, international trading agencies, who legitimated the coupling with theunregulated `shadow economy’ etc., are just as busy giving themselves huge sumsof money with the hundreds of billions doled out by the U S treasury `bailing themout’ while on the other hand, there is increasing unemployment, loss of home andhealth, contraction of production or intensification of severe depression conditions.

In the capitalist driven cosmos knowledge appears as equally inverted shapes asany other commodity, reducible to the absolute equivalence, which is the processor `abstract becoming’ of abstract, universal, valorizing or daily reproduction ofvalue-creating labour. Reducible, in the sense of `things’ to agents or function toprocess, comparable to abstract becoming, either expressed in `idealized substance’or money; or forms through which natural laws assert themselves in the world ofcapital. Marx had clearly explained why `apologetic wisdom’ of bourgeoiseconomist’s `abstraction of becoming’ from `real, material, dialectical becoming’/aufheben that erupts as force, `forgets’ its `essence, real antagonism as historical

69 Personal communication http://www.dialectics.org/archives/df ; Long term capital management was a huge,overly leveraged international hedge fund with its advanced mathematics that was supposed to immunize it againstrisk. When it went belly up in 1998, the then U S administration rushed in to save it. 21 st c. saw the assertion of apolicy with the blunt use of the mailed fist resting on wars and high tech. weaponry, leading to an irruption of a`futures market in terrorism’! Fraser S, Wall Street – A Cultural History, London, 2005 , p. 535, 543; currently themoney created in the U S, undertaken by the privately owned central bank, Federal Reserve is done to settle creditdefaults, i.e. to settle speculative bets on books of private banks. Money is generated to pay off credit defaults fromspeculative bets on various derivatives.

70 Cowen P, Crisis in the Heartland – consequences of the New Wall Street system, New Left Review, 55, Jan-Feb 2009, p. 10-16, 20

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becoming’; or `forgets its own definition at a decisive moment’. This forgettingand abstraction from history turns `becoming’ to 1] the subordination of labour byinverted products of labour [ inversion/ annulling71 ]; 2] labour to exchange 3] themaking of the `moment’ when the `third’ enters as an `alien representative’, whichholds the first two moments of separation apart. On the other hand, the universalmoment of `determinate becoming is the forced dependency on the universal [tosell], `which makes my product dependent on general commerce and its being tornout of its local, natural and individual boundaries. For exactly the same reason,labour-process is absorbed into capital.72 This `reconciliation of irrational elementsin which economic forms appear and assert themselves’ are of no concern to`active agents of these relations to their everyday life’. Since they are `accustomedto move about in these relations’ they find the least mystery `in a completecontradiction’. The agents of capital-relations do not feel out of home `amongmanifestations which are separated from their inner connections’ or find anythingabsurd when `isolated by themselves.’73 The mystifying character transforms socialrelations into things out of which develops an enchanted and perverted worldbelonging to the dominant category, capital itself . This domain does not rest in anysimplicity, as a direct and non-mediated sphere. Under regimes of real dominationby capital productivity, social labour grows with the development of relativesurplus value and the entire mesh of social inter-relations of labour seemtransformed from labour to capital whereby it becomes even more mystical sinceall of labour’s productivity appear to be `due to capital’ as if `issuing from the

71 `Self-subsistence pushed to the point of the one as a being –for-self is abstract, formal and destroys itself. It isthe most supreme and stubborn error, which takes itself for the highest truth, manifesting in more concrete forms asabstract freedom, pure ego…More specifically this error is the error of regarding as negative that which is in its ownessence, and of adopting a negative attitude towards it.’ Hegel G W F, Science of Logic [tr] Miller A V, N Y, 1969;The `annulling’/inversion’ is the error

72 Labour process becomes a real activity only through contact with capital’ instead of existing as a capacity, as apotential in the bodiliness of the worker since it cannot be real activity by itself; since it is without object anddependent on general exchange world/universe. After absorption by Kapitals-relations, the non-objectified self-relation `consists only in reproduction of itself’ as a `species-process’ outside of Kapitals-process as `infinitelyrepetitive’ where only `preservation and increase – health and population-size – or `incremental reproduction’ occursthat is indifferent to any form and expression of objectified value’, Marx, Grundrisse,www.marxist.org/archive/marx/works/1857-gru ; but here it rests as a moment only after capital has appropriatedlabour as objectified non-being. It is by this process of differentiation and separation that capital becomes a process;labour is the yeast thrown into it, which starts fermenting.

73 Marx, Capital, MECW, vol., 37, p. 779, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw ; Marx rounds up theargument with what Hegel says with reference to certain mathematical formulas as applicable here : `that whichseems irrational to ordinary common sense is rational and that which seems rational to them is irrational’

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womb of capital itself’. This appears even under inflationary/deflationary crisis-ridden conditions, at least so long as the mass of social products are sold within thecapitalist framework and the proportions from the gross yield distributed amongthe agents of production keep a certain rate of accumulation going. This`enchanted, topsy-turvy world’ is not even disturbed after `classical politicaleconomy’ makes its reduction from things to social agents or classes, while ownersof capital and land `do their ghost walking’ both as social characters and as thingsat the same time. Because after the reductions made by classical political economy,their critique is dissolved into inconsistencies of the bourgeois standpoint andunsolved contradictions.’

Seen as a synthetic whole, capitalist production process is the unity of productionand circulation while seen analytically `capital arises from circulation’, which isalso the plane of increasing consciousness. As the restitution of both the valuesinvested in production and surplus value are embodied in the product, commoditiesdo not just get realized in the sphere of circulation but seem to `arise from it’,moreover appearing due to `two circumstances: first, the profit made `depends oncheating, deceit, insider knowledge, skill and a thousand favourable marketableopportunities and second, circulation time’ that is added to labour time, like someelement independent of labour. As production relations are rendered independentof each other in a synthetic sphere, inner laws or inner relations, indeed thesynthetic level itself tends to invisibility, unintelligibility for agents or bearers ofthe said relations, as component values get ossified in `forms independent of eachother.’74 In a circulating world economy presupposed/created and posited by theresult of capitalist production, both the means of production and labour arevariables devoured by the production process and unified, or `indissolubly fused’ inthe `resultant thing’, or the commodity product. The worker appears as afunctioning instrument for the machine/engine of production 75; the point when`capital earmarked as wages’ disappears in the eyes of the capitalist since whatever

74 Marx K, MECW, vol 37, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw ; pp.827-828

75 Hegel wrote in 1803-’04 that specialization and division of labour keeps human beings as both atomist, self-reliant and increasingly interdependent, which exposes them to contingency. This also creates the `machine-man’who practices `deceit against nature, which in turn takes revenge against him. `The more he subdues nature, thelower he sinks…the laboring-man himself becomes machine-like’. Hegel G W F, Philosophy of Spirit, 1803/04 citedby William R, Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition,, Berkeley California, 1997, pp. 237-238

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is consumed by the `working class as a whole’ from wages is absorbed by theproduction process, meaning that `within’ the production process the activeexpression of labour as living labour is appropriated, sucked or used up throughveiled expressions; by the time of the conclusion of the production process the`product’ embodies `both the means of production and the means of subsistence’.76

In this `valorization process’, it is objective labour that draws off living labour, `themeans of production become no more than leeches drawing off as much of livinglabour as they can’ and living labour ceases to be anything other than a power thatsustains old values and `creates new ones’, ending up dulled into putting on apsychology of submission, indifferent to its own subjectivity as objectified labour,with the quality `attributed to it as things’. The `rule’ of capital over worker is noneother than this process whereby conditions of labour [i.e., means of production andsubsistence for sustaining the worker] and its productivity become independent oflabour in order to rule over the subjective, [use-value] conditions of work,appropriating all its creation of surplus-value. Labour as thing appears as the self-valorizing power of capital since what exists within the production is an immediateunity between labour process and valorization process. The process of creatingsurplus value results in valorizing the capital invested.77 The `mystification’inherent in capital-relations appear at this point when the value-sustaining power oflabour is seen as the self-supporting power of capital, value-creating power oflabour as the self-valorization of capital, which is in `accordance with it’s concept,namely living labour is put to work by objectified labour.’ When Ricardo says thatcapital is a `means of employing labour’, the `quantity employed by capital’,labour-process becomes a process owned by capital like `physical elements’ interms to which labour process is conceived, hence inseparable from `socialcharacteristics amalgamated with it’.78To `absorb’ the work of others, the`employer – Arbeitgaber, the giver of work – stands above the employee –

76 Marx K, Capital, vol. 1, Results of the Immediate Process of Production’, pp 983-985

77 `Thus at the level of material production…we find the same situation that we find in religious at the ideologicallevel, namely the inversion of the subject into object and vice versa…What we are confronted herewith is thealienation of man from his own labour’. Marx K, Capital, vol. 1, pp 989-900, 1052; `The working-man knows allthis, for its truth is daily brought before him; but this mutual dependence between capital and labour has nothing todo with the relative position of the capitalist and the working man…there is as much difference between them asthere is between the actual cargo and the bill of lading’. Bray J F, Labour’s wrongs and Labour’s remedy, Leeds,1839, p. 59

78 Cited by Marx, Marx K, Op Cit., p. 1008

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Arbeitenhamer, the taker of work – implies the independence of the former `whilethe living person is dependent and has no individuality. Strictly speaking thecapitalist appears like a conductor or an agency who `exist for the process ofabsorption’ whereby living labour’s dependence is manifested through`incorporation into material constituents of capital, which turns the latter into ananimated monster’ that acts as though `consumed with love’ by assuming thephysical shape of means of production, technology or embodiment of sciencessince only in this shape can capital `annex living labour’.79

What is said, in brief is antithetical to many Marxist and post-Marxist currents andtendencies of the previous century, and the source of this antithesis is found inMarx’s writings when related to the critique of the process of capitalist productionas a whole. This imprint of a critique of the whole of capitalist production mayalso be found in Grossman’s responses in his work on capitalist crisis – hiswritings on `the theory of economic crisis’ which was more or less completed from1919 to 1931. Grossman takes up the whole of capitalist production in terms of itsessential, `inner organization’ and derives , though not independent of `empiricalobservations’ pertaining to `experiences of one hundred years’ that c [= constant79 This is `the reason why’ the capitalist, worker and the political economist can only conceive labour process in its`physical element’, as enmeshed or embodied, `a specific mass of objectified labour, to suck in living labour in orderto sustain and increase itself’ Marx K, Op Cit, pp 1007-1009, 1012 This is Marx’s definite contribution, over andabove Hegel or classical bourgeois political economy that demonstrates how there is a teleological process involvedin capitalist production that employs labour `materialized in wages’ to `objectify’ in things, commodities an `extraquantity of unpaid labour’ i.e. `to create surplus- value. The `crux’ of this process is the exchange of objectifiedlabour for living labour or commodity-wage form for labour measure within the production process that shows up inthe result as an exchange between more living labour over and above less objectified labour’. This is how capital`utilizes the worker, the worker does not utilize capital and because of that physicality [with which domination isassociated] it embodies a will and consciousness of its own’ Thus the capitalist is only interested in the labourprocess as the `depository’ of the valorization process and within this depository, even the physical attributebecomes a matter of indifference by virtue of exchange-value clothing all use-values in the production process.Similarly social labour, in the act of objectifying itself turns to something whose `sole feature of interest is itsquantity.’ This is the formal feature, a change in the form of `supremacy and subordination’ from previous,patriarchal forms of subjection. However, Marx is able to discern the moments of appropriation, absorption, creationof surplus value together with comprehending the labour process as both independent and an aspect of capitalistproduction and valorization process as distinct from production process so as to show the ground/premise to `refute’that what appears as `natural/physical and necessary is not something naturally eternal but a historical phase ofsocial production. The argument proposed by Enrique Dussal that fetish claims of capital is the creative source ofvalue’ would be taken up elsewhere; though here the emphasis is laid on the imaginary inverted world akin toreligious sphere to indicate the significance of the `imaginary world’. We shall in course take up Dussal’s mainargument; only point as of now is to indicate that the case of the architectonic self-sameness nature of Capital andHegel’s Science of Logic made by Dussal seems to miss out on the centrality of aufheben relations, not understoodonly as a transcendental category, but as `passage’; Dussal Enrique D, Hegel, Schelling and Surplus Value, MexicoCity, 2004

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capital] grows more quickly than v [=variable capital] , a diachronic, as amovement away from equilibrium in order to establish the historical notion ofcapitalist breakdown though it’s `overthrowing’ is only possible in concretehistorical terms, `through the struggles of the working-class’ in a `revolutionarysituation’.80 The missing element is `rent’, or the concept of the `trinity formula’ isnot taken up as the `ideal’ form/`logical construction’ of the whole since Grossmansuspends the presupposition of ground-rent from the renewal of total capital for thepurpose of simplifying the concept of unity of capitalist production grasped as`total value’ [regulating prices of production] and its division into two classes ofcapitalist and workers as his point of departure.81 From a model logic based on theinteraction of three elements, i.e., the amount of capital invested yearly on meansof production and raw materials [m]; the amount set aside for wages [v] and theaverage profit needed for continuous production [p], Grossman derives a conditionin which the portion of surplus value realized through sale distributed across [m],[v] and [p] become insufficient for meeting the wage level and the required rate ofaccumulation or a situation where one can only be realized at the cost of the other– [p] at the cost of [v] or [m] at the cost of [v] – or, the zero sum game point mayalso be seen as belonging to the process developing into a revolutionary situation,indicated by intensification of class struggles. This is when a condition rises whenthe capitalist system shows itself bankrupt and wages are `forced down’ to`impoverishment’ levels, for securing the living condition of the population, when`objective’ and subjective factors interact dialectically in a form that makes itpossible for the working class to represent the interest of entire society, needed for

80 Grossman H to Paul Mattick Sr, 21/06/1931, in Marx, die classische Nationalokonomie und das Problem derDynamik, Frankfurt, 1931, pp 86-88; insisting on what Marx predicted as `intensification of proletarian poverty‘should be grasped in terms of the capitalist’s decision to lower wages either by increasing their own income or bykeeping it at a level at the cost of depriving worker’s wages, there is nothing in Grossman that indicates the precise`length of time‘ when this `tendency becomes apparent‘ when the critique is directed at Otto Bauer’s `equilibriumtheory’, see Grossman H, Notes on Alfred Braunthal’s review, 1929 [tr], Kuhn R,http://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1929/breakdown/braunthal.htm

81 This may be understood in the sense that unlike wages, rent does not alter the limit of `total value’. Wages doform the basis of limitation as they are regulated by 1] natural law whose lower limit is determined by a physicalminimum of subsistence required by the worker for reproduction of a definite quantity of commodities on the basisof the level of social development or `the historically developed social needs, which become second nature’; 2] bydetermining the value of all other sources of revenue [profit, rent, interest] which incorporates surplus-labour, or theportion representing surplus-value too has its limitation in the `physical maximum of working-day’ and 3]determined by the ratio of ` total surplus value [ s v ] to total social capital [ k ] advanced in production or if k is 20trillion and s v 4 trillion, then s v/ k or 20 % would be the limit on the rate of profit . MECW, vol. 37,pp. 858-859,www.marxists.org/archive/marx/cw

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a victorious intervention.82 In brief, Grossman sketches the `actual moment ofcompetition’ that Marx left aside as a derivation from its `ideal average’.83 Thehistorical process that Marx investigates is concerned with variables, includingthought forms, the `organ by which thinking is done'. As a variant of production,the `essence of bourgeois society consists' in an a priori that there is no conscious,`regulated production'; thus the rational and necessary assert themselves `only asblindly working averages’. However, Marx comes to the crux that `once theinterconnections beneath appearances is grasped, all theoretical belief in thepermanent necessity of existing conditions collapse before their collapse inpractice', while it is in absolute interest of the ruling class to perpetuate totalconfusion.84 Marx presents the network of capital relations through thinking thatgrasps relations as contradictions. Because these relations contain contradiction,the resultant concept appears sharply, showing the underlying power of method. Itis social subjectivity that erupts at the aufheben level by corresponding to thecontradictory appearance in real historical becoming which is the point; theemergence of freedom as the truth of an irreducible universal is the outcome of theantithetical and contradictory form. It is the point when `history enters’.

Official science and most of institutionalized science assumes universal constantssuch as time-independent repeatability of experiments producing the same averageresults. Science paradigms appear in the ideology of scientism with a hard innercore that appears in its disappearance like a well guarded secret kept by a cabal tothe consternation of the general public. What if a constant like Newton’s `gravity’is actually another variable or function of history? This is what Einstein did bychanging the very framework of `gravitational theory’.85Because constants havebeen demonstrated to change with time, an entirely new possibility opens up that

82 Grossman H, The Theory of Economic Crisis, [tr] Kuhn R, Class de Histoire et de Philosophie, les Annes 1919,1920, 1922, Krakow, pp 285-290, www.marxists.org/archive/grossman also Notes on Helen Bauer’s Review, 1929,first published 2004 in Soederberg Susanne, et al [eds], Neoliberalism in Crisis, Amsterdam, 2004, pp 181-‘22

83 Marx K, MECW, vol. 37, p. 831, www.marxists.org ; Grossman H Theory of Economic Crisis [tr] Banaji J,London, 1992

84 Marx, letter to L Kugelman, 14/7/1868 in Marx-Engels Correspondence

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reveals changes in natural laws themselves. History-dependent science is anescalating expression of possible actions that accumulates like ontologicalexpansion of the past which humanity has reconstructed from the present set ofevidence, consequences and tracks. It is a possibility that arises with thedensification and accumulation of instances and track-records of predecessor kindsof scientific theories/knowledge’s and observations by thinking subjectivity,including the history of `success’ and `failures’ together with changes andconsequences. This is a vastly different universe than the market determined spreadand accumulation of commodities. A dialectical universe with aufheben/sublate[preserving and superseding86] reference to `evolute’, cumulative and ontologicallydynamic universe is one in which exact replication or repetition in true cycles isimpossible. Even attempted exact replication will yield different consequences.

Besides, if one were to refer to those historical phases when science came of itsown, as autonomous and free, those were moments when techne would be on theascent exemplified by the periods of applicability, practicality or technology- as itflourished in Alexandria till the 6th c. A D, one can visualize a field where theascent appears as ontological shapes get dense, intensified and frequented yieldinga scale measuring higher than the existing degree of self-interaction [or thecurrently meristemal kind] as it surpasses the rate of interactions in contrast to thepredecessor scale/kind by means of instantiating conversion [of the predecessortype to the newer successor scale/level] formulations.87 The newly irrupting levelsare marked by the flourishing of generalized scientific culture that one can find inthe widespread popular interest in optics in 17th Netherlands, or in mechanicsduring the industrial revolution in England. In these instances scientific culture hadto break out of the schools closed in on themselves and privileged circles of

85 Penrose R, Shadows of the Mind –A search for missing science of consciousness, London 1995, p. 415

86 `To sublate has a twofold meaning in language : on the one hand, it means to preserve…and equally it also meansto cease…what is sublated is at the same time preserved; it has only lost its immediacy but is not on that accountannihilated…It is delight to speculative thought to find in a language words which have in themselves a speculativemeaning’ Hegel G W F, Science of Logic, [tr] A V Miller, London, 1969, p.107

87 For example, `dialectical idealism’ in German arose from an immanent self-critique or self-aufheben or self-subsumption of French materialism of 18th c. would show up a similar level of heightened frequentation [ meta-fractal] in relation to its [origin]/ arche moment, rather than any mythopoeia or primitive animate religionculminating with Hegel .

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authority who give the appearance of science as some hidden knowledge to bepreserved by a caste as a closed secret that may well be concealing a shallowabsence of thought. Deterioration sets in when sciences and its findings lackpublicity since as a general culture science can only flourish at the social level thatshows up higher degrees of communicative actions. Since capitalist productioncannot reproduce itself without incorporating elements from an ascendant techneor without increasing its technical composition many times higher than the variablecomponent, results of sciences are made available to workers in divided and partialfunctionality through division of labour. However, capitalist production process isnot a capitalist one without fetishizing all the elements of science or by invertingthe labour process by divesting workers of all the social and subjective momentsby means of reification which reduces the worker to the self-similar ontologycommon to all things. The products of science take on the shape of domination orthe technical condition of labour itself begins to dominate all of social labour, paidor unpaid. Subjective condition of labour undergoes a metamorphosis in theproduction process as the product of labour contain more than what was paid for,or a portion of value that cost nothing, appear alien to the process of its making.The specifically capitalist nature of a commodity that results from the productionprocess is itself the product of domination, as an alien object. The `inversion’ is anecessary function of appropriation that makes it appear as though the capitalist`robs himself when he lends [!] the instruments of production to the worker’; whenhe valorizes their value by incorporating labour power into them instead of eatingthem up, steam engines, cotton, railways, manure, horses and all…How thecapitalist class can perform the latter feat is a secret which vulgar economics hasobstinately refused to divulge together with this modern penitent of Vishnu, thecapitalist’88 . The `feat’ insisted by the economist Bailey and his cohorts, is in theperformance requiring a `leap of faith’. Just how the worker `passes over to beingthe slave of capital’, asked by Von Thunen, or to an inverse situation finds a ripostein that` just as man is governed in religion, by the products of his own brain, so in

88 Marx K, Capital, v. 1, London, p. 745; investigating the valorization process as the driving force in the `actualprocess of production’ it appears `simple and abstract’ only when we postulate members of society appear aspersons, as owners of commodities and further, that the social product is commoditized. To figure out how an initialoutlay of capital = x gets transformed to x +Δ x the notion would have to find the result in a variable function ortransformed into one in the process; as a constant x would have its incremental value = 0, but when x is found informs of specific use-values, instead of money form, then it can be represented as c [constant magnitude] + v[variable magnitude] = c + v; now the difference Δ ( c + v) = c = ( v = Δ v ) , and since c = 0, the result is v + Δ v.What originally appeared as Δ x is in reality Δ v. p. 996-997

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capitalist production, he is governed by his own hand.’89The `rule’ of capital overlabour is the rule of the product over producer, for commodities becomeinstruments of rule. Confronted by the alienated product, the worker stands at ahigher plane than the capitalist at the outset. Personified capital too has its roots inthe process of alienation but it derives satisfaction from the realm of its own`objectivity’ whereas the worker confronts it as a ` rebel and experiences it as aprocess of enslavement.90 This is basically the position of speculative dialectics,which cannot be grasped by means of thinner historical abstractions employed byunderstanding.

We are not dealing with internal history of science or science discourse or studyingwhat can be termed contact points defined culturally between the centre andperiphery or `transfer studies’ in a diachronic perspective91, hegemonizing scienceor diffusionist models or addressing the constituency of popular science here. Weare concerned with history as duration of the long term whose dynamics are movedby the sails of large social, civilizational or cultural aggregates and their unitswould be demography, production, price behavior, trade, etc . Science is an equallyall encompassing unit that is tied up with other units such as production, trade,culture, with its complex web and institutional formats of knowledge. However inhistorical duration all these units and aggregates move together at a synthetic planeof considerable complexity that abstracts relative time as duration, a curve that allsystems, theories and lines must follow. This is a concrete abstraction, not merely`time-oriented’ or temporal dimension conceived as pre-existing but as being`time-generating’, never fixed nor secure but indeterminate and full of surprise.This is Bergson’s insight, though without factoring in complexity that informedMarc Bloch’s reflection on duration.92 If reality is continual temporal movement

89 Marx K, Capital , v. 1, p. 772

90 Marx K , Results of the Immediate process of production, appendix, Capital, v., 1, p 990

91 Cf. Werner M, Zimmermann B, Beyond Comparison : `Histoire Croisse’ and the Challenge of Reflexivity,Annales, CSS, 2005, Spring, EHESS ,Paris

92 Sweeney R, Annales Legacy : Time and Human Agency, Annales CSS, 2004

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then the present exhibits the same indeterminacy as past; so a person trying tounderstand the present would face the same amount of indeterminacy while dealingwith the past. Bloch did not see the problem as specific to history but as a limit onany scientific discourse on proof. For Bloch, the historian can only transcend thelimits on intelligence by taking recourse to intuition and imagination orunderstanding the past from the present, which he called the `glorious victory ofmind over matter’, or the process of evolution and the cognition of change as acreative process of becoming. Historical cognition so premised not onlyoverthrows the vaunted epistemological autonomy of historical documents butleads to an enlargement of definition of historical evidence that can include all themyriad tracks of the past. No amount of empirical research can provide aknowledge of the past in its totality; rather it is through a critical and intuitivereading of historical evidence that one establishes an appreciation of the richnessand meaning of past in the present. Bloch’s metaphor of tracks is significant. Deadanimals don’t leave tracks and though where they lead may be unknown, they gosomewhere. Similarly, Bergsonian past is the living, indeterminate but notdirectionless and made up of choices with their consequences in the materialworld. From this perspective the natural progression of research should start fromthe best or the least misunderstood to the most obscure region. When change isseen, or it shows itself as the necessity of evolution a different meaning can also beassigned to the process, i.e., the density and intensity of the organization of matter.This shows the tendency of evolution towards increasing complexity of the degreeof organization and information content of materials, from the expansive andintensified `auto-ontic’ field to a trans-contra ontic demystifying level of self-interaction and sublation/aufheben relations. To designate a unit of measure for thisorganization of energy is a problem that has a provisional resolution given by T deChardin’s `complexity value’ of a system. Referring to evolution as a movement ofthe system – grasped as the synthetic moment of intersection mentioned before – inthe direction of higher complexity, de Chardin’s complexity value of the system isa composite measure of 1] number of elements that make up the system and 2] thenumber of interactions among these elements.

The criteria of complexity – not just the number of elements but also the degree ofself-interactions – may be seen to operate as mass on the structure of field or the

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shape of continuum. We may find a temporal motion or `internal motion’[evolution] distinct from spatial motion or `external motion’ or the curvature oftime-continuum, proportional to local complexity or `negentropic magnitudes’distinct from space-continuum, proportional to local mass-energy magnitudes. Themore evolved the matter in given vicinity, the more sharply curved the continuumand greater the acceleration of evolution. But the continuum of this kind –atomsmolecules cellsmansociety - is achieved through qualitativediscontinuity. Each discontinuity, we conjecture involves not just a shift of basebut expansion of base as well. Each discontinuity would resolve itself by anexpanded self-totalization of nature bringing a wider sphere of non-nature / cosmosinto a richer connection with itself. Time becomes the result of material change anddisappears without it. It varies in its rate and flow because local processes vary intheir rates. Here time can be measured by comparisons of rhythms of change ofdifferent material processes.

IV A : INVESTMENTS IN COLONY & CAPITALS RELATION IN WORLDECONOMY - NETHERLANDS

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Early critique [in 1920‘s] of canalization and canal based irrigation/ gravityirrigation by Brij Narain had provided a framework of an environmental impactassessment but absolutist colonial decisionists, the wielders of power and officialsof the civil service were not open to consider divergent views and alternatives as amatter of policy93. Even internal criticism was not accepted because questioningthe validity of policy was understood as weakness other than disturbing theprocedure. Colonel Jarvis, who had come to India with all the right and properconnections and prerequisites in 1823, joined the Bombay engineers for conductinga topographical survey of the Konkan area. His `character armor’,94 part of whichis a self-effacing morality and understanding that comes from experience providedthe insight, without reference to any `civilizing mission’, which he developed toenunciate a diffusionist programme of `British truth and justice’ throughintroduction, education, promotion and diffusion’ of sciences for `Indian citizens’.After completing the topographical survey he was led to `provisional appointment’as surveyor-general of India in 1837 but was stopped by the incumbent, ColonelGeorge Everest, who intentionally refused to retire as expected. Everest hadblocked the younger man’s appointment because he feared that Jarvis was a typewho would upset the hegemonic subordination of Indians while conductingimperial projects, upon whom Everest relied heavily while re-organizing theTrignometrical survey of India. He had seen that most Indians in his employee

93 Brij Narain, Indian Economic Life – Past and Present, 1929, criticizing the `development model’, refers to early19th c. canalization to show huge water loss by run offs, neglect of well irrigation – a practice that economizedwater use, water-logging due to forcing of canal water into sub-soil caused by uncontrolled, irregular flows, faultyalignment and marginal water-proofing all of which increased the hydraulic pressure, over irrigation on `account ofwasteful methods practiced by cultivator, absence and destruction of natural drainage patterns, obstructing naturalrun-offs of rain water in watersheds, turning of land into swamps affecting the top-soil cover with `kallar or layerof alkaline salts, giving rise to cattle diarrhea, malarial epidemics and `spleen fever’ pp 387-390, 393-394; estimatesof total water lost from the source or head-works in Punjab about one-third `is lost in main canal and branches’ andof the remaining water in distributaries, minor and sub-minors, one-third percolates to the soil to raise the springlevel’, p. 386, Brij Narain’s critique of colonial irrationality was partly influenced by W Sombart’s address to the`Verein fur sociopolitik, Leipzig, 1929; for his critique of canal irrigation see pp 380ff; `Development’ as a pan-European word used in colonial period, a `set of actions used by the Europeans to extract profits from the colonies’.Replaced by the next buzz word, globalization, development has suddenly vanished. Wallerstein I, AfterDevelopmentalism and Globalization what ?, Social Forces, March 2005, Yale

94 Although the notion of `character armor’ is taken from W Reich, who used this metaphor to signify a self defencemechanism that workers were lead to perforce put on, suggesting internalizing authoritarian, repressive structuresof ideology; ideology as neurosis. I have separated the element of disowning one’s subjectivity in the name of someabstract principle or morality from the structure of character armour in this case.

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were good learners and efficient, as he wrote to the president, Royal society: `...ifthey [Indian employees] proceed at their present rate of improvement for 2 yearslonger, bid fare to make us independent of Europe, on all but glasses and levels.’95

This attitude that may be read as a cautionary tale is more reflective of power anddomination concerns related to the huge mass of cheap and skilled labour availablein India, signifying for imperial decisions types/forms of labour deployment,subordination and control. Here Everest was repeating a policy matter couched inan attitude of suspicion towards `natives’ abilities and learning-process that hadtaken roots in the latter half of 18th c. as expressed in a letter by the Board ofDirectors in 1771 on their policy towards employment of Indians in the Artillerydivisions : `We are entirely of the opinion that the more the Natives are kept inignorance of the theory and practice of the Artillery Branch the better, but thealmost impossibility of effecting this through the want of an adequate number ofEuropeans reduced us to the necessity of employing Natives in this business.’96In1840’s George Buist arrived in Bombay, advocating far reaching ideas, noting thatmost officers came to India without acquiring basic knowledge for scientificresearch because philosophy, chemistry and natural history was not included in thecurriculum at the educational centres for civil servants. He described theadministration as a secret government, exercising absolute power by controllinginformation and statistics that were dubious and misleading. He found itimpossible to get support from a crustaceous officialdom for change within aframework with ingrained patterns of operation. This lecturer and editor ofBombay Times could not even get an appointment as a science instructor for theIndian navy. He stayed back, and did what was socially possible in his personalcapacity and also sometime secretary, Agricultural society of western India, till1860.97 Buist may be regarded as a person espousing the claims of alternative,universal science, not in terms of some abstraction but very much capable of

95 Letter to Duke of Sussex, president of the Royal society, cited in Science Research for Imperial State, p.98;Jarvis went back to London and in letters to governor-general, Hardinge, proposed some farsighted ideas forimproving the civil services, starting community improvement projects, societies for launching vast literacyprogrammes, technical schools that could employ skilled artisans as faculty members, free access to information,etc. Hardinge just sat upon it.

96 Prasad A, [ed], letter of 2/4/1771, Fort William-India house correspondence and Other Contemporary papersRelating Thereto (Secret and Select Committee), vol XIV : 1752-1781, National Archives of India, Delhi 1985, p.243

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efficacy by all kinds of means and practices that enables socialization throughscience projects.98

What informed Everest was the irrelevance of progressive/reactionary or so calledleft/right ideological positions, reflecting those in Britain in the colonial situation,which explains why it was so easy to marginalize somebody with moralcompunctions and enlightened ideas on science policy at the highest level ofadministration. The trignometrical survey, launched in 1802 and pursuedrelentlessly and systematically throughout the 19th c., for the purpose of terrestrialmeasurement and celestial observation was pivotal to colonial enterprise forprecise and detailed knowledge about the `conquered territories’ and even beyondthat. It was the spectacle, the best advertisement, a showcase of Europeantechnological prowess with many possible fallouts. These surveys were the basis ofthe future lines/paths of communication such as the telegraphs and railways.Celestial observation always advances by increasing cumulatively, which was ofimmediate use in the seas. Topographical surveys, marking boundaries andcontours together with revenue surveys with its details provided the flesh to theskeletal structure resulting out of trignometrical surveys. Men who directed theseprojects knew they had achieved an aura of pioneers or frontiersmen of science thatrequired a staff with substantial mathematical skills, adaption to instruments,innovative and technical enterprise. This was the kind of project that wasdetermined by military and immediate power requirements of the colonialenterprise, which was in turn capable of determining the latter. The fusion oftopographical and revenue survey with the trignometrical one was needed for

97 Science Research for Imperial State, pp 104-107, Buist has left some of his work as an unpaid inspector ofastronomical, magnetic and meteorological observatories. He noted that there was a lack of research instruments forsurvey work that meant using makeshift instruments In addition, instruments like chronometers were old and of poorquality; none of the sextants fitted for offshore observations; no watches or pocket chronometers were provided. Hewas clear that economic progress in India was blocked by self-serving bureaucracy and clerks at Cannon Row andLeadenhall Street, London

98 While sec., Agricultural society Buist proposed utilization of low cost, simple technology such as wind mills of`the type operating in Cairo’, horse-drawn mills for lifting water,, threshing-mill, barley-mill, circular saw, etc.These machines could be built as models in Grant and Elphinston colleges from which copies could be made. Hedevised a project that could improve construction materials as well as increase employment in Bombay through thecreation of joint-stock companies for manufacture of bricks, tiles and pottery. The project could not materializebecause of city regulations prohibiting use of brick and lime kilns that are so essential to urban construction !,Science research for a Modern Imperial State, p. 106

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giving the appropriate shape to the colonial enterprise in the form of state andgovernment. Everest knew decisively what was entailed in reorganizing theTrignometrical Survey of India i.e., consolidating an alien, colonial power with itsproduction requirements that would need to assign the position of subordination ofthe trained employees, which is why 18 Indians at work were sub-assistants out of20, above them were 2 English assistants and a chief assistant.99 Jarvis wasinhibited by his moral character armor for grasping the precise Archemidenianpoint where the forces of science intersected across colonial social space. Buist, onthe other hand, was not as morally inhibited insofar as he was prepared to sacrificethe opportunities then and there and proceed with his activity out of subjectivity.

The absence of Commissions with review and executive powers with regard toundertaking of gargantuan projects involving massive outlays of finance,manpower means of production and raw materials by colonial authorities wasassumed within the framework of policy hierarchy.100 During the 19th c. finance andwarfare was linked, and the military enterprise of colonialism continued all theway to WW 1. In the first half of 19th century, estimates by Kaye suggest that Rs5,000,000/ was spent on `great national works’, not including the costs incurred formaintaining the administration, for setting up the physical infrastructure forcolonial rule, while Rs 30,000,000/ was spent on aggressive wars of conquest.101

Whitcombe takes up investments in canals, straight from `imperial account books’

99 Science Research for a Modern Imperial State, p. 99

100 It was clearly understood by spokesmen of imperial expansion that nothing in the civil, public, administrativeand similar realms was possible until conquests, the main thrust of the colonial enterprise, extended the imperialrealm followed by the consolidation of `alien’ sovereignty, as J S Mill stated vis-à-vis `public works’ they couldonly be done in areas “ that had been conquered and are retained in subjugation by a more energetic and morecultivated people” Mill J S , Principles of Political Economy, v2, p550-1; similar sentiments ere expressed by JThomason, who constituted the first Public Works Deptt., which was justified in terms of “our presence in the Eastdepended on the use of our power to open out the advantages of western civilization to India.”Temple, R, JamesThomason, 1893, p.122

101 Cited by Sangwan, S, Science, Technology and Colonization, an Indian Experience 1757-1857, p.95; ElizabethWhitcombe’s figures for Weastern Jamuna Canal [1820-1846-47] construction comes to Rs 3000000/- including thesystem of administration, Elizabeth Whitcombe , Irrigation, Cambridge Economic History of India, vol 2, 1757-1970, p. 684-685

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that basically narrows it down to expenditure and receipts.102 She does not give anyframework to understand the source of these investments, its linkage withcommercial agriculture, internal trade and exports besides contributing to increasedrevenue rates, subsiding food on one end while reducing per capita foodavailability, increased costs and hyper inflationary movement of agricultural priceson the other. For example, the effect of irrigation on family and farm budgetswould show up a highly inflated expenditure side taken together or singly. Hercalculations pertaining to `returns’ is discrete, sometimes the heads covered under`revenue accounts’ includes rents for watering cattle, transit duty paid for raftingtimber, rent for sale of wood, grass, fodder products under canal irrigated area andthe fines imposed by magistracy for breach of canal regulations and at other times,when the executive and administration got divided, she gives figures from waterrent, at first calculated on three-year averages and later reassessed water rentsbased on a schedule of differential rates according to the value of crops sown[ maximum for sugarcane and minimum for coarse grain].103 One measure of gainsfrom land revenues is given for 1837-1838, a famine year which the canal districts[of western Jamuna canal] survived, yielding crops valued at Rs 19.5 million witha revenue equivalent of Rs 200000/- of the total value, 104 should indicate the rangeof return or the spin-off that the colonial government was receiving. At any rate,there was no scope for public oversight even within the narrow confines of publiclaws, ether under EIC or the Crown. The man who systematized the policyframework on public works under the Crown, Richard Strachey saw them as`works on internal improvement’, `essentially based on their idea of beingprofitable’.105 James Thomason, `the man endowed with an engineering eye’, thedriving force behind the 900 mile long Ganges canal described as a `work ofunequalled class and character’ was in-charge of the newly constituted PublicWorks Department [PWD] in 1854-55, the year when Ganges canal wascompleted. The Ganges canal was the first of the canals to be financed by loan

102 Ibid, p. 677

103Ibid., p. 686-687

104 Ibid, p. 689

105 Elizabeth Whitcombe, The environmental costs of irrigation in British India, Arnold D and Guha R, [eds], OpCit, p 244

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capital.106 Under Thomason the PWD was divided in two wings, the military andcivil, with the immense area under canal and tank irrigation falling under thejurisdiction and authority of the irrigation branch of civil division. It was aninstitution representing the high water mark of colonial neo-utilitarianism projectthat had been firmly established by the Bentham brothers, technocrats likeBabbage and few industrialists in late 1820’s for `experimentation’ andphilanthropy.107 It was an ideology, tacitly approved and put to use as `colonialutilitarianism’ that Henry Lawrence, who had been busy with another canal projectin the doab region between rivers Ravi, Beas and Sutlej expectedly receivedsupport from the man at the helm of Company administration, Lord Dalhousie. Theofficial structure for appropriations was set.

The financial source for colonial `improvement’ projects, including railways camefrom the money raised in Britain through the primary financial institution coveringcolonial-overseas enterprise named `Public Debt’ for investment in colonial India.No other country was forced to give away such an excessive portion to war as theIndian subcontinent, already saddled with huge public debt as returns ongovernment guaranteed interest on railway debentures and Indian bonds. `Nationaldebts’ or a system of public credit had earlier originated in the city states of Genoaand Venice for maritime commerce, trade and the need to emancipate from usuryby merchants and prominent public citizens of those states who created publiccredit institutions or banks open to the state for loans on future tax-revenues.Genoa’s first wave of expansion was ensured by maritime trade, possessingcolonies on the edge of Byzantine that were overseas trading stations on the Blacksea, the source of Genoa’s fortunes. These commercial colonies were lost duringthe prolonged crisis of early 15th c. and before France seized the city, Genoa hadbeen through 14 revolutions [1413-1453] though soon enough the city liberateditself and emerged out of the captivity of territorial states. The second wave of

106 Whitcombe E, The Environmental costs of Irrigation in British India : water logging, salinity and malaria, inArnold S, et al, Nature, Culture, Imperialism, Delhi, 2001, p. 243

107 Ghosh S C, The Utilitarianism of Dalhousie and the Material Improvement of India, Modern Asian Studies, vol12, no 1, pp 97ff

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colonization, compensating the city’s loss of east, was oriented towards the west inSpanish territory at Seville, Lisbon, Valladolid, Antwerp and America by means offounding charters. The western colonies were different from earlier commercialcolonies in that these were colonies of bankers, the result of financial victories inthe west under a financial aristocracy. Genoa meanwhile had become the centre ofredistribution of American silver controlled by financial families of a later period,while in Spain they `blocked the development of capitalism’.108 Thus, the growthand deployment of finance capital, both as outlays for productive appropriationfrom the countryside/ trading colonies on the edge of the Byzantine empire or thenorth African coast rewarding Genoa with its coral fishing and its valorization byGenoese money capital incubating in commercial capitalist ventures, shows thatcapitalism was more tightly based/founded on international trade instead of beingbound up with territorial states, which mercantilism would have us believe.109

Following the foundation of Dutch east India company [VOC] in 1602 that createda vigorous credit and financial market in Amsterdam, the institution of public debtmoved with more than necessary speed, which showed up in world’s first bear raidin 1609/10, and it has been claimed that when William of Orange acceded to theBritish throne in 1689 he introduced techniques of public finance from the Dutchrepublic.110 The E I C in the 17th c. was a monopoly firm with numerous pirates`hanging around’ in the seas but obedient in following the orders from the court ofdirectors similar to the Dutch V O C in league with Barbary pirates, who were infact renegade Dutchmen. Pirates were the informal allies of both John Companyand Jan Company. Holland in the 17th c. was more than a firm in terms its presence

108 Braudel F, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the reign of Philip II, vol. 1, ,London, 1973p.339,342-343, 344; Marx K, Capital v. 3, Moscow, 1971, pp 601-602

109 `History shows us that international trade precede modern national economies..’, Theotonio dos Santos, WorldEconomic System : On the Genesis of a Concept, Journal of World System Research, vol. XI, no. 2, 2000; BraudelF, Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the reign of Philip II, V. 1, P. 342, for Constantinople, pp 348-349;for 16th c. agricultural industry, p 422 ff, Verlaggsystem and rise of urban industry, when capitalism gained its`second wind’ in Mediterranean, p. 430, for J U Nefs `industrial balance sheet’ based on the numbers of artisanatepopulation or in Venice a conservative estimate of 50,000 artisans with their families out of a population of 140,000,p. 427; or the `belated’ rise of Venice, built in sea without vines or cultivated fields, no fresh water, no food supply,from 10th c. as a commercial enterprise that generated productive investments to bring all the lagoons under controland construct her formidable arsenal, giant transport ships construction for crusaders that returned with pepper,spices, silk and drugs, Braudel, F, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th -18th c., The Perspective of the world, London,1985, p 108 110, 114

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in the world market; she ruled through commerce that was intricately bound upwith long-term consumer demand fashioned by an industrious, thrifty, market-oriented working people as Jan de Vries puts it so well.111 Defoe depicted theAnglo-Dutch tension in the first half of 18th c. in the contrast between the wealth ofDutch husband of Roxana and her own source of wealth, where the Dutchman’swealth consists of maritime contracts, shares in slips, stocks in E I C and shares incargo lying in foreign docks, Roxana’s source would be – mortgages upon land andbuildings, securities upon farm free rents and money deposits.’ The slowness ofEnglish emergence in the world-economy, contrasted with the Dutch is indicatedby the agricultural sources of Roxana’s wealth, a sector that the British state wasregulating and intervening thereby forcing agriculture to develop into a `surplus’sector in order to feed the city and create demand for industrial goods, somethingthat the Dutch, centred in Amsterdam, similar to the predecessor city states modeldid not have to engage with though that was also the reason for her long-termdecline and retreat in 18th c.112 In the Indies, though there was no way they coulddrive the British away, after all ships sailing from Dutch ports had to pass theEnglish channel and the British could oust the Portuguese from Ormuz[Hormuz]’which they did in 1622 by joining up with Persia - while the Dutchousted the Portuguese very brutally from the straits of Malacca.113 Yet, ousting thePortuguese from its Persian Gulf strongholds was not as automatic, easy/inevitable

110 Gelderblom O and Jonkar J, Completing a Financial Revolution : the finances of Dutch East India trade and therise of Amsterdam Capital market, 1595-1612, Journal of Economic History [JEH], Vol 64, no. 3 September 2004;In the Indian ocean `trade-cum-piracy’ activities of the Dutch and English converged from 1660’s to prevent Indianshipping from coasting overseas,, after Portuguese were subdued since 1615 with their capture of straits of Hormuzand wars with English by 1665 when Bombay was ceded to the English by the Portuguese government, Foster W,English Factories in India, vol X, Letter from Surat to Madras, 1658, p.272, Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p.71

111 Jan de Vries, Towards History that counts, Address given on occasion of Hieneken prize, 2000; IndustrialRevolution and Industrious Revolution, JEH, 54, 1999; the Dutch in 17th c., unlike English did not have to face thedilemma between riding the logic of market, which hinges on price or the logic of the firm that is based on a failureof market coordinates, for locating the dilemma in the earlier debate on `globalization’ Cf Bairoch, P, et al,Globalization Myths : Some historical reflections, UNCTAD, No. 113, 1996; Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p.205

112 Cited by Joseph Betty, Reading the East India Company, 1720-1840 – colonial currencies of gender, Chicago,2004, p. 41; Betty Joseph reads the same episode as effecting the nexus between colonial wealth and bourgeoispatriarchal family, which is not based on an understanding of the historical context of Anglo-Dutch relations andDefoe is of interest for historians viewpoint for contrasting the Dutchman’s `colonial wealth’ made by investing inEngland but that also implies a temporal dimension which, strictly speaking is not colonial, maybe falling short by10-20 years, or before 1750.

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as Braudel makes it to be as there were no real navigational breakthroughs thatcould secure a clear advantage in the 17th c.114

Given the stakes involved in a highly charged western Hemisphere, Brazil to beprecise, between Netherlands and Portugal as also the shared interest betweenPortugal and Britain on the Portuguese controlled silver mines in Minas Geras alevel of restraint was considered prudent by all the European parties.

Here a word on the predecessor colonial system under Portugal for Dutch-Angloascendency may be in order. It just took 20 years 1499-1520, the reign of KingManuel 1 for Portugal to establish the `State of India [ Estado da India] comprisinga chain of coastal strongholds [fortalezas] and unfortified trading settlements [feitorias , or factories in old English] with `golden Goa as its capital. Portugal’sclaims to conquests and colonization were a number of Papal bulls of 1492 issuedby Pope Alexander IV, who just drew an imaginary line across the Atlantic ocean,authorizing Portugal to conquer and rule newly discovered land east of the linewhile Spain was empowered to rule the lands west of the line.115 By 1640 Antoniovan Dieman would tell VOC directors in Amsterdam that the hopelesslyoverstretched, over-extended `Estado’, after suffering heavy casualties in Ceylonand Malacca against Dutch attacks was virtually finished. In his `Historic tragedyof the island of Ceylon’, Captain Joao Ribeiro made the point: `From Cape of goodhope to Japan we were unwilling to leave anything outside our control. We wereanxious to lay our hands on that huge stretch of 5000 leagues…without calculatingour strength or realizing that this conquest could not last for ever.’ Anotherpeculiarity was the position of sailors in the social hierarchy in both Portugal andSpain, whose very life blood depended on maritime lines. Sailors were ranked onthe bottom of working class, classified with mulattoes, free blacks or Negro slaves.

113 Moreland W H, From Akbar to Aurangzeb – A study in Indian economic history, Delhi reprint, 1990, pp 40-41;the English in 1622 joined the Persians launched a successful attack on the Portuguese fort at Hormuz as a result`Ormuz’ ceased to exist as a port , which was transferred to Bandar Abbas

114 Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 216

115 Shengwu Yu, Vestiges of Colonialist ideology – A comment on the Cambridge history of China : Late Ch’ing,1800-1911, Indian Historical Review, vol. XIV, nos., 1-2, July 1989-Jan 1990, p. 226

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Besides, as there occurred an unprecedented number of shipwrecks from 1640-1650 no wonder, the author of ` The tragic history of the Sea’ is full of denigratingreferences to sailors matching the contempt shown in Spanish literature towardsseamen.116 Surprisingly, their gains in Bengal/Coramandal stretch where thePortuguese settled in `private’ capacity, [though the status of Portuguese as itdeveloped over time may as well resemble outcasts of the author of `Tragichistory..’, mimicking the system of orders and/or castes in Portugal] werenevertheless impressive. Portuguese settlements mushroomed on the banks of therivers of Bengal beginning from Hugly, islands in Delta and Chittagong ,Medinipur, Dacca, Jessore, Barisal and other places as overseas trade passed intotheir hands and they were also involved in inland waterway trade too all the way toPatna and sometimes further upstream. Their settlements fell under a nominalcontrol of the home government from Ceylon; for that matter, the Portuguese hadto obtain a `firman’ [grant] from the Mughal court of Akbar in 1579-1580 beforesetting up in Hugly. In course of time they also made arrangements with theprovincial government, serving mainly in their army. In the wake of increasingcommercial wealth, and growing settlements Catholic missionary activity spreadrapidly, going by the number of Churches established in disparate centres. At thesame time, their setback was equally rapid in the eastern seaboard precisely whentheir commercial activities made its presence felt on the region’s economy, as ifconfirming the premonitions of a sudden decline after 1590 by Diogo do Coutothough not for reasons of `corruption’ or due to `Indianization of the Portugueseempire’, which was observed by Fransico Rodrigues de Silveira.117 Theirsettlements were reduced one by one by local kings and potentates starting from1606 till such time when Hoogly also fell in 1632 to the Mughal army. Piracy inwaterways and ravaging the coasts apart from `filibustering slave tradingoperations against Mughals in Bengal’ abetted by Maghs in Arakan and Bengaldistricts peaked from 1621-’24 when in Chittagong they had brought 42,000 slavesfrom different parts, especially s-e Bengal as some extant caste histories record.118

116 Cited by Boxer, C R, Portuguese India in the mid-seventeenth century, Delhi 1980, pp. 2-3,14

117 Cf Winius G D, The Black Legend of Portuguese India: the Diogo de Couto, his contemporaries and theSoldado Practico , [ed] Teotonio R. de Souza, Delhi. 1985

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The Portuguese introduced horticultural products, shells from Maldives, conch-shells from Tinnevelly, pepper from Malabar, cinnamon, pearls and elephants fromCeylon, gold and silver from Pegu in overseas sea trade ; they built an alms-housein Hugly, the first of its kind, also hospitals in the modern sense, openedmissionary schools and also sent students to Jesuit colleges in Goa. Their majorcontribution lay in the sphere of immaterial goods, namely modern books.119 Thisremains a living proof, going by the number of loan/borrowed words in Bengali ofa major transactional type of acceptance at the level of civilizations/cultures. Thesignificant point is the pattern established by Portugal was made up of almost allthe elements of colonialism, the process of subordination of regional economies ina world economy, not excluding forced territorial `conquests’, assaulting culturaland religious sensibilities, shift towards colonized urban centres, Hugli at theexpanse of established political-administrative centre like Gaur, terrorizing asettled and disarmed populace for picking up slaves, commercialization ofagricultural products newly implanted and meant for exports, capped by attemptsto impose ideological hegemony through religious means and propaganda, openingChurches, etc., all of which reflected in the unsettled and general warlike/ stasis

118 Raychaudhuri T, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir, , Delhi, 1969, pp 112-114; For Thomas Roe’s shiftingposition on Bengal, cautious outlook, as though making risk assessments, Portuguese trade in ruby, topaz, sapphiresfrom Pegu and `returns cloth which is fine‘, Letter to EIC 24/11/1616; To William Robbins at Ispahan, 21/8/1617, toEIC, 14/2/1718 in Foster W [ed] Embassy of Thomas Roe, 1615-19; Travels, Ralph Finch 1583-91, on cotton, Hugliunder Portugal, silk production in north Bengal, close to `Cauchin China’ departure by sea from Bengal, Foster W,[ed] Early Travels in India 1583-1619, London,1921; agricultural produce trade in Rice, Sugar, Sweetmeats by thePortuguese inhabitants, fruits, wheat and sea-biscuits supplied by Portugal, pigs, geese, duck, goat, sheep, fish,Christianity, Jesuits, Augestines, Portuguese half-castes, cotton, silk export, of `every sort’ to Holland, , Kabul,Persia, Syria, `Beirut ’Japan, Europe, Silk manufacture/factories operated by Dutch and English; delta portionsabandoned by inhabitants due to Portuguese and Arracan piracy, reduced to `dreary waste’, Bernier F, Travels in theMoghul Empire, 1656-1668

119 The Botelim do de Institutio, No. 78-1956 at Vasco de Gamma, has a Tentative check list of Portugueseimprints, 1556-1674; Diehls K S, Early Indian Imprints, copy at William Carey Historical Library, Srirampur,Franceso Sacchini, Historia Societaties Jusu, Roma, 1652; the first Sanskrit Grammar book by P de S Bartolommeo;Tamil Catechism was the first book printed in Goa, 1557, an instance of early propaganda literature was printed inGoa before 1557 with a background history : a Huguenot historian-philologist, Joseph Juste Scaliger, known for hiswork on ancient oriental system of chronology, a survivor from St Bartholomew day massacre in 1572 wrote it afterfleeing to Leiden. J Bamaya, J J Scaligar [tr] Robinson G W, Cambridge Mass., 1927; his library had a range oforiental materials in Hebrew, Arabic MS, Chinese and Japanese printed books as well as Syriac and Ethiopian booksthat were bequeathed to the University at Leiden in the year he died, 1593; St Francis Xavier [1506- 1552], buried inGoa, expressed a demand for books on religious propaganda, Prayer books, Catechism literature. Portugaldispatched printing press equipment and technicians to Goa in 1556 and from there printing press sets weredispatched to Abyssinia and Japan, Cf Early Jesuit Printing Press in India , vol. 9, Journal of Asiatic Society ofBengal, 1792 says that the first Jesuit missionary batch embanked at Belam from Ethiopia on March 1556, fourmonths before the death of St Ignatius Loyola and among them as one Juan de Bustamente who knew the art ofprinting; the first Indian language printed was The Cartilha, 1554 in Lisbon

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type situation that was prevailing, which weakened the hold of centralized Mughalpower leading to Mughal army intervention against Portuguese occupied Hugli in1631, urged on by the Dutch, and the British through diplomatic maneuvers in theMughal court. What we find in the sea board from Ceylon, Coromandal,Chittagong, via Pegu and through Malacca all the way to Japan is the growth ofsecondary sub systems, mostly imploding within itself with the exception ofCeylon and Malacca [which had lost its significance]. Yet, after the implosion,traces and patterns of a sub-systemic type were kept and superseded by thesuccessor system. With the establishment of colonial pattern, there was no goingback to any pre-colonial conditions. The English company had been long reluctantto take its ships to Hugli via the riverine route and the earliest E I C exports werefrom the sea facing ports of Higli and Balasore. However, to curtail costs involvedin trans-shipment, the company asked its employees to explore the possibility ofnavigating the estuarine part for entry of sea vassals. Considerable time was spentfor noting distances from point to point, measuring water depth, orientation ofcurrents and so forth. It was only in 1680 that `Falcon’ one of E I C ships was ableto reach Hugli, the same year when G Herron, a company pilot established the firstscientific chart of the estuary.120 While the 17th c. saw the virtual disappearance ofPortuguese and replacement by more advanced levels of world-economies, theDutch and English were no less enthusiastic about profits that could be made fromslave trade from the Bay of Bengal littoral area. However, the Mughal court andprovincial officials did take exception to slave trading from Bengal and Arakan,which was among the reasons for capturing the slave filled settlement in Hugli andlater in 1665, Chittagong. In 1657, Pipli too was taken over and from 1660’s slavetrade that had passed over to Dutch hands disappeared from Bengal. But theCoromandal coast continued to contribute to slave trading for indigo plantations inJava till the last decade of 17th c., when the Mughals banned the practice in Madrasin 1688. Shivaji had earlier prohibited slave trading from the Carnatic coast in1670. After the stoppage of slave supplies from the Indian coast, slave tradingresumed from Madagascar from 1690’s.121

120 The diary of W Hedges, vol. 3, CCXXX; Deloche J, Transport and Communication in India prior to SteamLocomotion, vol 2, water transport, Delhi, 1994, p. 121

121 Arasaratnam S, Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in 17th c., in Mathews K S, [ed], Mariners, Merchants andOceans : Studies in Maritime History, Delhi, 1995

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In the Malabar the Portuguese record was staggered. The trading outposts werealready there with Chinese involvement till late 15th c though it ceased by the closeof 15th c after the death of Zheng He, the commander of Nanking garrison inCalicut with the flaring of anti-Chinese violence possibly due to Arab instigation.The Portuguese had got German merchants after a treaty was signed with thePortuguese king granting them license in 1503. Three ships arrived in the sameyear. Merchant houses such as Welser’s, Fugger’s and other Augsburg merchantshad invested 20,000 florins, 6,000 florins and 36,000 respectively but there waslittle trading till mid 16th c. Jakob Fugger had tried to rescue trade by sending10,000 ducats but in vain. However, the joint efforts of Philip Eduard and OctavianSecundus together with Weslers formed a company in 1580 and over the course of17th c. their business from Malabar coast expanded modestly under five agencyestablishments which they managed to set up. Their prosperity declined by lastquarter of 17th c. while the house of Fugger’s had given up, barring a tokenpresence from mid 16thc.122 The Portuguese had to contend with some resistanceand confusion on the issue of collecting taxes together with local authorities inCochin and it was partly sorted out by 1584 when they reached an agreement toestablish a general custom house. This eased Europe bound trade from Malabar.123

Ormuz, a stronghold on the mouth of the Persian side of Persian Gulf had been thestrategic outpost for Portuguese control of the maritime region for close to 150years.124 Hormuz was the `third key’, after Malacca and Goa of the Portuguese

122 Fugger Rosemarie, The commercial activity of Fugger family in 16th c., in Mathew K S, [ed], Mariners,Merchants and Oceans : Studies in Maritime History, Delhi, 1995

123 Matthew K S, Taxation in the Coastal Towns of western India and Portuguese in the 16 th c., in Mathews K S,[ed] Op Cit.

124 Romerini M, The Portuguese in the Arabian peninsula and the Persian gulf Dutch-Portuguese colonial historylink, 2006; Hormuz was the major maritime gateway to Persian Gulf during 17-18 th c. It was the point of trans-shipment of merchandize for Karman by the year 1000. About 1100 it became a seat of petty dynasty whoseancestors were probably of Omani origin. Yet up until 1320, it wasn’t Hormuz but the island of Kyesh thatdominated trade. It functioned as a point of trans-shipment for goods coming from Indian Ocean and from SafavidIran and Levant

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empire. The earliest attempt to capture Hormuz was in 1507 by Afonso deAlbuquerque which was repulsed by the local king. The second attempt in 1515succeeded and the fortress was occupied by the Portuguese and with the capture of`Ormuz’ all the other ports on Persian Gulf became tributary of Portugal. But thesettlement, which lasted till 1620/1650 was never the firm terra firma that Portugalhad wished, which made it imperative to take over the port of Muscate [andKhalat] on the Arabian coastline in 1526-’29. In 1542/43 the entire custom duty ofHormuz was assigned to the king of Portugal but soon, in addition to localresistance the Portuguese had to face the Turks who attacked Muscate in 1559 afterfailing in their initial foray to capture Bahrain had failed in 1551. In 1588 the fortat Muscate was rebuild and in 1602, Shah Abbas of Persia expelled the Portuguesefrom Bahrain. By 1622, after a 4 month siege of `Ormuz’ the Portuguese wereforced to surrender before the combined naval forces of Persia and Britain. Thoughthey kept trying to get Ormuz back, it was mostly in vain and Portuguese powergot limited to Muscate. Nevertheless, after negotiating a treaty with Persia,Portugal regained a foothold in the gulf region in Bandar-e-Kong and later in Julfarin 1631; in 1632/34 peace treaties were signed with England and Persia. In effectthe loss suffered in 1622 after the defeat in `Ormuz’ was now more than made upthough Muscate remained their key stronghold. This period ended in 1648/50 afterArabs forced the Portuguese to raze their fortification and in 1650 theOmanites.125The Dutch basically got into somebody else’s shoes that nobody waswearing as they adjusted with the Anglo-Persian alliance that made them claim ashare in the Persian gulf trade even though she had declined to take part in oustingthe Portuguese with the Anglo-Persian combined forces. From 1623 their maincontribution was to shift from earlier methods of cartographic surveys of thePersian Gulf to conducting a series of hydrographic surveys, which served as amodel for several English, French and even German cartographers later.126 TheDutch replaced the earlier prototypes with the newer models of Persian Gulf calledthe `Dutch school’ that became the most sought after level of information in

125 Romerini M, Op Cit., p.6-7; Al Maamiry, et al, Omani-Portuguese history, Delhi, 1982, pp80; Sergeant R B,The Portuguese off the south Arabian coast : Hadrami Chronicles Oxford, 1963, the book also includes Yemeni andEuropean accounts of Dutch pirates of Mocha in 17th c., pp.233,

126 Which does nor reduce the significance of Portuguese cartographers, cosmographers who knew their detailswell from a study of mathematics, Dejanirah C, Bacque-Grammont, Taleghani M,et al.,[eds], Atlas Historique dugolfe Persique XVI-XVIII siecles, reviewed by Olivera F R, JPH, vol. 5, no.2, Winter 2007; Braudel, F, Op Cit, p.216

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Europe. They went ahead and formed private alliances with the English by takingthe initiative in clearing the way for the English in the Bengal trade in the first halfof 17th c.;127 from the second half of 17th c. to bring down Indian/ Bunya-owned inmost cases and `Moorish’ shipping vassals, sinking or capturing them at the time ofShah Jahan’s reign.128 The result was Indian shipments and sea faring vassalsdeclined together with the port of Surat, whereas English piracy went ahead,peaked in 1695 when the pirate Henry Avey captured `the great Mughul’s treasurefleet’ which so angered Indian opinion in the eyes of the Company that it employedCaptain Kidd to fight piracy since they seem to have served their purpose.

However, in 18th c., the financial crisis in Holland due to over accumulation andlow interest rates created a prosperity that was embarrassing since it was so great itcould not be absorbed anywhere at all, i.e., after all the ostentatious expenditurehad been laid out by the spread out Dutch elite, leaving a huge amount of wealthwithout opportunity. It was to England that this surplus capital flowed by the Dutchsubscribing to English public debt/state loans, speculating with shares of E I C,Bank of England for much of 18th c., thereby giving a boost to English credit. Notthat Holland did not find its way into the `protected’ market in Britain – there wereways of bypassing Navigation acts, besides there were large Dutch trading firms inLondon and they brought huge volumes of colonial products for auction held by EI C.129’When England turned against Holland for the fourth and last time in

127Though Tapan Raychaudhuri has a detailed account of the coming of Europeans in Bengal, he seems to miss outon the aspect of Dutch risk-taking before the British who were awaiting the outcome of Dutch venture in Bengal at atime when social conditions were very unsettled Raychaudhri, T, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir, pp 96-97;Moreland W H, Op Cit., pp. 46-48, is clearer on this even though the E I C waited till the capture of Chittagong andouster of the Portuguese, who were then using a mix of piracy and riverine trade to Patna, from Hoogly in 1632 byMughul forces

128 As Paelsaert, a remarkable observer put it :” Formerly, when the coast was unknown to English, a veryextensive trade was carried out in Surat by Moslems, but it has now fallen off greatly…all the chief sea-ports whichwere recently so flourishing have collapsed…Ormuz, Mocha, Aden, Dadhol, and also the whole of Goa coast. ..Allmerchants from whatever country they come complain bitterly. Portuguese, Moslem and Hindus all concur onputting the blame for this state of things entirely on the English and on us, saying that we are the scourges of the seaand their prosperity. Previously every year the number of ships sailing from Surat alone had four or five of theKing’s great ships, each of 400 or 500 last [ 2 for Achin, 2 for Ormuz, 2 for Bantam, Macassar…besides smallerships. Nowadays the total is very small, “ Jahangir’s India, Cambridge, 1925; Foster W, English Factories, Vols, xii,210, viii, 163, ix, 341,, x, 272; on Dutch sources at a glance See, Brij Narain, Op Cit, pp 67-75; Habib I. TheAgrarian System of Mughul India, Delhi, 1999, p. 71, n 21

129 Braudel F, Perspective of the world, p. 261

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1782-’84 that war was very much on the cards, arising partly out of reactionaryfeelings created by the presence of Dutch `foreign’ money in England other thanthe interests of the Stadtholders though it ended with occupation of Ceylon by theEnglish However, so too was the less expected Dutch `patriotic response’, whichwas also a class struggle, the first revolutionary uprising in mainland Europe.Under considerable military pressure Amsterdam strangely capitulated to aPrussian detachment without firing a shot that lead to waves of systematic pro-Orange reaction ` having fascist overtones’.130 Here was a serious social conflictdivided in two factions; eventually, the patriotic resort to terror, being soamateurish with makeshift militias was no match for Orangist mobs using violencein order to replace burgomasters and aldermen in the `regencies’. Close to 40,000patriots fled to Brabant in France alone.

Going back in time, in spite of the series of Anglo-Dutch wars towards the close of18th c., London had owed much of its monetary prosperity to finances coming fromAmsterdam at least till 1770’s. This consolidated British public debt, viewed byDefoe and reflecting prevailing English public opinion as `bubbles, stock-jabbing,lotteries, annuities, tontine, navy-bills, public securities and circulating exchequerbills’ and so on131. This shift of finance towards London enabled the E I C toconsolidate and sustain its military enterprise for conquests around Asia from thesubcontinent and going around in Europe to further its `interests’ irrespective ofwhether any of the states were absolutist, constitutional, despotic, republican, etc.,as its own history and trans-historical relations with Amsterdam showed. 132Thespecificity of the British state consisted in its hyper legal function that wassystematically allowed to roll through bloody legislations, ever increasing penalsanctions executed from its early beginnings by lesser officials like constables,churchwardens, disgruntled neighbours, all kinds of masters and employers underthe `master-servant law’ that was effective from middle ages to 19 th c., supportedactively by the tiny fraction of rate paying citizenry, city and church courts,common law courts that were coming under the influence of political parties,governors, officers called Justices of Peace who were empowered by central

130 Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 276

131 Defoe D cited by Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 376

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authorities under royal charter managed by a board of governors, made responsibleby the Parliament and local authorities, county governments, sessions quartersunder Justices, circuit judges went about enforcing statutes passed by parliament,municipalities. These hierarchical ties and relations formed a `national network’ forsubjecting/jailing/penalizing poor men and women for a gamut of moral, sexualoffences such as vagrancy, beggary and `labour offences’ to petty theft, etc., aprocess lasting for well over 500 years.133 This was a protectionist, heavy handed,interventionist, aggressive state as it unfolds in history. But there are also thosemoments of `free’, innovative work at a time when invention and discovery

132 J Acharya in his brief study of the state-form makes the error of correlating the transitional economy and societyin capital’s prehistory or `primitive accumulation’ phase with the Absolutist state as it existed in France, `terming itas `the-capitalist transitional state [absolutist state]. Further, this phase is shown as the necessary transitional phasecorresponding to manufactory `stage’ prior to its passage to industrial phase of the `posited’, non-transitional modeof capital’s reproduction without showing either logically or historically why this transition from manufacture tofactory should occur or why should the industrial-capitalist `hegemonic state’ not be considered similarly as atransitional form. His main source is Lublinskaya’s work on French absolutism; but her conclusions say quite theopposite, i.e., that absolutism was indifferent to manufactory capitalism rather than encouraging, one result beingthat France could not transit or catch up in time with industrial capitalism while also loosing her battle for colonialpossessions against England by early 1760’s. How would one explain, following this logic, the sustained destructionof the manufactory-cum-financial system of India by British colonial policies and use of sheer violence? Thecomplexity, the term `concrete’, repeatedly emphasized by Marx as the only level for thought to appropriate realityseems to be missing in Acharya’s study, which renders much of the conceptualization to the domain of abstract,Acharya J, Nehru Socialism – colonialism, capitalism and ideology in the making of State Policy p. 18-20 , 22, 30-33; Transporting this logic to the colonial historical dynamic by presupposing the state in the initial period as`Absolutist-colonialism which passes over to Capitalist-colonialism’ seems to be driven by a high dose ofanalogical positivity given that there is no sociological grounding even for claiming such a dynamic either in termsof structure or the diachronic/ genetic/ historical level of conceptualization, barring some references to Gadgil or hismention of modernization theory/schema deriving thereby that the latter form of colonial state was the agency forsetting in motion tendencies towards a `first phase’ of bourgeois economic revolution, which moreover,presupposed [ objectively] in the political level in the critique of colonialism [ or its own critique presupposed astendency !] by a `nationalist intelligentsia’, that set the stage for the second bourgeois revolution of the industrialtype. The main problem seems to be the abstract level of conceptualization, e.g., the notion of `capital ingeneral’/`concept of capital’ is identified with the colonial state as an extension of British industrial capitalindependent of mediations of particularity, many capitals/ intra-sectored/trans-`firm, etc. Competition is taken up atthe political level as the `necessary illusion’, the political form of appearance between individual wills’, which isdismissed tout court `because it is like the Kantian ideal which is always to be striven for’ but never attained. [pp.97-98] But where does Kant talk of such an ideal? Is there a confusion between the `ought’ and the `ideal’? Theexpression, `you ought because you can’ is Kant’s but the longed for `can’ is an abstraction since the riposte `youcannot because you `ought’ is it’s abstract negation. Kant’s `ought’ is infinite, opposed to limit as finite. Becausereason, and thought are considered finite, one ought to go beyond to its opposite, limitless i.e., what free fromlimitation. However, just a reference to abstract universal means that the limit cannot be transcended. So the `oughtto’ can only be a finite transcending of the limit, the opposition of in-itself to limitedness. Only understanding canderive satisfaction from opposing everything there is with ought. In the real world, however, reason is not in such abad shape as it ought to be. Because it appears it must be demonstrated; appearing in the real <world> because theideal is realized, attained, actualized. Nevertheless, Acharya’s theorization may claim some novelty in terms ofputting forward derivations from the concepts that one finds in the German debates of 1970’s on State, state-form,state-life, state determination, referencing, etc., which is brought to bear on determinations of state-forms in colonialand `independent’ India.

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inhered in general scientific culture outlining Britain’s `social specificity’ such asillustrated by overcoming the immense barrier posed by `longitude’ due toindustrial ingenuity and the sustained effort of the mid 18th c. blacksmith, theclockmaker, John Hamilton. He took the cumulative process of the struggle `to findthe longitude’ raging in Europe since the 15th c. that included various clockworkconstructs of Galileo, Cassini, Huygens, Newton, Halley, The Longitude Act of1714 passed by British parliament that set a king’s ransom exceeding the jackpotpurses offered periodically for finding a workable method and he did somethingNewton feared was impossible. The portable precision time keeping devise - themarine chronometer -of Harrison had all the previous defects sorted and thecomplexity of the longitude problem already hardwired into its works so that theuser in the seas didn’t have to master mathematics or astronomy or gain experienceto have a go. It took above 40 years of struggle and political intrigue before hisdevise was launched and another decade for him to claim his rightful money fromKing George III in 1773.134

Though Harrison’s clocks, accepted gradually from 1760’s to 1790 , when theywere getting used gave England a huge advantage and lead in establishing realnaval supremacy, yet the institution of public debt continued to remain the majorbreakthrough. The growing tentacles of the system of public debt would, from late18th c onwards, assume `powers of creation’ by turning money into capital without

133 No other city in the 16th c. rivaled London when it came to the size and scale to `handle the problem’ posed bythe poor, or to clear the city streets from beggars, the homeless, prostitutes, destitute, ragged vagrants and so forth;Simon D, Master and Servant in Saville [ed] Democracy and labour movement, London,1954, Cockburn J, Historyof English Assizes 1558-1714, Cambridge, 1972, Innes Joanna, Prisons for the poor, in Snyder F et al [eds], Labour,Law and Crime – an historical perspective, pp 60 ff; for 14th c. contrast between England and France, Mollat, M, ThePoor in the Middle Ages, an essay in social history, Yale, 1986,207-208, for disturbances due to infiltration ofpaupers in the ranks of poor and measures of ideologues pp 325-328; for 16 th c. Mediterranean centre’s, Braudel F,The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II, vol. 2, p 739, 742-743 and risingpauperization inexorably drawn to the horrors of 30-years war in the first half of 17th c., p 743

134 Dava Sobel, Longitude, New York, 1995; Harrison constructed friction free clocks, requiring no lubrication andno cleaning , made from rust free metal that kept their moving parts perfectly in balance regardless of the conditionsthat tossed around it in the high seas . He did away with the pendulum and combined metals in such a way thatwhen one component expanded or contracted with changes of temperature so did the others. His clocks, whose firstand second versions, in 1737 and 1740 prepared the way for the third and final version that took close to two moredecades to get completed was not immediately accepted, though the military frigates would find it useful from1760’s, which was a solid advantage from anything devised earlier when there are hundreds of instances of vassalsdestruction because of longitude ignorance.; Thompson E P, Time, Work, Discipline and Industrial Capitalism, Pastand Present, 1967, p 65

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risk, either in industry or usury. Monies of creditors to state were transformed toPublic bonds ,which brought the financial cabals in the middle, mediating betweenthe state and manufacturers, tax-farmers, merchants and other creditors whilegiving rise to all kinds of negotiations and speculations, in a word `giving rise tomodern bankocracy’, as Marx had summarized its history, from 13th to 19th c. 135

In addition to reimbursing stockholders of East India Company, paying the costs of1857 revolt and also to finance British colonial military supremacy in Asia,military expenditures were never less than 25 % of the annual budget and close to35% including the police in the subcontinent.136 In an article devoted to exposingthe `myths’ arising from seeing too many similarities between `globalization’before WW 1 and `globalization’ in late 20th c. , Paul Bairoch says that it would bea myth to consider that in the late 19th c., capital flows were dominated by thesentiment of private investors. Rather Bond issues dominated over other debtinstruments [notably equities] and the floatation of new issue dominated trading ofsecond-hand debts. Significant proportion of these flows brought together`developing’ countries on issue of long-term liabilities with private individuals andfinancial institutions in `developed’ countries seeking long-term investments. Thebulk of foreign lending went into railways, utilities and public works. One of themost important features of international capital market at this time was theinfluence of government borrowing – e.g., 70 % of outstanding British long-terminvestment consisted of government and railway bonds. Besides countries likeIndia which was under the gold standard had to sacrifice short-term economic

135 Marx K, Capital, vol., 1, p. 919, but more significant was the steady silver supply from Minas Geras that Englandused to bombard the Indian subcontinent through world trade in 18th c. , ., Vilar,P, History of Gold and Money,London, 1976; the spoils from the national debt serviced by the state by extracting tribute was conducive torentiers, recovering the fortunes of fallen landed aristocracy by the Indian army and civil service personnel andabove all the middle class investors from south England and London, who had become the most vociferoussupporters of free trade for subsidizing them from the tribute expropriated from the subcontinent even during thedecades of massive famines. Davis M, Late Victorian holocausts : El Nino famines and the making of the ThirdWorld, p. 299; `The extravagant emphasis on the subcontinent’s agricultural resources is explained by ideas ofstrengthening British empire’ India was exporting wage-goods/labour intensive goods, e.g., close to 15 -17% ofwheat to Britain in the last two decades of 19 th c., the last decade was the deadliest famine decade of 19 th c.,BrijNarain, , Op Cit., p.372, 436; the famine year of 1870-’71 in Bengal coincided with 25 % of rice output ending up asexports, Cf my Ph.D thesis, CHS/JNU, Material Culture and Public Law in 18-19th c. eastern India, 1991

136 Davis Mike, Late Victorian holocaust : El Nino famines and the making of the third world, p.298, 302

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welfare for financial discipline necessary for chasing the chimera of `long-termstability and growth.137

A few words on state-forms and government, or some preliminary observations onthe Dutch state is relevant not only because the unifying thread is the world-economy, but more specifically, while it presupposed a world-market it posited aworld-economy in terms of being presupposing becoming but by sublating[grasping/lifting or keeping/ preserving and superseding] becoming as abstractionand positing itself at another level. The presupposition was made up of a series ofscales and measures – distance, geographical, competition, etc. – while the resultwas a sublation to quality, which has the effect on the centre of any world economyby radiating powers of attraction and hegemony. It is also important to stress Jan deVries’s critique breaching the dividing walls erected by conventionalhistoriography on the Industrial revolution and French revolution, the argumentthat these `events’ liberated a world that had been held under the grip of Malthus.Based on long term consumer demand of an industrious people committed to`market-oriented work’ or shall we say a consciousness of a framework that madethe separation of labour from immediate subjective conditions to somethingalienated, objectified as necessary or value added work posited the economy ashighly advanced prior to an industrial economy.138 For Sombart, the establishmentof the `modern’ colonial system and modern state appeared instantlyinterdependent, `one is inconceivable without the other’ whereas thedestiny of capitalism is bound up with both. 139First, in the outer zone ofAmsterdam as the centre of world-economy/weltwirtschaft lay the colonies of eastIndies where they were more successful than in the west. Colonies wereestablished, as with earlier patterns of city-state based world-economies, by force,take-over’s, ousters by army, destruction of armed-fleets of the pre-existing power,Portugal in the case of Dutch and the initial conquest or colonization of the needed

137 Bairoch P, and Kozul-Wright R, Globalization Myths : Some historical reflections on integration, growth andindustrialization in world economy, UNCTAD, no 113, 1996, pp 12-13, 25-26

138 Jan de Vries, Towards History that counts, 2000, comments on the volume and value of painting at the time ofthe Dutch republic

139 Sombart W, The Jews and modern capitalism, Ontario, 2001

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territory under commercial and economic imperatives determined by central banksand public finances, armed with `instruments of power and domination.140 Second,Amsterdam, like previous city states / stadtwirtschaft did not have to carry theburden of the primary sector but that made consumption of grain, meat, salt,primary as well as some manufactured products dependent on overseas or foreigntrading. Most of the needs and luxuries came from distant parts, well beyond theimmediate surroundings, which were picked up from the trading circuits by theiragents or merchants while the producers who labored need not have been aware forwho they were working for as much as the consumers in Amsterdam could bebothered about their conditions of production. Third, to a certain extent thegovernment, which sat in Hague was often ineffective and involved in internecinequarrels among the seven or so provinces; a weak government helps capitalism toprosper in many ways, yet if one considers the state as an entity united with itssocial bases then irrespective of whoever was in power – whether the House ofOrange governed as Stadtholders or under republican rule – Holland was always ina position to impose her will due to its considerable economic superiority.141

Whoever held power, Holland would subordinate everything else to serve itscommercial interests which meant guarantee of peace and security by militarypolicies when that involved building powerful armed fleets. In 1645, the Dutchfleet intervened to end a war between Denmark and Sweden in the North Seafollowed by delivering a blow to Britain in the first Anglo-Dutch war of 1652-‘53.In the end what mattered for the Dutch was maintaining its prestige and equallydetermined to impose respect, even though the roots of the seven provinces, whoconsidered they were sovereign republics were busy maintaining their armies in aturbulent period, were archaic. Matters of prestige and standing, however, cameand rested in the Netherlands, oscillating between Amsterdam and sometimesHague or relatively small centres like Rijnsberg where Henry Oldenberg, thesecretary of the Royal society of England, the English translator of Bernier’stravels in India, spent a day with Spinoza. 142Centres of weltwirtschaft have

140 Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 295

141 Israel J, The Dutch Republic : its rise, greatness and fall, 1477-1806, Oxford, 1995

142 Popkin R H, Spinoza, Oxford, 2007, p. 45

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attracted the learned and powerful minds of the times and the cities of Netherlandwere no different. Spinoza was patronized by Peter Serrarius, a radical Protestantmerchant after the former was excommunicated from the Jewish community inAmsterdam and later the philosophically inclined merchant Simon de Vries offeredhim a monthly pension so large that Spinoza settled for half the sum for the rest ofhis life from 1661. However, the short-term, if we were to take the measure of onelifetime of 45 years, included its dramatic moments and fluctuations taking place inthe brittle political and cultural plane. Taking the long term, extending beyondcenturies, Amsterdam was the main funnel for distributing among other goodsbooming porcelain imported from China in 17th c. carrying mimben images thatfigured an entire economic doctrine, Wu-Wei which not only got widely diffusedbut went on to form the basis of physiocracy. The cartographic workshops ofNetherland were the global centres of map production and 17 th c, Flemish andDutch school of painting could produce the best painting in great numbers, whenquality and quantity went hand in hand because of the production of materials andcanvases in Netherland as Jan de Vries says so eloquently.143Intersection of diverseconjoncturs and cross-currents is a fertile field of studies interested in `transfers’,`borrowings/acceptance’, comparisons, `histoire croisse’ in brief but above all thereis also the not too visible level of synthesis, in the deep currents of historical timewhich eludes the grasp of contemporaries.

Amsterdam did not stand on its own as the heart of world economy, neitherHolland but the whole of Dutch seaboard was open to maritime trade, Zeeland andFriesland, Groningen and part of Utrecht were all linked to world trade byspecializing in some branch of the economy or the other, according to Jan de Vries.The population expansion of the urban complex - 1,000,000 in 1500 to 2,000,000in 1650 out of which 1,000,000 were urban residents- cannot be accounted bynatural increase or any Malthusian dynamics.144 The expansion was the result of a

143 Gerlach Christine, Wu-Wei in Europe : A study of Eurasian economic thought, LSE; Jan de Vries, Op Cit, ;Wu-Wei originated in Han dynasty around 200 B C-0A D, literary translation – action by non-action, or doing nothingand yet there is nothing that is not yet done; from Hui Nan Tzu’s treatise, of western Han dynasty : `what is meantby Wu-Wei is that no personal prejudice – public or private will – desires or obsessions interferes with universalTao – the law of things. Reason must guide action in order that power may be exercised according to intrinsicproperties and natural trend of things’.

144 Braudel F, Perspective if the World, p. 184

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demand for foreign workers. Germany was a pool of cheap labour providingNetherland with men for army, navy, work in field or towns; workers from Ypresand Hondschoote were responsible for textile boom in Haarlem, in the latter part of17th c. the economy was boosted by the outpouring of French Huguenots after therevocation of the treaty of Nantes [1685]. Amsterdam grew from 50,000 souls in1600 to 200,000 in 1700 filled with the throng of Flemings, Walloons, Portuguese,Germans, Jews who became craftsmen, mariners, carpenters, workers in textilecentres and so forth. A huge crowd of proletarians filled the slums in Amsterdamand subsisted on inferior foods. Even though fishing of herring was prohibited inNovember month by public notice, it was nevertheless tolerated because it helpedthe poor. Yet not all immigrants came to Holland for making a fortune. Many werefleeing wars and religious prosecution from neighbouring areas. This madetoleration prevail together with individual liberty, meaning in effect acceptingpeople as they were since they all promoted to the wealth of the republic. Freedomof conscience went together with charitable activities for tampering class struggles.There was considerable poverty, as depicted in paintings in the 17th c. though therich were richer than anywhere else.145

The internal structures of `unified’ provinces remained under the ruling plutocracyof Holland, made up of regents, a unified political elite, with power in every townoffice passing into their hands at a time when they were the `burgers’ who re-occupied the alderman’s offices, the political beneficiaries of the war againstSpanish rule. The reformed church remained under urban authorities that wereconsecrated as regents, not so much as a favour, after the religious crisis of 1618-1619, which was some kind of `blessing in disguise’, sparing Netherlands from theintense religious conflicts, witch persecutions though never entirely free. Therewas a culturally interdependent body of some 2000 regents, their source of powerbeing money and a shared background where the merchants participated and thatmeant strong ties with commercial and overseas companies. But this power basedon wealth perpetuated the inequalities, as of yore thus marking a constant level ofsocial tension. To a considerable extent the rich did not flaunt their wealth or145 Braudel F, Perspective of the World. 182, 185

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displayed their pomp , matters considered prudent to conceal for the fear ofoutbreak of open hostilities with the commoners that simmered in molecular formslike small disputes. But the staid and apparently tolerant state of affairs changedfrom 1650, the year of Descartes’ death, after the republicans came to power. Later,Johan de Witt the leading republican, as the Grand Pensionary guided the affairs ofNetherlands till early 1670’s. The oligarchy was compelled to take on new,progressive tasks and withdrawing from business may have led them to yield to thetemptations of luxury, given its fabulous accumulated wealth. The `golden age’ of17th c. were mainly these years, when publishing flourished as did painting and lensmaking. Loosening of the purse strings boosts the production of cultural goods andNetherlands was hardly an exception. At the same time, a major part of theaccumulated wealth was getting redirected from trade to credit operations, topurchasing public/government stocks that was no longer limited to Amsterdam buttending towards London, leading to the growth of a rentier class open to Frenchcultural influences consisting of opulent splendor, fairy-tale luxury whereas themoments of creative burst that had broken across Netherlands could not last long.We can take Spinoza’s peak period of productivity and/or the flourishing of theDutch school of painting as a time-scale, a diachronic measure. Both flourished forabout 2 decades, while the school of painting barely outlived Rembrandt’s death in1669, Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published in 1670. Emergingout of a century of clandestine printing and publication of Protestant religiousmaterials, Dutch publishers were not just the leading printers but also adept atgetting their products past any kind of censorship. Then there was an underhandrelation with authorities that circumvented any ban on publication. Yet aware thatthe revolutionary potential of the Tractatus could invite big trouble, Spinozapresented himself in very mild terms together with an open to adjustments kind ofphraseology in the Preface. The book appeared anonymously in Latin during 1670,the title page indicating that it had been printed in Germany. Amazingly it gotpublished in several editions the same year proceeding to become a bestseller allover Europe very soon.146 There was considerable pressure on De Witt to imposecensorship which he ignored while at the same time avoided meeting Spinoza, the

146 Isreal B, Radical Enlightenment, Oxford, 2001, pp. 275-284, despite the denunciation of the book by sections ofthe Dutch and French Reformed church in Netherlands; for rise of Protestant centres as centres for publishing civicbooks such as Leiden, Amsterdam with Elzevir family and pirate editions, etc., Chartier R and Roche D, The Historyof the Book, in Aymard M et al [eds], French Studies in History, v. 2, pp 278-280

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author of Tractatus147 because of reaction that fused politics and cultureconspiring/threatening the republic. Reaction it would be in Netherlands resultingin the ousting of De Witt by the House of Orange and the French invasion of 1672,though militarily it was a failure on the other hand it `succeeded almost completelyon the cultural plane. The ruling rich had already embraced French luxuries andthat included language as well. French gained ascendency with the oligarchy,which was also another way to stand aloof from the populace, who were nowderided for speaking Flemish, `the language of the ignorant.148’ However, theTractatus appeared after being published in French in 1671 under three separatetitles. Spinoza’s ideas became so widespread in France and with the reading publicthat `Emergency Spinoza’ shook up philosophical circles. Leibniz took uponhimself the task of damage control writing how `horrible’ and `impudentlyintolerable’ his ideas were in letters to a French theologian.149 The loomingpresence of France in the affairs of Holland had also compelled Spinoza to visitUtrecht, apparently at the invitation of the very prince of Conde who had attackedNetherlands, when the dykes were opened to repulse the attackers though there isno direct evidence whether Spinoza met him or not. Returning from Utrecht in1674, news of Orangist reaction conveyed that an angry mob had killed Johan deWitt and had dismembered his body. Spinoza was to later tell Leibniz in their onlymeeting at Leibniz’s initiative that he had made a placard in Latin saying `This isthe ultimate in Barbarism’, which he intended to carry into the mob but for hislandlord who restrained him physically from falling another victim on that tragicday.150 Anyway, with this turning of tide in the sphere of politics and cultureSpinoza did not go ahead with publishing his Ethics since he knew that authoritieswould step in, even after the subterfuge involved in publishing Tractatus. In 1675,the year he completed the five books on Ethics, he approached his publisher withthe manuscript when he was told of the all-out efforts that the new regime would

147 Rowen H, John de Witt, grand pensionary of Holland, 1625-1672, Princeton, 1978

148 Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 197

149 Stewert M, The courtier and the Heretic : Leibniz, Spinoza and the fate of God in Modern World, pp 11-12; yetin the privacy of his work his public nemesis turned into that `celebrated doctor and profound philosopher’; Spinozawas suspicious of Leibniz when he was in Paris while the French prince of Conde had invaded Netherlands; herebuffed Leibniz for a while till Nov 1676, a year before Spinoza’s death Leibniz travelled to Hague to call onSpinoza

150 Popkin R H, Spinoza, p.113

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take to ensure to suppress his work. In case his work was published, he was warnedthat a great outcry would occur, greater than the Tractatus. That left Spinoza withthe option of posthumous publication, his focus shifted to that side. He had amplereason to fear for his safety. One friend of his, Adriaan Koergagh had been chargedwith blasphemy, arrested and he died in prison His teacher ended up executed byFrench authorities for trying to overthrow French monarchy. French theologianshad started baying for his blood and a powerful bishop denounced him as `aninsane and evil man’. Spinoza knew that he was going to die soon fromconsumption. He was prepared to leave his masterwork behind him and fewmonths after his death in 1677 his Opera Posthuma including some letters werepublished in considerable secrecy simultaneously in Dutch and Latin and shortlythereafter in French. A good deal of housecleaning seems to have been done yet itdoes come as a surprise that there was no immediate reaction or attempts atrefutation. One document found recently written by a bishop, who did not goalong with Spinoza but knew a number of people in common says this aboutSpinoza that `if he had lived in Constantinople, Peking or Tokyo, he would just asgladly have entered into Mohammadanism, Taoism, or Buddhism’.151 The earliestbiographical account of Spinoza in Dictionnaire historique et critique by PierreBoyle, Rotterdam, 1697 wrote that though Spinoza created a system of atheism, hisphilosophy was close to Confucianism. What was significant for Bolye was that anatheistic system had been created. The writings of Confucius had appeared inFrench and Boyle, who just could never understand Spinoza’s theory, made thisentry on the basis of some similarities. Allowing that this similarity holds, to whichSpinoza would hardly have seriously objected, just as Hegel too had found somevery basic level similarity between Spinoza and systems of Hindu philosophy thatcontemplated152 about the supreme one or the dewan’s of Rumi filled with mysticlove, that may well be said because of the central position of Netherland where theintersection of world-economic conjonctures actually showed the higher level ofsynthesis, the unity when the whole world, all shades of existing learning, sciencesor belief could be found there.

151 Popkin R H , Spinoza, p. 115

152 Hegel G W F, Science of Logic [tr] A V Miller, London, 1969, pp 535-539

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The 30 year phase in mid 17th c. [1640-1670] marked a major turning point in bothEuropean and world history. Without conflating or blurring the meaning implied bythe advent of modernity in history and what came to be termed `modernizationtheory’ in 20th c., this is the phase when the modern, in terms of becoming inhistory appeared, replacing the earlier, `transitional’ notion suggested by viamoderna. The process [essence] may be seen in the world-economy with the defeatof Portuguese colonialism by the new centre based mainly in Holland, whichfavoured the prospects of both Britain and France. Anglo-Dutch domination of theOceans in the east was not only complete but it laid the foundation for systemiccolonialism.153 This, in turn was synchronous with removal of major barriers tocapitalism and its existence as a whole. The profound transformation of capital inBritain in this phase has been earlier remarked by Hobsbawm and H Trevor-Roper.But Amsterdam can be seen in this phase as the foci for the convergence of theworld, meaning both the hemispheres though weighed in favor ofproducing/trading-in-commodities civilizations/cultures of the east. To avoidbankruptcy, Rambrandt had to sell of his property in 1656, the sale list includedsuits of Japanese armor and many objects from Asia. This is the time whendiffusion of the older cultures/civilizations of Asia [stretching from the PersianGulf, India, s-e Asia, China and Japan sea boards] began all over again in Europethrough material and spiritual products. It should not be forgotten that thedistribution and spread of capital is always uneven, as was the case inside Europeand other land locked areas. Societies were turning bourgeois though this waspropelled with some decisive shifts in state-forms and government, as inNetherland and England. E P Thompson’s argument that despite the `defeat ofEnglish 17th c. revolution’, in its aspirations `had in the end’, which I read as itshistorical product not as `in the final instance’, put a set of `legal inhibitions uponpower’ is valid.154 The product/encrustation was indeed a `cultural achievement’,not only in England but also in the colony, something that will come up later in thisstudy, but what is more relates to the reciprocal relations or the dialectic of classstruggle that was taking place within the framework of `legal hegemony’. There

153 In the western hemisphere, Spanish and Portuguese domination over western African coast, involvement in theslave/bullion trade and their engagement with Latin south America discloses a different pattern, though the Dutchseized the Portuguese fort of Elima in west Africa, Portugal’s most important source of gold. However, thePortuguese played their hand with the Dutch with greater tact and caution with the Dutch in Brazil in contrast totheir recklessness in the east in 17 th c. Besides, slavery and bullion both proved transitional to both modernity aswell as capital.

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may be found a deeper social shift to egalitarianism intensifying with the socialturmoil’s of the latter half of 17th c. in Europe as a matter of consciousness eventhough actual disparities and inequalities between the rich and poor grew.155

International law would come of age with the treaty of Westphalia, which can beseen as the first modern agreement recognized by diverse state-forms. Themodernity of the phase is basically marked by the political shifts favouring thebourgeoisie in England, in European north with the treaty of Westphalia, inNetherlands with the onset of the Republic. In Mediterranean Italy and Spain,except for the region of Friuli and the Basque country, prosecuting people oncharges of witchcraft was far less and less frequent as also in the Nordic lands andlands in Eastern Europe although the areas of witch hunting were owing to politicalchanges – Flanders, densely populated and urbanized [45%] was the region of apopular flare up against Spanish colonization, in France these were newlyconquered regions reticent towards absolutist centralization, areas in Germany andSwitzerland with flare-ups in witch persecution had major political troubles in theaftermath of reformation, followed by 30-year war, in England the areas feeling thepolitical fall out of Anglican reformation, in south and s-w France were areaswhere popular uprisings in the countryside were crushed whereas Brittany didn’thave any witch hunt because of an uprising in 1675.156 Persecutions of witcheswere due to phobia among the elite attempting to separate sharply frompopular/mass culture. Typically `modern’ obsessions with maintaining order,

154 E P Thompson, Interview, March 1976 New York City, in MAHRO, Visions of History, p. 9, 21 :`I am stillexamining `morality’ and value systems, as in `moral economy’ of the food rioting crowd or as in the ritual of`charivari’…I am examining the dialectic of interaction, the dialectic between economics and values’ `I think that atotal critique of bourgeois utilitarianism just at its moment of full flowering remains a fertile one’ one wonders whythis kind of research has not taken up dialogization of language, as well as newer devices that result from adeepening dialogical dialectic, critically engaging with Bakhtin’s study of Dickens, in the direct sense but alsoprobe using Bakhtin’s conceptual horizon in global/societal or individual scale Bakhtin M, Dialogic Imagination [tr]Holquist M & Emerson C, Austin Texas, 1981

155 Cf Isreal J, Radical Enlightenment philosophy and the making of modernity, Oxford, 2001 Inequality isindicated in P Goubert’s Beuvais et la Beuvasis as well as the unnecessary deaths because `of price of bread but ona wider scale, people also fought to preserve the level of prosperity, there were major organizational andtechnological innovations, Simiand’s phase-B characterizing the 17th c. also meant increasing supplies of all kinds ofgoods from commodities to silver, and adjusting to lower prices by selling more, innovating, working more for themarket and so forth

156 Muchembled R, Popular Culture and Elite culture in France, 1400-1750, Louisiana, 1985, pp 237-243, theemphasis here is not on `acculturation’ as S Sarkar finds in the said book, Cf The Relevance of E P Thompson, inWriting Social History. 60; for mentioning intensified witchcraft trials as a hegemonic expression of gaining controlover the poor and marginal groups see the conclusions in Ginzberg C, The Cheese and the Worms , [tr] Tedschi Johnand Ann, London, 1981, p 126 ff

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indoctrination of masses by the new literate strata, stigmatization of `devianttypes’- heretics, immigrants, homosexuals, witches, vagrants, Jews, dissenters,`suspects’- can be noticed from this phase.157 Even though the 17th c. is not knownto mark a `demographic revolution’ due to general scarcity that may be explainedas the setting up of [protectionist] price zones by merchants in their own respectivespheres, there was a combination of the commercial and political trajectory thatcreated a new urban hierarchy and modern urbanization patterns. Jan de Vriespoints to the `revolt of the early modernists’ and the beginning of a `modern’economy in Holland before the industrial revolution where goods were rarely theproducts of industries but were given a compelling value by consumers; tea, coffee,tobacco, sugar were also coming from the Indies; new standards of domesticcomfort, refinement, privacy, common decency went together with increase inconsumer demand, retail stores, the bane of high indirect taxes, packaging of breadand beer made to last for longer periods.158 Most of the aspects mentioned so farare indicative of the operation of laws of motion in the economic sphere includinglow interest rates, over-accumulation, indirect taxation, fall in the general rate ofprofit ultimately leading to Dutch decline, bear runs, etc., which are neithercontingencies or/and tendencies. These are economic laws which assertthemselves, independent of will and consciousness and they are still with us. Thereis scarcely any space for free will in Spinoza’s work on politics and ethics.

157 Rousseaux X, Crime, Justice and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Times, Crime, History & Societies,vol. 1, no. 1, 1997

158 Jan de Vries, Towards a History that counts, pp. 8-9

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We don’t get to see turbulence or great drama or any historical `event’ in therefined, serene and transparent surfaces of Jan Vermeer’s paintings of Delft bathedin soft sun or the section of a house on the street [straatje]. A close contemporaryof Spinoza, he joined the painters guild in 1653 but could not afford to pay thefees. His business improved from 1660 and he headed the guild for 4 separateyears from 1663-1671.The art market collapsed in 1672, amidst politicalturbulence coinciding with the French invasion leading to the collapse of hisbusiness. Three years later, because of stress of financial liabilities, as his widow

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told the judge asking for a break to pay off a large debt, Vermeer, two yearsyounger than Spinoza, died suddenly within a span of a day and half. There isnothing neo-Malthusian about these early deaths. The presence of longer durationsfrom the past does not just disappear with the coming to age of capitalism throughthe world market. High infant mortality rates prevailed in 17th century that linkedthis phenomenon to the pattern of Middle Ages, before pediatrics when anythingbeyond midwifery was not even known. Rambrandt was wealthy when he lost hisfirst three newborns within three months of their birth and the fourth survivedwhile his mother passed away a year after his birth [1640], but he too died a yearbefore Rambrandt’s death. But out of 14, ten children of Vermeer survived hisdeath. The court appointed a microscopist as trustee till as long as his wife had notcleared the debts. She had to sell off 2 paintings to a baker to clear one big debt. Infact when a French diplomat and 2 clergymen came to see Vermeer’s paintings in1663 they were sent to a bakery to see for themselves as the baker owned onepainting. The optics of some of his paintings indicates an eye well versed withlenses and reflection, though it is doubtful that he ever used a camera obscura forlight and perspective effects. Lenses, microscopes, telescopes were produced inlarge volumes and optics in its practical and theoretical sense was an advanced areaand a part of general scientific culture in Netherland. Almost all of Vermeer’spaintings are secular, illuminating men and women in their occupation, asmilkmaid, astronomer, geographer or a mistress preoccupied while composing aletter or sitting before a piano. Spinoza’s achievement as a lens grinder and atheoretician of optics drew the attention of Huygens, an empiricist who haddoubted the theoretical claims of Descartes when he was in Amsterdam.159

Huygens was impressed with Spinoza’s lenses but had other disagreementsbecause of which they parted ways after a few years though Spinoza came to knowthrough Huygens, who was from the upper class, some avant-garde critics oforganized religion that prompted Spinoza to make haste and publish the TractatusTheologico-Politicus.160 His contribution lay in making a clean break with religiousand theological philosophy, a philosophy that was not based on axiom or premiseof any revealed religion. He proceeded from principles that had no theologicalimport but begins with negation – determinatio est negatio - moving religiousscripture from the divine realm to human history, seeing them as one among other

159 Isreal J, Radical Enlightenment, pp 246-9

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instance of people employing religion for human affairs. During his time peoplewere asking whether Moses, Jesus or Mohammed were divine or were they`imposters’. So what was relevant for the world around was a morality so thatpeople don’t harm each other. He used natural law to deny superstition/miracles bymaking the laws of nature divine as they show how things work whereas a miraclewould be contravening laws of nature. This is the demonstration for a positedsociety; the emphasis on law-like or rational working of morals in human affairs.Since morals were acted out historically, they get evaluated in the social andpolitical sphere. This is what made political society, such as existed then, moreimportant than anything religious. The state emerges as the agency and form thatmakes coexistence and tolerance possible insofar as such ideas were reflected inthe political and state life in the Netherland. A guidebook of 1701 tells: `Howeverabsolute the magistrate there is no pomp displayed, and one may see ...illustriousburgomasters…indistinguishable from the burghers who were subordinate tothem’. In Spinoza’s lifetime, Richard Temple was astonished in 1672 to see thatmen as eminent as Jan de Witt…was not distinguishable from the commonestburgher of the town or the commonest sea captain.’161

Appearances also have distances, as we have noticed the oligarchy after 1650 hadbegun to display their wealth and things French, including language in order toshow the more determining feature of modern inequality breaking out gradually.From 1675, after the passing away of republic, under a limited monarchy suchinequality would start showing itself, increasing its pomp and luxury with eachsuccessive decade. While the tax system spared capital and wealth, foremostamong personal taxes was a tax on domestic servants and yet this may be symbolic

160 Popkin R H, Spinoza, p.56, who had a capacity for socializing with different kinds of people in a society withabundance of religious groups. His minimalist lifestyle obligated little including fame and fortune. As he saw aroundhim, multiplicity of religions seemed to lead to perpetual stasis, baffling people so much that they readily acceptedirrationality. Theology and religion had to be studied together for understanding the world around that included theEnglish civil war, 30-year war and a newly liberated Netherland. He viewed and gravitated toward leaders whowould keep the state independent of the Church.`…a rare happiness of living in a republic where everyone’sjudgment is free and unshackled, where each may worship God as his conscience dictates and where freedom isesteemed before all things dear and precious’. Thus it won’t be an ungrateful task `in demonstrating that not onlycan such freedom be granted without prejudice to public peace but also, that without such freedom, piety cannotflourish nor public peace be secure’ TT-P, p. 6

161 Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 197

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because the tax regime operated through indirect taxes, which weakened thedemand base of the economy by distressing the consumer. Under an adverse priceregime this made matters worse while intensifying internal social differentiation.The period when society showed reciprocity of ideas between the lower orders andupper ones that appeared for a while was snapped and the turn to renewed efforts athegemony and suppression of marginalized and lower orders and the incipientmass culture in democratic Holland 162started and proceeded, in tandem with rest ofEurope. The decline of Amsterdam, however, downed the curtains in anextraordinary and tragic-comic revolutionary flash in 1780’s before beingovercome by fascist reaction. Terms like `crisis’, `transition’, `tendency’ etc., thatapproximate the reality of an earlier period, e.g., the first half of 16th c. do notdisplay anything equal to that force from mid 17th c. What such terms do showabout themselves for the early period, however, is history as abstract becoming,caught up in its presuppositions. Times when `bad weather’ prevailed may bemetaphorically more appropriate.

IV B : RECIPROCITY: CHARTISTS ON COLONIAL HINDUSTAN

Once we turn out attention to Britain for evidence linked to events like the mutinyin India in 1857, or of the kind of evidence that had a stake in the duration andagency of the rebellion we find that their historical sensibility stays unexplored. By

162 Bypassing the anachronism of the term `popular culture’, discussed by Ginsberg C, Op Cit., pp 130-31

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sensibility, the reference is not directed at the type of `source’ which is meant tocreate effects, an imagination that seized upon the `event’ with an agenda to feedthe public vulgar propaganda espousing the cause of British expansionism orlegitimating aggressive imperial wars in public culture through novels, plays,imagery, caricature and other popular formats. This type of `source’ is pertinent forliterary projects such as a study taking up the production of such materials wovenaround the Indian `mutiny’ from 1859 till WW 1.163 The historical value of thesesources is indirect and marginal. At best a work claiming to be historical mayconstruct its narrative from such materials even though its plane could be no morethan a genre or sub-branch of history where intersection between literary criticismand the historical event is shown to occur. Literary criticism does notautomatically become history and if it claims to be so than all the major steps andprocedures need to be justified. As had been pointed out by Dorothy Thompson,this is the sort of tendency that “ has succeeded by constructing alternativenarratives in producing a picture of working people based on lowest commondenominator of a trivialized, reductionist and largely commercialized reading ofpopular culture, particularly for late 19th c.”.164 Once we begin to consider theevidence left by the Chartists, cooperative socialists, utopian communists, peacesocieties, and individuals unknown and known like Marx’s articles on 1857 writtenfor newspapers, mainly the Chartist press then the historical evidence may claimsome neglect , namely the view of British working classes towards colonies,particularly India. We also get the earliest understanding and a critique oftechnology as machines and technicism in the history of Chartists and, precedingthem the Luddites force of physical negativity after which industrial productionwas accepted as necessary by workers. The written stuff produced by theworkingmen of Britain was not for the vulgates on the streets but a part ofhistorical tradition that would relate to the learning consciousness of workers. Itwas the victory of content over form, communication by verses because even in the`worst’ kind of writing from the point of semantics and syntax, there could befound some very profound ideas and superb insights. E P Thompson in his study onthe English working class preferred to term what were clearly innovative networkbuild ups/constructs as responses to new situations, working themselves at

163 Chakravarti, G ,The Indian Mutiny and British imagination, Cambridge, which would be referred again

164 Thompson Dorothy, Class, Gender and Nation, p. 16

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different scales in the face of a repressive state carrying its brutal legacy forward,as the constitutive part of culture but this immediately makes the argumentreductive. The argument goes that the contrasting experiences of skilledcraftsperson’s, weavers, field labour, factory workers in textile operatives showstheir capacity to make a common cause from time to time by drawing upon theradical republicanism of the `free born Englishmen’ from a inherited culturaltradition. Cultural resources appear to be defining working-class politics. But wasit so? Was it always so? We argue that the `field of working-class politics’ may notbe seen as a process of constant interaction in view of the pace in which workerswere coming to experience the `novelties’ of industrial capitalism, but somethingprofounder seen as self-generating consciousness which is new, co-evolving withthe world economy, world-historical in aspiration and unfolding through diversityin spite of massive, unimaginable constraints of all kinds and the amazing featureis their rapid change, hands-on sublating one associates with process grammars,imperfect composition, trans-surrealistic clarity other than the testimony at adifferent plane of novelty and amazing organizing capacity exemplified by thepicketing and rolling strikes of 1842. Unlike some other critics we hold a differentposition on consciousness, not merely as a cultural experience that includesinteriority. 165 The main assumption is that culture is the transcended zone, in itspresence/absence or, if one prefers, an active area of reference for historicalconsciousness. First, what imparts historical meaning to culture is the condition forit to get scaled recursively or elaborated in the diachronic sense as the labour-process has been shown to create and leave its political imprint in the work ofMichael Vester; second, consciousness is a relation to the other of itself that makesit trans-cultural and third, as a relation to the self/ subject-position in historicaltime which may vary from the obscure or anachronistic to the sublated/aufhebenmoment of historical becoming. I mean that the absence of any reference of theattitude of the `free born Englishmen’ to the `colonial possession’ in the `Makingof the English working-class’ is intentional because of reasons. The Chartistsconstituted the `first phase of British labour movement’ and led the world in mass

165 Here my reference would be to the pamphlets, such as The Defence of Britain, where recollection during a grimmoment of English/British history takes up the historical moments of needlessly prolonged fight for winning thedemocratic right to franchise for close to a century, when there was no threat to the right by Thatcher government,and then again to `the free born Englishmen’ did not really cut much ice expected from pamphlet cultures of varyingshades in the radical and workers milieu in the first half of the 19 th c and before, See Thompson E P , The HeavyDancers, London, 1985

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organization, birthing `political class consciousness in the development of anti-capitalist ideologies such as early forms of socialism’.166 This phase, however,suffered the greatest setback in the years 1847-48 following 1842 though it did notdie then but entered a period of slow retreat for a number of years. Ernst Jones whowas to write the poem, The Revolt of Hindustan,167 had been the most consistentrepresentative of the revolutionary wing of the Chartists and their main survivingleader in 1850’s. He was imprisoned in 1848 for his part in uprising and confinedunder terrible conditions. He was Marx’s `main comrade’ in English workersmovement in the 1850’s to understand his theories. Marx would pass his Timesarticles to Jones’s People’s Paper/Notes to the People [May 1851-May 1852] anddiscussed with him regularly until the collapse of Chartist movement in 1858.168

Jones may be well regarded as a representative of Chartist cultural-intellectuallevel, even `carrying the torch till the end’ as John Charlton writes in his evenlyanalyzed book even though Chartism was not just a national labour movement, asthis work argues.169 Among large sections of citizenry in cities like London theopposite sentiment to British colonial enterprise was expressed as an attitude, asone gets to read in stories on Indian subcontinent published serially in the pages ofpapers like `Household words’ or `All year round’, read mainly by a middle-classreadership, something that virtually disappeared after 1857. These are stretchedout, probabilistic kind of evidence suited to social history.170

166 Cf Hobsbawm, Eric, Revolutionaries, p. 112

167 Roland P,"In lobouring Hindostan": Chartism and Empire in Ernest Jones's The New World, A DemocraticPoem, Victorian Poetry - Volume 39, Number 2, Summer 2001, pp. 189-204 This is an essay in literarycriticism that has the virtue to see and pose the problem of worker’s view of `events’ like 1857 even thoughthere is a literary bias in the interpretation of Jones’s poem seen to belong to working-class literature butalso an attempt to bridge the aesthetic gap between the political literature of working people and thegeneral literature in Britain. What Roland does not observe is that this attempt to bridge the gulf was not asgermane to the poem that he takes up for an article but in another dimension, that of Jones’s drift towardsradical middle class circles and a considerable toning down of the force of his ideas, starting with 1851 afterdemise set in Chartism

168 Fernbach, D, Karl Marx –Surveys from Exile, Introduction, London, 1973, p.19

169 Charlton J, The Chartists : the first national workers movement, London, pp 82 ff; Barnes and Noble haspublished Jones’s Notes to the People in 2 vols, Ernest Jones, ed., Notes to the People, 2 vols., New York,1968; Inthe Seligman collection, Part V, Earnest Charles Jones, Spee MS collection, Columbia University has 1700 itemsincluding letters and personal notebooks

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The London workingman William Manning writing after the early victories gainedby Chartist strike action would say, `national unity and national interest are afraud’. The growth of capitalism led to colonization, so as to `obtain possessionsand property and command services of industrious classes of the society.’ Itfollowed from his experience of class struggles to see as coupled `the wretchedexistence of the population of Hindustan and the laboring classes of England’. Anyfuture dissolution of nations could be carried by the combination of such `oppositeinterests’ to the one created by `democratic wealth and `privilege.’171 The spirit ofInternational solidarity among workingmen of England and elsewhere includingcolonial `populations’ would be echoed during the tumultuous decade of 1820’s indeclarations and aims and addresses by National Union of Working Classes,London Workingmen’s Association and Fraternal Democrats.172 A survey on thecolonial question in Chartist papers shows that colonial expansionism of Britainwas limited to general expression of sympathy for the oppressed people rather thanplacing action and demands in the forefront. Nonetheless, the common cause of theoppressed was understood more as a class issue instead of being limited to viewingit analogically, caused by the policies of E I C monopoly, though some argumentswere derived from natural law theories.173This was the view that saw the origins ofclass domination and inequality in growth of private property in land andmonopolization leading to dispossession of people from their land in the `colonialpossessions’.

170 I am referring to an anecdote from travelogue cum novel published in 1862 by a Sydney Blanchard. Theanecdote describes an India returned man waiting for an omnibus close to the harmless suburb of Hyde Park with aIndian woman, who happened to be his servant, an ayah. The moment he entered the omnibus with 12 passengers, aterse comment was made immediately - `Look at this man ? How disgraceful ! He is like all the rest of theseNabobs. They make the poor natives their slaves. She would get dreadfully beaten if she refused to do the work of ahorse…’ The author goes on to say that `as far as the 12 persons in the omnibus were concerned, he was an outcasteamong his fellow men’. The anecdote belongs to the pre-1857 period..This is only an expression, but also a sharedone, moreover a fairly strong opinion about the nature of labour relations, as represented by this anonymous femaleservant who carries the persons bag into the omnibus .People knew about whatever was going on in India but alsoknew about their limits like a vanishing gesture. Blanchard S L, the Ganges and the Seine, reprint, Delhi, 2001, pp153-154

171 Manning W, The wrongs of men exemplified or an Enquiry into the cause of superstition, conquest andexaction…containing also a vindication of independent, industrious and laboring classes to freedom of suffrage…with an appendix in which the false doctrine..by Malthus in his `Essay on Population in refuted…London, 1838, p.119, 187, 207,281-282, 210,212; The only edition was published posthumous and the work was completed in oldage in 1820’s, before 1830

172 Kemp-Ashraf, P M, India and Internationalism, in Horst Kruger [ed] K M Ashraf, Berlin,,1966 p. 190

173 Beer, A, History of British Socialism, London, 1953, p 289

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By no means was such an understanding the main view of workers, involved inattributing to the British experience of Capital’s` pre-history’ [``primitiveaccumulation’] the cause/motive/purpose for colonial possessions. In the 19th c. itwas clear that the primary principle of British supremacy was seen in terms ofinternational trade. The arguments of modified natural rights theory had the merit,though limited going back to the settlement survey findings of Petty or Locke’stheory of property legitimizing itself only when labour is mixed with land, or usedfor improvement for providing an abstract notion of a labour theory of value that ispartial and one-sided. The merit lies in a reflexive placing of value at an abstractuniversal plane, the initial consciousness of the distinction of labour andabstract/self-alienated labour, tied to land, which also explains the rationality of theover-emphasis that colonial policies placed on `developing’ what they regarded as`waste’/ culturable waste’, fallow / forest or the entire gamut of what wasconsidered as land that could be improved by the application of British `practices.Scholars like Ellen Wood do not see the expansion of value-form derived fromearly British experience of capitalist agriculture in the non-settler colonies or whenthe abstract universal is missing from their accounting in the colonization of Indiaby Britain since colonization of land is regarded as something sui generis, anextension of the same process. This does not provide any leads and clue, orconceptual clarity about the vexed issue of property in land in colonies like Indiathat seemed so very non-existent in the views of colonial rulers that they tookrecourse to the abstract Roman notion of private property and `applied’ it in thecolonial context. Brenner’s argument seems oblivious about the dimensions of thepeculiarly English experience of agrarian capitalism as corresponding to the phaseof commercial capital and extensive manufactures, which do not make it typicallyEnglish, and perhaps due to that he later added United Provinces, Catalonia and the

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Low Countries to the list,174 though similar tendencies were also prevalent in placesas far as Poland and France.175 Marx was clear that though the period of the so-called `primitive accumulation’ of capital could form the basis for the developmentof the `productive forces of capital, this did not imply, as distinct fromWallerstein’s emphatically contrarian position, that this period was in any way the`absolute necessity for capitalist production; as a point of departure `primitiveaccumulation’ was a `vanishing one’ whose basis and result was supersededaltogether as the form of process by capital.176

174 In many ways , prior to the arrival of American silver and gold, outputs of gold and silver between England andLow countries was massively differentiated, a-synchronous [ e.g. the average mean of gold output in Low Countries-Flanders from 1346-1495 was 108,971 Kilogram whereas for the same period England shows a mean output of55,544]; on the other hand English industrial products was composed of charcoal, candles, oil, canvas/linen, shirtingand woolens in contrast to Flanders-Low countries that produced only coarse woolen cloth even though thecomposite industrial price index is completely synchronous : 20% and 20.1%. Taken together, this diachronicmoment emerges stronger and I wonder if Brenner has considered these things at all. See Munroe J, Bullion Flowsand monetary contractions in late medieval England, and the Low countries in Richards J [ed] Precious metals inearly modern and late medieval worlds, N Carolina, 1983, p.97-158 shows the slope of contraction in gold values inLow countries to be a far steeper gradient that in England, hardly comparable in real terms .

175 Ellen Wood’s ideas arises from a complete misunderstanding between value-form and substance of value orbetween value-form and exchange-value and this makes her interpretation of Petty or even Thomas More or Lockeabsurdly reductionist. In effect the analytical distinctions or levels are either overlooked or do not matter , Wood ME, The Empire of Capital, Delhi, 2003, p. 65, 74-75, 84, 98, 100-101 ; see also The Origins of Capitalism : A LongerView, London, 2002, p. 184, in her understanding of India there is a complete absence of anything resemblingcolonial enterprise, colonialism, etc; Brenner’s more historical and fruitful investigation on the development ofcapitalist agriculture in England makes it a contingent development, like some unique event that would inretrospective effect be legitimized but such was not the case. Even Marx, who insisted on the specificity of the socalled phase of `primitive accumulation’ saw it as a regional phenomena, limited to western Europe, e.g., if Englandimplemented a bloody law in 1349 by Edward III the Ordinance issued in France in the name of king John in 1350corresponds to it, not due to contingency but because the tendencies were similar during the period of capitalistdevelopment in manufacture-commercial phase, Marx, Capital, vol. 1, p.900, 924, for laws in France, p. 899; MarcBloch who looked closely into the difference in the dynamics of rural history in France and England, however, doesnot see much of a difference in the working of `imperfect’ exchange economies or the long periods of monetaryfamines. Colonial economies were not only central for replenishing Europe’s treasuries but also clarified, incomparative terms, the imperfectability of monetary economy in medieval Europe., Brace Lyon, Forward to BlochM, French Rural History, Berkeley, 1970, p ix-xv

176 Wallerstein sees the period of `primitive accumulation’ not in peripheral or incidental terms but as integral to theconstitution of capitalism. Cf, Goldfrank, W, Paradigm Regained ?, Journal of World System Research, vol. VI, I,Spring 2000; there is considerable overlap between Wallerstein’s position on the agrarian origins of 16 th c.Capitalism as a world system and Brenner’s views’ Marx in fact takes bourgeois economists like Ricardo to task forremaining `cooped up’ with the representation of the historical stage of `primitive accumulation’ as the [unsublated]point of departure that the necessity of the objectification of social powers of labour appear to them as inseparablefrom the necessity of alienation vis-à-vis living labour. Since Ricardo believes that bourgeois political economydeals only with `exchange-value’ and is concerned with use-value only exoterically, he goes ahead and derives twomost important value-forms – wages and ground rent- from use-values, from the relations between them. Instead ofgrasping the differentia specifica within the value form Ricardo abstracts in a one-sided manner.

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Even Paul Bairoch’s early study on industrialization, though subsequent facts havebrought to light an insufficient data base on economies for comparing France andEngland synchronously, nevertheless puts an emphasis on `internal factors’ forindustrialization in the specifically rising agricultural labour productivity contextas a precondition, not per se but only when taken together with an increaseddemand for industrial goods in the agricultural sector and vice versa. Bairoch talksof the rise of an industrial- capitalist internal market/national market of territorialstates and not of rising agricultural productivity per capita as the constitutive logicof colonial expansion.177 Braudel writes that while it is the reality of `world-economy/weltwirtschaft that moved from city-states/stadtwirtschaft such asVenice, Amsterdam, etc., to nation-states/territorialwirtschaft, the former avoidedthe agricultural sector in its course of development, that is so resistant to progress,while remaining within the same trajectory or shared the same structuralcharacteristics.178 There appears something close to blinkers if not personal bias ora diminished perspective or a-historical foreclosure seems to be at work whenBrenner’s characterizes `French `absolutism’ as a phenomenon that was neitherfeudal nor capitalist.179 .After the exchanges between Roland Mousnier and BorisPorchnev’s ‘Marxist’ conceptualization where the latter does seem to be viewing along-past age with 20th c. eyes characterizing `absolutism’ as `state monopolycapitalism’ though Lublinskaya’s historically specific study of absolutism as atransitional state, pre-capitalist yet indifferently relating to the interests of`manufacture capitalism’180 partly clears the field of conceptual debris, Mousnier’ssocial-historical delimitation of 16-18th c. French history would show a lot ofcommonality, even in the juridical sphere with England or Germany. Brenner’sposition ascribing historical `exceptionalism’ in case of French `absolutism’ as

177 Bairoch P, Revolution Industrielle et Sous-Development, Paris, 1963

178 Braudel F, Perspective of the World, pp 293-294; the distinction is an underlying one since both the city andterritory attach themselves `in identical fashion to international economy, but the crowning moment of supremacyrests with the city, e.g., London; taking up the historical measure, territorial states took a long time to reach pre-eminence or commit itself to colonial conquests because it had to grapple with promoting the agricultural sector toreach a stage when it could provide a living for artisans and manufactures by means of surplus that also created andemand for manufactured goods.

179 Brenner R, Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe, in Philipin C H E andAston [eds] The Brenner Debate, Cambridge, 1985, p 49, 55

180 Lublinskaya A D, The contemporary bourgeois conception of Absolute monarchy’, Science and Society, No 1,1972; Porchnev B, Les soulevements populairs en France, de 1623 a 1648, Paris, 1963

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much as Britain’s historical trajectory around the same time is indeed a strangeposition. It is made stranger by involving terms like `absolutism’ and `capitalism’.Even if Mousnier’s argument that classification according to orders was the realityfrom 16-18th c., that the term peasant used by Porchnev is bereft of class content isinterpreted to make a case for French `exceptionalism’, that in terms of Mousnier’shistorical perspective would not be an `exceptionalism’ which is `neither capitalistnor feudal’.181 Hardly any French historian would go so far as to extend the`model’ of absolutism from 1610-1630 all the way to 1789, if at all though withBrenner and his disciples we get the model logic floating in the shape of entirepre-revolutionary France, sui generis `that absolutist France’, independentexpropriator of surplus, not feudal but pre-capitalist and so forth. Because theFrench state did express a cleavage/ strong distinction from society, the practice ofrule was also hegemonic and complex in its orders, ranks, gradations and forms.Nothing could be done when deadly famines visited France in 1630’s in the midstof a long war on in Germany where Descartes had gone to serve in the outback;after the treaty of Westphalia horror years emerged in France from 1649-1652, foursuccessive years of famines made worse by insecurity on roads, highway robberies,talk of cannibalism and then rebellion by nobility and rural, regional communitiesof a fragmentary France resulting in the troubles brought about by Fronde asMazarin lay on his deathbed. Absolutism is an inaccurate term and if the desire ofthe state was to ensure the obedience of each province, each town and steertowards the direction of unity, that had to await the end of ancien regime. Here FFuret is clearly overstating the case by assuming that in 18th c. Francecentralization could be based on politico-cultural spheres to the marginalization of

181 Peculiarity or specificity involved in historical studies does not lead to the exceptional, unless the exceptional isitself the premise or the object of study. Mousnier’s socio-cultural study leads to observing a specific form oflegitimization for the political authority of feudalism, ancient regime or whatever but legitimacy, which gets partlytranslated in legal formats or juridical categories opens the work to a comparative analysis. His dismissal of peasant`fureurs’ having no class content is once again a non-exceptional or non-unique but typical hypothesis. Using termslike capitalism, feudalism, etc., that we have invented `ourselves’ as social scientists or as historians carries acautionary tale which is that of the recorded disparate reality of context referred to. Men of early 17 th c. Frencharistocracy or the popular masses were not at all clear about terms/concepts or words like class, capitalism, thoughthe same cannot be said about feudalism. Just as the historical investigations of 17 th c. political economy is filledwith thin historical abstractions. The historian writes and his subjectivity is involved with what he writes and thereare constant changes and revisions made in the course of writing but the important notion is how much of thewriting is concerned with historical truth in whatever framework or structure or analysis that is used for explicatingmeaning. Intra/extrapolation of categories may have their coherence at a meta-level but how that can be `objectified’at all for the purpose of relating to the concrete, often unclear and least lucid kinds of activities as well as the dullrepetitive persistence of historical duration, all of which goes into weaving a complex fabric of the side referred toby the meta-level model is not a settled question.

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the economy. After all, there were periods when the deep `conjonctures’ of worldhistory traversed, intersected and synthesized in France with a social lifedominated by tax-farmers, bankers, merchants, traders who owned ships, agrowing rural bourgeoisie, business houses, manufacturing towns, ports and soforth by the end of the reign of Louis XIV. The state, the court, princes and the sunking hardly saw any world beyond their confines and so Louis took no notice ofthe possibility of wars breaking out in distant pagan empires like India or hardlycared for Canada or Louisiana [honouring his name]. What was going on was arearguard action against the advances of rationalism and liberalism, court intriguesand squabbles that led up to the political intensity and activism of Saint-Simon, theheat of Montesquieu in the Parisian Letters, the challenges of d’Alembert, theliberalism of de Littre, anti-clericalism and growing egalitarianism. True,differences existed between Louis XIV, the Regency and ministerial government,an oppositional mood which would climax in 1770’s idea of a mixed Monarchy, anidea without the means to implement since there had already taken place a radicalsift in the political culture, to the egalitarianism and politeness of academies andsalons, which had a future before as against the past of the hierarchical courtlyculture.182 If there was a political crisis then that was of a revolutionary nature withthe rift between hierarchy and egalitarians/egalite. In the domain of the world-economy, however, Britain had clearly made the first transition to the sustainedlong cycle, the long Kondratieff economic wave, implying that society was nolonger marked by the vagaries of short term economic fluctuations, which isindicative of industrial – capitalist economy whereas France had some more timeto cope with short term fluctuations, which do not show any cumulative shiftsunlike the former and for this reason `typed’ proto/pre-capitalist by Witold Kula orthe `bane of ancient regime’, the intra-decade cycle lasting for 6-8 years or even aLabrousse inter-cycle lasting for 10-12 years or more that `fails to take-offthereafter and remains at a low level.183

182 Most of this could be easily found in Goubert Pierre, Louis XIV and twenty million Frenchmen, New York,1970; more recently though is another incisive book, Ladurie E de la and Fitou J-F, Saint Simon ou Systeme de laCour, Paris, 1997 that sheds light on the growing fissure and shift in the French political culture after intenserivalries broke out with the death of Louis XIV

183 Kula W, On the Typology of economic systems, Social Sciences – Problems and Orientations, UNESCO, 1968;Cain P J and Hopkins A G, The political economy of British expansion overseas, Economic History Review, 2 nd

series, XXX111, 1980, p. 465; Braudel F, Perspective of the World, p. 72

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If at all one wishes to attribute some specificity to England that has to do with thetransition to factory based industrial system with its internal division of labour,Adam Smith and Blake’s `dark satanic mills’184where many French historianswould converge.185 It was at the core of world economy, where wage-labour waspenetrating rural and urban areas of British life. Besides, the equivalences ofoppression and expropriation were already a part and parcel of the `historicalconsciousness’ or inner experience with a long memory of British workingmen, as`le temps vecu’/ lived time186, a massive historical transformation of a number ofdurations going back to 14th c. England after serfdom disappeared187 followed byconsolidation of common lands and independent peasant working for himself aswell as for wages for their labour that was realized by supplying the peasant familywith material wants for satisfaction or needs defined by culture in most of 15 th c.before complaints about encroachments by `farmers’ get recorded from the lastthird of 15th c., starting the process of the annihilation of the peasantry.188 By theend of 15th c. the sordid saga of men dragged away from their accustomed mode of

184 For instance, climate induced changes in agricultural productivity and output in England changed from mid -18 th

c., with industrialization and factory output. Both had favourable climate till 1738-1740 and generally harvests weregood and population rose in France and England but climate reversed from 1740’s and short term-fluctuation inoutput varied while long term output too declined synchronously but England could compensate the fall by effects offactory product export that allowed large scale import of foodstuff whereas France entered a phase of multi-peakedsubsistence crisis. The impact of short-term extremities in harvests in France was higher because of no industrial`take-off’ and sans the import compensation. The conclusions of these studies are tested on a probability scale fromlow to most probable. Michaelowa A, The impact of short term-climate change on British and French Agriculturalpopulation in the first half of 18th c., in Jones P , et. al. [eds.], History and climate – memories of the future ?, NewYork, 2001, pp. 201/218; Wigley, T M L, et al, Historical climate impact assessments in Kates, et al [eds], Climateimpact assessments –Studies of interaction of climate and society, New York, 1985

185 There has been a debate on `proto-industrialization’ and the failure of France in many cases to make a transition,except as a belated tendency, say from 1815 to the factory system – the northern districts have been studied byDidier Terrier [1996], Gerard Gayot [1998]; western districts by Claude Cailly [1993], J Tanguy [1994] and southernFrance by R Cazals [1983] , C Marquie [1993] Cf www.1998_crouzet.pdf+annales+esc&h1 , French EconomicHistory in Past 20 years, 1998, Annales ESS, 1998; in contrast considerable work can be had in the area of bankinghistory, business houses and French family Firms and by way of euphemism, industrial archeology in France toostarts with industrial museums later than England.

186 Thompson E P, Time work discipline and industrial capitalism, Past and Present, 1967, p. 61 is referring to thedistinction made originally by Lucien Febvre between `le temps vecu and temps-measure in `La Probleme deL’Incroyance au xvi Sicle’

187 On this see Hilton R., Bond men made free, London, 1973

188 Harrison W., The Description of England, in Holinshed’s chronicles, 1587, p. 186, Polanyi K, Trade and Marketin Archaic Societies,

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life in rural England and turned into beggars, vagabonds, etc begins, the start of theprocess of expropriation and during 16th c., under legislations – reigns of HenryVII, VIII, Edward IV and Elizabeth- those forcefully transformed intovagabondage, paupers or beggars turn them into `voluntary’ criminals under theassumption as though it was in their power to continue labouring. In fact a statutein the reign of Edward VI ordained `that anyone who refused to work shall becondemned as a slave to the person who denounced him as the idler’.189 ThomasMore talks about tenants being, `stripped of their property, eviction orcircumvention by fraud or overwhelmed by violence…and left to wander around’as idle vagrants, with no one to hire them, forcing them to `steal and be hanged.’190

Regulatory laws and practices had been established in the 14 th c, to create, govern,police, discipline, confine and sustain both the mass and relations of `expropriatedlabour’. In the 16th c. there were huge quantitative shifts in absolute numbers ofthose working for wages, but these years were also marked by increasing ofrestrictions to work in areas once open to the poor – option of working on land.The state that had created the problem of a growing population of `beggars, idlersand vagrants’ took this up as a problem-ridden issue with its characteristic attitudeof a no-holds-barred policy to contain and repress by taking measures for keepingroads and streets free of the `sturdy and idle’, relieve the `impotent poor’, ensureadequate policing and have disciplinary facilities like the `Bridewell’ or `houses ofcorrection’ somewhat distinct from traditional `gaols’, but part of early and adistinctive capitalist policy that played an effective, by no means an incidental rolein coercing and facilitating the transition from early system of personal servitudeto waged [ very abstractly `free’] labour force.191 Beginning in June, 1349,England took steps to create a `system’ that `was complete and methodical, as aresult of which it helped to establish principles that influenced the life of poor for along time to come.’ After the plague the poor had seized the advantage of labour

189 Marx, K, Capital, vol. 1, pp. 896-897 An Act for Punishing Vagabonds I, Edward VI; under Elizabethunlicensed beggars above 14 were to be flogged and branded on the left ear, An Act…., 1572

190 More Thomas, Utopia cited by Marx, Capital, 1, p. 898

191 Innes Joanna, Prisons for the Poor : English bridewells, 1555-1800, in Snyder F and Hay D [eds], Labour, lawand crime – a historical perspective, New York, 1987, p. 42, 44, 47-48, 53, as a `pioneering prison venture,Bridewell was a pioneering venture in setting poor to work. It was a system of compelling the poor to labour and thegovernment became very active in such ventures. They were, however, merged with `gaols’ in 1865. The police wereused to keep the streets free of beggars, homeless, destitute and those suspected of having adopted an `idle andparasitic mode of life by choice’.

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shortage refusing to work, preferring to stay idle and beg unless they were paidhigher wages. This attitude invited a `wage freeze’, enforced by fines on those[including employers] who violated the regulations. Wage limitations werebolstered by prohibitions against changing jobs. These essential points aboutStatute of Labourers formed the basis of English laws up to 16th c. With recurrenceof the phenomenon other solutions emerged oriented towards placing `inactivepeople’ to forced labour and severer forms of corporal punishment, includingexecution without trial, brandishing with hot iron, etc, when newer modificationswere also made to adjust to demographic shifts and social and economic crisis ofolder institutional like `hospitals’.192 The county bridewells or `houses ofcorrections’ started detaining those who technically speaking `refused to work onpublic stocks, work-creation schemes which hardly existed, for hard, compulsorylabour though more commonly used to punish those who refused to work inagriculture since Statutes were made empowering Justices to commit people `toward’ for `refusing’ work besides those held for offences against the Poor lawsinvolving theft of `natural resources’ such as `wood and game’, used for protectinglandlord’s property by `disciplining of their `servants and hired hands.193 As theruling classes imposed their social priorities and economic imperatives upon thegeneral populace, justice turned to class justice. There were changes with times andcontexts but the sort of trend in historiography which harps on `sensitivity’,nuances’, etc, seem more like literary devises that usually work against longerdurations or epochal patterns by fore fronting bits of time and events and going bythe long-term trend, criminal law was used to reproduce labour relations whileimbricated with civil laws it `facilitated’ in managing the size-distribution of thelabour force. Yet it remained the `same’, in the recursive sense - in France till theend of Ancien Regime in 1789 and in England till the first quarter of 19th

century.194 It may be appropriate to recollect what Marx had said on pre-

192 Mollat M, The Poor in the Middle Ages, [tr] Goldhammer A, Yale, 1987, p. 202, 268, 271, also for changes inthe pattern of poor, p 275; Rousseau X, Op Cit., p. 96

193 Innes, Joanna, Op Cit, pp 68-69

194 In France it was provostal justice which dealt with criminals [vagrants, habitual offenders, highway robbers,bandits, rebels, etc] as specialists in repression without appeal, which abandoned the accused, defenseless andignorant of charges to the parallel justice delivery system running parallel to the justice of common law under theparliament. Castan Nicole, Traditional crime and corrective repression, in Aymard M, et al, [eds] French Studies inHistory, vol.2, Delhi, 1990, p. 337Snyder F, and Hay D, Comparisons in the social history of law : Labour andCrime, in Snyder F, et al, Op Cit, p.20

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history/historical profile of capital which is that in `actual history, it is a notoriousfact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force plays the greatestpart’ rather than the `standpoint of the nursery tale, fit for all age-groups’.’195 Thisreminds me of Febvre’s insight, as was his wont that `history must put itself torecording appearances’ and in 16th c. France appearances are `neither gracious norsoft’.196

The long period of Capital’s self-generation of its historical profile [`primitiveaccumulation’] was a slow process growing through centuries, brought theexpression `laboring poor’ in opposition to `idle poor’. In statute books from thereign of Edward III legislation hostile to wage labour began `regulating thedifference between the masters and their workmen’ as Adam Smith put it. Theconditions of wage-labour remained terrible, as the statutes were constructed tofreeze/keep wages down independent of economic forces at work, thus if realwages didn’t fall they were kept down by force through means of legislation all theway till 1813, when laws for regulating wages were repealed.197 On another key,however, workers combinations were treated criminally from 14 th c. when statutorylaws against combinations were enacted after the Stuart period, while they wereexecuted in a dispersed sense and applied to trades everywhere in common lawcourts so they were including Scotland and Ireland; in 1799-1800 new combinationActs, during those `dark days of the struggle with revolutionary France’, werepassed adding to the preexisting 34 statutes and only in 1824 were laws againstcombinations repealed.198 Among the strands studied in this section there is onerelated to memory throughout the duration, of the connection between agriculturallabour and communal property which reminded that a non-capitalist form ofconnection between the town and country did not disappear in 19th c. contrary to

195 Marx, Capital ,v. 1, p. 874

196 Febvre L, Life in Renaissance France, Ch 1, The Silhouette of Civilization, pp 19-20

197 Smith Adam, Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, Edinburgh, 1814, p. 342; Marx, Capital, vol. 1, p. 902

198 Orth J V, The English Combination laws reconsidered, in Snyder F, et al [eds] Op Cit, pp 124-’26, 134, 140-141Effective legal ban on collective action by workmen for betterment of their economic conditions remained formore than 400 years.

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what Marx had claimed, 199which we shall take up later. The point is that theorientation of historical consciousness derived from the prehistory/historicalprofile generation of capitalist accumulation created a level of reciprocity withcolonies and its inhabitants in the views of British workers, alive and involved in amajor phase of militant opposition to the rule of capital. As Karl Polanyi, an astuteobserver of the phase of industrial revolution noted, a massive, fundamental shiftmarked the beginnings of capitalist society with the separation of producers fromthe means of production and land and labour, which were synonymous with lifeand nature were `fictitiously’ turned into commodities, but effectively used for thecreation of land and labour markets.200

The agrarian theories in circulation through the works of Goodwin and Paine tosome extent, which formed the basis of anti-colonial views in the Hetherington’sPoor Man’s Guardian, is a concrete understanding of the situation and therefore oftheoretical relevance. While in Manchester, Engels had become acquainted withsocialists like John Watts and John Leach, both were acknowledged Chartistleaders in Manchester. From Leach and his book, `Stubborn facts from theFactories’, Engels found a good deal of information and insight that weretheoretically developed in his Condition of the Working Class. Turns of phraseslike `workers slavery’, `tyranny of property owners’ echo the Chartist opposition toits construct of `Norman yoke’.201 Following Michael Vester’s analysis of theBritish labour movement in terms of feedback cycles between theory and practicebetween 1750-1850 numbered six, of interest to us are the `cycles’ from 1820 whenlarge scale bourgeois property had made its breakthrough in land depriving a massof small farmers of their very basis of existence. This was the period ofdisintegration of the earlier substantial anti- private property `moral economy’ and

199 Marx K, Capital, vol. 1, p889

200 Polanyi K., The Great Transformation, Boston, 1957, p. 72, 178-179, 219, What Polanyi found unique in 19 th c.Britain was `the commodity fictions’ of land and labour which they were not. To allow market forces to direct thefate of human beings and natural environment would result in `the demolition of society’ as Polanyi saw matters.

201 Schmidtgall, Harry, Friedrich Engels und Manchester, Teil II : Die Chartisten und das Fabriksystem, die lageder Arbeiterklasse, Manchester und seine Sociale Exploration, M-E Jahrbook 2003-4 , Berlin, pp 64-87

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the closing of ranks among the workers because of the reverse side of laissez-faire,the repressive instruments imposing tight measures on matters like freedom tocorrespond, to publish, communicate and the right to form associations,foreshadowed by the military assaults, sentencing, hangings and most brutalassault by the state on Luddites202 It was only from 1820’s that workers movementturned against the capitalist’s, indicated by trade union consolidation in the firsthalf of 1820’s leading to their legal recognition, while also accepting theindustrial/mechanized mode of production as the basis for a radicalized version ofRobert Owen’s theory of co-operatives through the efforts of Hetherington, aprinter and among the first Owenites, William Thompson who rejected therequirement of worker’s co-operating with capitalists in forming co-operatives, andactively participated within middle class circles for franchise, creating networks ofmutual solidarity.203 This cycle ended by 1829/1830 that brought only the middleclass to the parliament; and with the defeat of isolated wage struggles, from 1831Chartism as a distinct form of worker consciousness came to the fore through anumber militant strike actions arising from class experience of the labour processthat lasted till 1833/34 on the basis of Short Term Committee formations [also thecampaign for an 8 or 10-hour working day], inspiring a much larger mass of labourunder the banner of the Charter aimed at forming a worker’s Parliament for urgentsolutions to social problems.

After the failure of struggles for legal protection against labour-saving machineryleading to machine breaking campaign by Luddites that was prevented by themilitary at the gates of large factory in 1819, a cavalry charge by organizedyeomanry, as Luddism with its cross-over character between town and country wasa threat to the growing body of capitalist farmers, the struggles for take over’s ofthe means of production by trade union combines with the aim to form

202 For the repressive measures and actions of the British state throughout see Charlton, John, The Chartists : thefirst national workers movement, London, p. 78-80; also Seville John, 1848 : British State and the ChartistMovement, London, passim

203 Vester Michael, Die Entstehung des Proletariat als Learnprozess. Die Entstehung anticapitalischer Theorie undPraxis in England 1792-1848, Frankfurt, 1975

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cooperatives equally defeated by lock-outs in 1831/1834, the Chartist franchisemovement of 1834/’48 returned to revolutionary theories of radical Jacobinism aswell as those rooted in `natural law’, or re-affirmed retaining the earlier critique ofbourgeois private property. There are two cycles in the period, one 1834/42 and thenext 1842/48. However, natural law tendency as identified with Spence’s doctrinehad been sublated theoretically by the theory of labour value of Hodgkin andAdam Smith. There appeared now an illustration demonstrating `surplus value’ asthe source of employer’s profits. Using land as an example it was formulated thatthere could be three types of land : natural, uncultivated land, land improved bycultivation and land with the possibility of further improvement and inproportionate terms the first type signified original value, the second, improvedvalue and the third, improvable value, with value-added from increase in technicalcomposition of capital.204 Similarly, labour-time was experienced by the contrastbetween seasonal-cyclical, farm task-oriented and wage assessment adjusted tocircadian rhythms [dawn-to-dusk] as industrial linear-time [temps-measure],employed timed labour, which was not `tasked’ but just paid for in money, asabstract.205 This use of the diachronic `string’ to draw out the contrast may beviewed as the continuation of a tendency that began with what E P Thompsoncharacterized as the `agrarian roots of English capitalism’ beginning with theprocess of `enclosures’, `reclaiming wastes’, destroying commons, large scaleeviction of peasants, all of which expanded the consolidation of private property inland at the expense of the existing equality of common laws whose theoreticalarticulation, in the Jacobin version by Rousseau would make another return in aparticularly militant phase of Chartism.206 Though Thompson was making thispoint with barely concealed rage against the schematics’ of P Anderson and TomNairn, who had missed out on the agrarian roots of English capitalism, a similarcritique can also be made of Vester for his chronological division into cycles, eachmarked by discontinuity borne out of failure of workers movement without making

204 Holwell M and Trent F, The Chartist Movement, p. 35

205 Thompson E P, Time, Work discipline and Industrial capitalism, Past and Present, 1967,p. 61; This is in no waysimilar to the binary that S Sarkar reduces linear and cyclical time distinction, rather ignorantly, because even incases of `overlap’ or co-existence of both these `shapes’ of time, the distinction remains. No such binary referencesare to be found in his reference to the article by E P Thompson. Other than this I do not find on what grounds he candismiss any binary relation, Cf, Sarkar S Colonial Times, in Beyond Nationalist Frames, Delhi, 2005, pp 11-12

206 Interview with E P Thompson in `Visions of History, MAHRO

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visible the common thread running through all the phases of the industrialrevolution, which had to do with the centuries of English rural history starting withthe reign of Elizabeth 1.207

It may appear outlandish though hardly irrelevant to consider Hegel’ observationson the eve of the reform bill not just because he felt the need to address acontemporary issue after a long period, perhaps the last of such observation priorto his untimely death, but for its singular insight. On the eve of the Reform Bill,Hegel wrote about the situation prevailing in Britain not so much as the internaltension between the propertied classes [millocracy, moneybags and landedoligarchy]; he emphasized the observation that the `propertied classes seemindifferent to the material well being of property less and impoverished agriculturalworkers. Hegel did not find anything in the Reform Bill that addressed thedepressed economic and psychological conditions of the distressed and poor ruralpopulation of England. Here, the agency that had uprooted individuals from thefamily and traditional agrarian independence, which in Britain would be the seriesof `bloody legislations’ from the last quarter of 15th c., should be the one to returnnot only people’s right to life as a negative, but as a positive right. Right to livemeans that `this right must be positively fulfilled. The reality of freedom should beessential. The life and subsistence of individuals are accordingly universalconcerns. 208 His observation followed from his doctrine of rights in the context ofpoverty. Hegel said the `the poor man feels himself excluded and shunned,scorned, by everyone. This exclusion necessarily gives rise to an inner indignation.He is conscious of himself as infinite and free, and so there also arises a demandthat his determinate existence should correspond to his consciousness.’209 Taken to

207 Talking about the establishment of Poor Laws in England at the `time of forcible expropriation of people’ fromtheir land and the `consequent spoliation of church property’, `when the legally guaranteed property of the poorerfolk had been quietly confiscated’ in the 43th year of Elizabeth’s reign, it became necessary to recognize pauperismofficially by the introduction of the poor rate.’, Marx, K, Capital, vol. 1, pp 881-882; `The fatal destiny of theexpropriated labourer made his misery eternal and provided justification for laws `by which the poor possessed aright to a miserable amount of public relief’, p. 801

208 Stewart J M and Hodgson P C, Lectures on Natural Rights and Political Science, California, 1985, §118

209 Hegel : Elements of a Philosophy of Right, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 194-195

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its extreme, poverty is a life-threatening situation. `Where life is endangered, itclaims a right to distress.’ Poverty resembles crime and the criminal in this case iscivil society itself. Hegel describes the crime as the wrong of exclusion. Civilsociety excludes and refuses those whom it forces to be self-sufficient whiledepriving them of the conditions of opportunities/ conditions necessary to be selfsufficient.. John McCumber finds in this thought of Hegel an indictment of thestate, in this case the British state, with a history of encroachment by civil society,the bourgeois profit-grubbers.210 From a fairly early period the state of affairs thatprevailed in Britain, which did not recognize the `material rights of the property-less’ had in it, according to Hegel the potential of turning `social paupers intosocial revolutionaries’. Unlike Marx, who saw much of British internal politicsthrough the continental, especially French lenses, Hegel considered England aspolitically backward when compared to the states in the continent. Continentalstates had reacted more responsibly to the pauperized agriculture workers whilethe English ruling class seemed to be basking in `false pride’ and impedingpromulgation of legislation to address the socio-economic distress of agriculturalclasses.211 For a country to be so impervious to its own rural poor after followingpolicies that created huge distress and pauperization, the policy impact in thecolonies, such as India was horrific. Rammohun Roy, who was testifying beforethe Select Committee on the eve of Reform bill concluded his observations on theprevailing agrarian distress in eastern India saying, “such is the melancholycondition of agricultural labourers that it always gives me the gravest pain to alludeto it.”212

A further comment is called for while juxtaposing Hegel’s and Marx’sunderstanding of English politics by putting aside the time difference for thepurpose at hand while at the same time considering time as a continuum in thedeeper levels. Leaving Hegel aside, Marx worked at the level of analysis on the

210 McCumber J, Contradiction and Resolution in the state : Hegel’s covert view, Clio, no. 4, 1986, pp 379-390

211 Nisbet, L B, Dicky L W, Political Writings : G W F Hegel, Cambridge, pp 224-226, 251, xvii; Elsewhere, Hegelcommented about the English state resting upon unjust privileges and unequal relations filled with “ bizarre rightsand property restrictions derived from feudalism.”, Knox, T M [ed], Hegel’s Political Writings, Oxford, 1960, p. 47

212 Raja Rammohun Roy, Selected Works, Delhi, 1977, p. 54

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critique of political economy as it emerged in the English working class-consciousness from the late 15th c. to 19th c. That Marx’s critique of Hegel waspolitical showed up way back in 1839-40 in his preface to the doctoral dissertationfor the public but this was further cemented by the fateful encounter with theproletariat via communism.213 Engels’s contacts with radical Chartists inManchester would de-ideologize the communism of young Hegelians. It was clearthat the English workers in 1840’s were at the forefront as the agency for anti-capitalist revolution in real historical terms that had lessons for workers elsewhere.Marx and Engels did expect the crisis of 1847 to precipitate a wave ofrevolutionary struggles and though they did not expect workers to emergevictorious yet they did foresee a long wave of revolutionary struggles.214 Perhaps itwas the optimism of those heady days but what they did not expect was that thecrisis of 1847 would inaugurate the mid-Victorian boom of capital, the first of itskind in world history. This crisis also impacted India with a run of bankruptcies. Inconditions of general prosperity there could not be any talk of revolution. But thecrux of the matter was that the roots of the crisis was massive over accumulation ofindustrial capital in England and though in England the crisis was precipitated bypoor harvests, the impact of the crisis was felt more strongly in the continent. Bankof England had already resolved the crisis of overproduction into a financial onefor England by curbing restrictions on speculation against the bank and by hikingthe interest rate in 1844 which attracted huge amounts of gold and currency fromthe continent but in Oct. 1847, the Bank Act was suspended leading up to 1848,

213 Marx Karl, Appendix, Doctoral Dissertation, The relationship of man to God, refuting all concepts of God orproofs of God’s existence,; Draft to a new preface to the Doctoral dissertation, stating instead proofs of existence ofhuman self-consciousness, art. in Rheinische Zeitung, `Communism and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung,15/8/1842, “We are firmly convinced that the real danger lies not in the practical attempts, but in the theoreticalelaboration of communist ideas..” in the Editorial note, “..Communism…is a natural phenomena in France andEngland..”pp. 103-’04,106,220, 223, MECW, vol.1, 1975, www.marxists.org/archive

214 Till 1855 Marx was talking about the severity of the `crisis in manufacturing districts’ would reach the severityof 1842 and bring about a revival of the conflict between `industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie’, though he didnot so much end on an optimistic note as he had when he sent the article to the German press, Neue Oder-Zeitung on2/3/1855 and a variant of the same article published in New York Daily Trbune, 24/3/1855, Marx K, Surveys fromExile, London 1973, pp. 281-284; at the dialectical moment, Marx saw the recurrent crisis of industrial capital from1830’s – 1837, 1842, 1847, 1855-56 – belonging to the era of `free-trade’ resolved after the bankruptcies result’s of1857 in the reorganization of the firm , either as a single joint stock company or trust as the monopoly profile wouldkeep the internal economy of the firm relatively free from vagaries of market fluctuations, Capital, 3,pp.538-439,not without alternatives such as cooperative factories of labourers, which can only like jt. Stock cos. come up withfactory system and Saint-Simon’s ideas on Credit mobilier, Capital, v. 3, 605-606,608

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when Europe was gripped by a sustained financial and political crisis.215 The lessonfor Marx would be that crisis and revolutions unfolds on a global scale whereas theepicenter remained England of his times. England `was the demiurge of bourgeoiscosmos’.216 Thus the first volume of Capital has its locus classicus in Englandused for `illustration of the theoretical development’ of the work on capitalist modeof production and forms of intercourse that correspond to it.217 Marx was praisingEnglish social statistics like the reports written by factory inspectors, medicalreporters on public health, on housing condition and of course, the Blue Bookdealing with trades unions and industrial questions 218 but the excellence of theirquality is to be found in the tremendous wave of a learning, communicating andcognitive activity spearheaded by the industrial workers in the first half of 19 th c.There would be a toning down of earlier exuberance about England in the postfaceto the second edition upon observing the rapid start of German industrializationwith `Das Kapital gaining appreciation equally `rapidly in wide circles of Germanworking-class.’ This revival of the great capacity for theory among Germanworkers was acknowledged by Marx as `the best reward for my labours’.219 Havingsaid this, England is now seen with a sharper focus for the period from 1820 to1830, notable for `the lively scientific activity which took place in the field ofpolitical economy’, unknown to Europe because of its scattered, popular and classnature that shows up in articles, reviews, `pieces d’occasion, pamphlets, tracts,banners, including Ricardo’s theory serving as a weapon in the hands of Englishworkers, mainly the Chartists. Though the struggle between labour and capital hadbeen pushed to background after 1825 by the discord between the aristocracy andthe government, this lasted only till the next cyclical crisis of 1830. The literatureon political economy of those times in England was recalled by Marx in `theeconomic `storm and stress period’ and from that time onward class struggle tookon more and more threatening forms while `sounding the knell of scientific

215 In vol. 3, all this is clear given than an entire chapter was devoted to the English bank legislation of 1844, MarxK, Cap[ital vol. 3, ch xxxiv, pp 554-555

216 See Clarke Simon, The globalization of capital, crisis and class struggle, Capital and Class # 75, Autumn 2001,pp. 99-100

217 Marx, Karl, Preface to the first volume of Capital, July 1867, London, 1976, p. 90

218 Marx, Capital, v.1, p. 92

219 Postface to the second edition of Capital, January, 1873, also reference to Dietzgen’s articles in the workerspress to which the mealy-mouthed babblers of German vulgar critics still owed a reply, p 95,99

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bourgeois economics.’220 Thus the moment of German industrial growth andmaturity of capital would coincide after their antagonistic character was revealedby real historical struggles in France and England, in the main. Huge portions ofthe first volume of Capital, related to theoretical concepts like value, surplus value,machinery and others can be seen as a tribute to the theoretical polemic carried byBritish workers, utopian socialists and Chartists and the learning that was going onat the popular level, which produced the social statisticians. We are not saying thatthe English experience provided Marx with the empirical evidence for testingtheories but talking about a type of supra/intra-empiricist material that was gettingconstituted by the level of a unity of intellectual and manual labour and not as`worked matter’. Most of those pages on machinery, the working day, division oflabour and manufacture, large-scale industry and machinery, wages, on theappropriation of agricultural population consisting of the yeomanry or the freepeasant from 14th c. when serfdom had disappeared to the last decade of 18 th c.when yeomanry and the `last trace of common land for agricultural labour’ hadbeen forced by violent means to disappear are mostly based on writing andevidence generated by the inquiries of popular culture, though Marx observed fromthe necessary distance needed221 for unfolding `determinate reflections’ of anaesthetic working out of the whole.

Now, at this point of time when the backbone of 17th c. English revolution, theindependent peasants was wiped out, that was not the case with the agriculturallabourer, that Marx took for granted [incorrectly] when it was most distressed fromthe opening decade of 19th c. There may be perfectly justifiable reasons though atthe level of analytical abstractions but without going into them we may now be in aposition to grasp the importance of Hegel’s observation on the plight of the ruralpoor in Britain. Hegel had made the essential point, the plight of rural paupers andlabour was the result of four centuries of a violent history, unlike anywhere inEurope. Hegel may seem as though he was praising if not extolling the virtues ofPrussian junkers far less brutal or violent in their relations with workers in theirestates as opposed to the British aristocracy at least till 1830’s and the state that

220 Ibid., p. 97

221 Ibid., p.877, 883

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had a long violent history throughout the period of `primitive accumulation’because he was referring to the anachronistic nature of English ruling class as wellas its policy of repression of its own subjects, especially the dispossessed ones. Inthe 1820’s, with the fresh wave of expropriation of free peasants and destruction ofdomestic industry and their reduction to Urquhart’s `working class in the fields222,there `to support a wretched factory population, a parasitical shop-keeping class,and a fictitious commercial monetary and financial system’. It was the time of thebreak up of a de facto alliance between the middle class and urban workers, notonly because they got the vote to the exclusion of urban workers but also becausethese newly gentrified capitalist farmers were the most oppressive with regard totheir farm labour that was reflected in their severe version of the `poor-rate’ in1834223 proposing abolition of outdoor relief for able bodied poor or`imprisonment’ of forced work in `workhouses’, meaning they were following thefootsteps of their earlier incarnation, the landed grubbers who were brought topower along with William of Orange in the `glorious revolution’. These cohortshad inaugurated a new era of `theft of Crown and state lands’, either given away atridiculous prices or annexed by direct seizures together with stolen church landsand formed the landed oligarchy of the state in 1820’s. In the last quarter of 18 th c.legal instruments – Bill for Inclosures of Commons- were used like decrees bylandowners who granted themselves the right to expropriate the people from thelast vestiges of communal property, indicative of a coup d’état as necessary totransform commons into private property.224 The condition of English agriculturallabourer can be measured by pints of wheat on a wage scale beginning 1771 - 90pints; 1797- 65 pints and 1808 – 60 pints.225 The poor law continued to beadministered the same way in 1796 as in 1814, below minimum wages making theagricultural worker a combination between wage-labourer and a pauper. Of all the`animals kept by the farmer’ the labourer was the most oppressed, `worst nourished222 Urquhart, David, Familiar words as affecting England and the English, London, 1855, in Marx, Capital, 1, p.911

223 Blakey R, The History of Political Literature from earliest times, London, 1855, in Marx, Op Cit., p. 882;Newman F W , Letters on Political Economy, London 1851; Public Health Reports

224 Wright T, A short Address to the Public on the monopoly of Large Farms, London 1779

225 Price, R Dr., Observations on Reversionary payments, London, 1803, together with Forster, Addington, Inquiryinto the reasons for or against enclosing open fields, London 1772, Kent and James Anderson should be read andcompared with latter day platter from apologists like McCulloch in his catalogue, The Literature of PoliticalEconomy, London, 1845

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and most brutally treated’.226 This state of affairs continued through 1820’s, markedby an inflationary trend in food prices until such time as the `Swing riots’ in 1830’that turned, `social paupers into social revolutionaries’, for a while. The maintendency in 1820’s in capitalist farms was that mechanization and steam drivenmachinery impacted negatively on unskilled rural labour. One threshing machine,rented and moved from farm to farm could drive around 100 men out of seasonalwork, which together with the `loaf of bread was taken as a `natural right’. Takingoff from Luddite actions they went for machines, breaking rollers, holing andboilers, jamming gears with crowbars and so forth. Destruction of threshingmachines by farm workers was a type of Luddite activity but in a different context,when the necessity of machine based production was recognized by factoryworkers. The action of rural workers was specifically directed against property andit spread across the southern counties – Kent, Surrey, Shorpshire, Wiltshire, Essex,Oxfordshire, Dorset and Norfolk- where rural wages were about a third of theurban wages. The riots had precedence in spring 1829 when Kent’s farmers hadpetitioned the Parliament to postpone a proposed tax on hops and asking for reliefin times of distress. It was the rejection of the petition that spawned hostilitieswhich was reflected in William Cobbett’s journalism and lecture tour in s-eEngland during the general election of August 1830. Though Hobsbawm andRude’s assertion that rural protesters ideological resources comprised of `the usualluggage of the pre-political poor belief in the rights of poorman by custom, naturaljustice and indeed on law which must not be infringed by the rich’227 remained intheir consciousness, it was no longer as embedded or engrained as before. Belief in`law which must not be infringed by the rich’, unlike `natural laws’ was consideredas a gain of the 17th c. English revolution in the sense of holding the richaccountable and putting some checks and balance on state authorities, as has beenargued by E P Thompson in his study of law in early 18th c.228 . The Swing revoltalso had a politicized nuclei in some villages according to Charlsworth’s recentspatial analysis that meant the presence of a fairly advanced politicalconsciousness, aware of the impact of the continental revolution and the need to

226 Parry W, The Question for the Necessity for the Existing Corn Laws Considered, London , 1816

227 Hobsbawm E J and Rude G, Captain Swing, London, 1973, p. 3

228 Thompson E P, The Crime of Anonymity, in Hay D , et al [eds], Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in 18 th

c. England, 1975

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change the unreformed state that showed up in the support given by Cobbett’sadmirers from Sussex during his acquittal after being charged with libel andsedition.229 The Whig government had sent army detachments, putting up rewardsof 500 sterling pounds for capturing `arsonists’, `machine-breakers’ while in somecounties mounted yeomanry squads were raised to ride down protesters in their theattempt to crush `collective bargaining by riots’ by the farm workers.

These riots revealed to the ruling class that `by the light of blazing corn stacks, thatmisery and black mutinous discontent smoldered quite as fiercely under the surfaceof agricultural as well as manufacturing England.’230 The newly elected Whigsbacked by the enfranchised middle classes had suppressed the `Swing riots’, alsotime for the Tory Michael Sadler, who had taken up the cause espoused by the tenhour movement in Yorkshire in the 1830’s, to christen agricultural labourers in theparliament as `white slaves’, or in the words of the notable political economist ofthat period, Wakefield, `the peasant of the south of England…is not a freeman, noris he a slave; he is a pauper.231 Though the implementation of poor rates wasfiercely resisted in north England, when most popular figures – FeargusO’Conner,232 Hetherington, Stephens- would draw crowds of listeners from100,000-250,000, the campaign soon retreated. Despite a wave of investmentdevoted to cultivation in the years previous to Corn law repeal [1844-45] thewages of agricultural workers remained miserable and with the progress of farmmechanization that showed a decline in the numbers of agricultural labour from1851-1861 ,Dr Julian Hunter commented : `The cost of a hind [ a name foragricultural labourer inherited from the time of serfdom] is fixed at the lowestpossible amounts on which he can live…the supplies and wages are not calculated

229 Cf Willis R, Mr William Cobbett, Captain Swing and King William IV, Agricultural History Review, vol. 45,no. 1, p. 34-48

230 Liang S, National Distress. Its causes and remedies London 1844, in Marx Op Cit., p. 830

231 Wakefield E G, England and America, London, 1833, vol. 1, p. 47

232 Feargus O’Conner became most popular in 2 ways: he embodied consciousness with all sorts of contraries ofthe working people and his Land plan, with hopes to return back to land for machinery displaced labour, or,`machinery simplifying with manufactory..dispensing with animate attendance, so the adult labour driven out oflabour market should occupy land..’ ,Northern Star, 14/1/1842, Royale, E, Op Cit., p. 63

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on the profit to be derived from him. He is a zero in farming calculations…he hasreached a zero from which are dated the calculations of the farmer. Come whatwill, he has no share either in prosperity or adversity.’233 Hegel had touched acritical problem but the answer that did emerge later followed a different trajectoryto which we will come soon.

It was Chartist opposition to wars that left a solid legacy for later organization ofagricultural workers. At the centre of working class understanding, not policythough, was that the notion of social justice required international working classunity and not nationalism. Countless statements from the working class press byrank and file organizers, workers, local leaders that wars to gain or retain colonieswere unjust, to be opposed and rejected. For instance resolutions passed by theNational Council protested against troops sent to West Indies since they wereordered to prevent disturbances in the course of emancipation of slaves.234 Lovettwrote in an address to workers in France that `we class our late wars with Chinaand Afghanistan with the war you are now waging in Algeria to be unjust.’235 Moredirectly to the point would be O’Brian’s position that made the distinction betweenwars against wealth, privilege and the state as `just’ but in case of colonial warsthen `let all those who profit by `our colonial possessions’- the proprietors of EastIndia stock , English and Irish merchants, brokers, writers, underwriters,governors, judges, military officers, `liver-coloured nabobs and all such aristocratsand commercial speculators `be off to India and fight a thousand battles as theylike… but let them not mock our degradation by asking us, the working people tofight along with them, having been robbed of everything we earned by the upperand middle classes…We the working people of Great Britain and Ireland have no

233 Marx, Capital,1, p. 831, 832; Royale E, Op Cit., p. 23; Public Health Reports of Dr J Hunter, 6th and 7th showingthe agricultural labourer’s nutrition ranked bottom in a descending order starting with a Portland convict, Sailor inthe Navy, Soldier, Working coach-maker and Compositor. `The labourer’s houses, overcrowded in the open villages,usually built in rows, with their backs against the extreme edge of the plot of land…and on this account are notallowed light and air except from the front. ..These open villages form a `penal settlements’ for the Englishagricultural proletariat…Very often the grocer or the beer seller of the village lets his house, and if not..they wouldbe sleeping under trees, Dr Hunter’s 7th Report, London 1865 p. 132,135; 6th Report, 1864, p. 262

234 Poor Man’s Guardian, 15/6/1832, 21/8/1832, Small Chartist Periodicals [facsimilie]\, New York, 1986 includesPoor Mans Guardian, Repealers Friend, Bronterre’s National Reformer, Labour Advocate, The Democrat

235 Lowett W, Life and struggles of William Lowett, London, 1876, p 103

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interest whatsoever in defending these possessions…On the contrary we have aninterest in the prospective loss and ruin of all such possessions.’ He added that `ifindeed there was a barbarous power against which he would welcome a war thatwould be `the English ruling class236 This was written in 1832, after the break withthe middle class and Hetherington would change from the softer positions of PennyPaper to the worker oriented Poor Man’s Guardian. The middle class hadstraightaway inherited the privileges of colonial profits and patronage, constitutingthe `new colonial school of utilitarian’s while Bentham had started feeling himselfto be a citizen of a great de facto empire that would offer ` a vast field forphilanthropy and reforms’.237 Though non-socialist, as a mass leader O’Connerstood firmly for democracy everywhere, `irrespective of country, creed and colourand consistently took a pro-Indian stand. However, O’Brian’s opposition to thecolonial ventures and possessions would be taken up by Julian Harney declaring,`we have no colonies; our aristocracy and merchants possess colonies all over theworld, but the people of England…do not possess a sod in their own country, muchless in colonies..’.238 In 1839, Harney began his London Democrat with a promiseof attention to colonies that was kept. The Afghan and Punjab wars drew specialattention and further enlightened pretentions of public men and the governmentthough the protests against wars in India remain limited to further revelation ofruthlessness and disowning responsibility for ruling class misdeeds.239 Howitt didsuggest something close to a call for action, the appeal is moral, `wash your handsof guilt and show on every possible occasion that you have neither part nor lot inthe matter’.240 William Howitt, took a Christian view of the matter when he wroteof the colonial system, `the barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-calledChristian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people theyhave been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by any other race…in any age ofthis earth’.241 Flora Tristan, who visited England for attending Chartist Convention

236 McDouall’s Chartist and Republican Journal, Nos 21, 23, Manchester, 1841, Poor Mans Guardian, 21/8/1832

237 Cf Bowring J, Life, note, June,1829

238 Northern Star, Jan. 1838, p 4; Cf Black F G and R M, The Harney Papers, New York 1969

239 English Chartist Circular, no. 6, 1841

240 English Chartist Circular, vol 2, No 61, 1842, 71

241 Howitt, W, Colonization and Christianity : A popular history of the treatment of natives by Europeans in all theirColonies, London, 1838,p. 9

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of 1839 devoted good many pages on India. What she said was on the internalconnection between the poverty in Britain and colonialism, because wages couldbe kept down by competition while deriving profits from exports there, i.e.,colonies.242

In 1847, Harney stood against Palmerston , he attacked his foreign policy, callinghim an ally of despotism in Poland, Portugal, Turkey, Egypt, Austria, Ireland,Canada, China, India. It was a `mockery’ to call Hindustan `our empire’ when `theworking class of this country had not one foot of soil they could call their own intheir own native land.’ Apparently Palmerston was so shaken by such a probe onhis record that he considered it necessary to reply, as was his wont, in a speechlasting three hours.243 Considering the range of space given to the `colonialpossessions’, especially Indian subcontinent, in Chartist and worker’s literature inan extremely agitated period [1840’s], the amount of reference is more than may beexpected. If the sources touched upon is indicative of the level of literacy ofEnglish working class at that period then it has to be admitted that there was farmore exchange and diffusion/communication by word of mouth. There was avigourous campaign that was sustained by the workers press exposing the tyrannyand wrongs perpetuated in the colonies from a moral world view where thecolonial issue stood condemned in simple and basic moral terms. The intensity ofpolemic at times shows this up as a desire for social justice rather than arising fromthe notion of nationalism. Condemnation of colonial wars because they wereoutright and manifest injustice, abstract ideas underlying solidarity andinternationalism was the outcome of feelings and experience that is capable ofproducing the most brilliant intuitions, namely the realization of class struggle thatneeded to be based on the world market, which was anyway implicit then but wasnot able to assert any form. In the main, whenever the colonial clause came up for

242 Tristan F, cited by Kemp-Ashraf P M, Op Cit., p. 200

243 Northern Star, May 14, June 19, 1847 in Kemp-Ashraf P M, p 207 Later Harney edited The Red Republicturned to Friends of People, June 1850-July 1851, [facsimilie] New York, 1966. John Seville commenting on theseweeklies said that it provided an outlet for advanced liberal and socialist thought and `it’s columns remained open toforeign democrats and revolutionaries of many shades of people”. Harney changed the name of the weekly from TheRed Republican to Friend of the People after he found that he lost readership because of the angry revolutionarysound of Red Republic. This change is important in the sense of reading the changed situation by Harney, which inan earlier period would have never been reflexive and pragmatic.

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discussion, the main principle since early 1830’s had been the demand to abolishthe standing army, which had been a part of the demands of the LondonCorresponding Society in 18th c., the constitution of peoples militia in line with astrong republican principle and banning wars of all kinds except in self-defence.This implied no colonial garrisons hence no willing colonies either. This shouldsuffice as the British workers main policy towards colonies till 1851, whenconfusion irrupted,244 within the working class that was involved in a confused sortof a way between the struggles on its own terrain as well in a struggle for franchisebefore all in the ideological sphere.

Agricultural workers began organizing on their own, after having suffered most inthe Crimean war in mid-1850’s while at the same time they were the one’s to feelthe pinch of hunger and want in the following period.245 Their union, set up in 1872reached a membership of 86,000 in 1874. In a public meeting held on May 16,1877, London the leading activist, Joseph Arch expressed the attitude ofagricultural workers on the Russo-Turkish war, since earlier experience andapprehensions had re-emerged. He said that `they were determined their bloodwould not be spilt and their treasure expanded in support of Turkey’, given theirnot too distant memories of the Crimean war participation. Engels who reported onthe meeting said the party was an uninhabited advocate of peace; that they weredemonstrating in opposition to war instead of wanting to participate in the politicalaffairs of the country by demanding franchise. They `still constituted a class ofpoor pariahs’ that made Engels wonder if their claims could at all be consideredfavourably, especially `by the clergy who consider the subjugation of agriculturallabour to be the basis of the whole British socio-economic system.’246 Besides they

244 This happened when the colonial clause came up for discussion in 1851 Chartist convention. In line with a`pragmatic turn’ the clause on standing army in colonies was modified in the acknowledgment of an expediency oftheir presence in colonies till such time `until suitable changes in `our colonies’ have rendered its continuance nolonger requisite’. Ernest Jones who was responsible for this changed tried to justify, `supposing we had given themequal laws, etc…since we don’t want to tyrannize over them and they would be better free, but `they want’ astanding force’ in case France, Russia or Kaffirs deluge them with blood’. This tells more than needed the real shiftand the arrival of an insignificant period for Chartism, Notes to the People, No 1, May 1851

245 The Daily News, 17/5/1877, n 208 in MECW, V. 24, P. 615

246 Engels F, [British agricultural labour want to participate in the political life of their country], June 5, 1877,MECW, 24, p. 179

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had organized a strike in 1872, the year of the formation of their union and then in1874 in central and eastern England for a shorter working day and higher wages.The strike of 1874 had secured a wage rise. The agricultural workers understoodthe political state of affairs fairly accurately in terms of using the economicdifferences between the aristocracy and the landed bourgeoisie. So in order towrest concessions they would use the less inhabited aristocracy, used tonegotiating with philanthropic concessions to mollify farm labour, though now,having sensed the oncoming period of universal suffrage [ the urban workers hadobtained the right to vote under the `Second Reform Act’, 1867], the bourgeois hadjumped in this terrain, contesting the aristocracy directly. As long as this differencecould be used like `business relations’, there could be no violent socialist agitationson this issue, unlike the rest of Europe. Engels may have been reading too muchinto the political aspect of this emergent phenomenon while the farm labourerswere not too keen politically at least to come out expressly with political demands.

In a subsequent follow up article, Engels revised his views and came closer to thepoint. One main reason why the wages strike was successful was due to theprovision opened to farm workers to immigrate to America or Australia and thishad the effect of rising wages due to manpower decrease. But even moresignificant, borne from their yearning from `historical consciousness’ of a factionthat broke away from citizen Arch, was the predilection for issues that did nottouch the issue of individual ownership of land as highly while keeping open undersignificant circumstances the prospects of launching a movement in favour of`collective property’.247 The split between the leadership headed by Joseph Arch,who raised the issue of universal suffrage and the collectivist movement orbetween the revolutionary idea of the collectivist tendency and the conservativeside that wanted to reconcile the exploiters with the exploited was real. Clearly,what comes across is an advanced/sublated notion in the `collectivist movement’over earlier views of the Levelers leader Gerard Winstanly demandingnationalization of land and means of production with some hope of `kingdom of

247 Engels F, [British Agricultural union and the collectivist movement in countryside], June 14, 1877 MECW, Vol.24, p.p. 181-182, mainly addressed to Italian workers and published in La Plebe

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God on earth’.248 The split did not stop the collectivist movement from pursuingtheir programme as in a meeting, recognizing the need for greater improvement inagriculture they wanted a law that would place `all the cultivable land in the handof a representative body and indemnify the owners’. This had been the dormantand a long felt desire, going back in terms of centuries – when there was an organicconnexion between agricultural labour and communal land – that demanded an`expropriation intended to benefit the `working people’.249 Engels was mistaken,nevertheless, for anticipating that soon enough the differences between thebourgeoisie and the aristocracy would dissolve after which they would form afused mass against agricultural labour leading to the movement to take a`revolutionary’ turn from its evolutionary pattern because for one, they did notform the cannon fodder for colonial wars and second, by The Third Reform Act of1884, rural workers obtained the right to vote. Next in line for suffrage would bewomen, who achieved full rights to vote after a long drawn out, bitter fight in1928. The `evolutionary pattern’ persisted in a very irregularly staggered pace inBritain but the spread of democratization faded the revolutionary ideal by the closeof 19th c. Trapped within the logic of achieving democratic gains within a middleclass framework, British working class could not come to a point when its ownconstituting/developing revolutionary potential fell outside middle class concerns.Engels too had, in the critique of Erfurt programme reproached German social-democracy for insufficient preparation for a middle-class revolution, suppressingthe republican principle and of having an indefinite attitude towards the state.Besides, all collectivist movements do not ipso facto imply the socialist principle,

248 Needham J, The Levellers and the English Revolution, Cambridge, 1939 published under the pseudonymHenry Holorenshaw

249 Ibid., p. 182, Engels wanted to communicate to Italian socialist the `spirit’ of the agricultural union and themovement surrounding it, but as subsequent history would show the Italians didn’t pay much heed though givenEngels’s own assumptions about the reactionary compact of the ruling class in Europe in relation to workers, hisintellect may have been predisposed towards pessimism. However, the lesson may have had to do with organizingthe vast mass of share-croppers, the braccianti, which would have forced landlords to enforce wage payments. Thatdid not happen. It may be pertinent to remark that J Banaji’s perceptive review of Kautsky’s Agrarian Questionseems to have missed out on Engels’s misreading of the position of German Social Democratic Party while pressingon the socialist to win power in his `The Peasant Question in France and Germany’ [1894], Illusions about Peasantry: Karl Kautsky and the Agrarian Question, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 17, No. 2, January, 1990 It was not asthough the `radicalism of the peasantry’[Kautsky] had anything to do with the aspirations of a workers movement.The situation of mass democracy under the wings of capital made the industrial workers indifferent to other classeswithout, however, creating conditions for its own social and revolutionary advance. The revolutionary advance bySpartacists was not just stopped by its immediate repression but in leading up to leaving a `social void’ in itsaftermath; in the following year [1919], revolutionary conditions had not diminished, nor was the uprising abortive.

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like the Swiss cantons.250 Socialism can be realized in a world enjoying highestpossible measure of individual freedom. It appears as though a decisive chapter inthe history of English working class history has yet to receive its proper due.Returning to Hegel’s observation on the eve of the Reform Bill on the miserableconditions of English agricultural workers, he had made a pertinent observationand seen conceptually, their organization, anti-war position and the winning thesuffrage becomes a historical derivative of the said concept/begriff in terms of anadvanced moment involving their own self-becoming, self-activity, self-organizingand recognition of self in the other. Blake :

My hand are labour’d day & night

And ease never comes in my sight

My wife has no indulgence given

Except what comes to her from heaven

We eat little, we drink less

The earth breeds not our happiness

Another sun fills our life’s streams;

We are not warmed with thy beams

Thou measurest not the time to me

250 Rosenburg A, Democracy and Socialism, London, 1937; A History of Bolshevism, Zurich, 1933, p.17, 19, 58Even Marx, who identified with the Russian revolutionaries – peasant movement led by the intellectuals after thecrushing of Paris commune could not fathom the distinction in the class consciousness of industrial workers inEurope who were concerned with their specific position as factory workers which differentiated them from all othereconomic groups. Even though no socialist party went against the artisans or injured the peasants or initiatedmovements against middle class, yet their activities were restricted to industrial workers. It was only in Russia thatconditions akin to 1848 could possibly obtain. Authors like Perry Anderson who seem to be into a revision or a re-interpretation of historical moments also miss out on the significance of the gains made by the English agriculturalworkers and its anti-war moment. An acknowledgment would have tampered the oft repeated point about thejingoism that was supposed to have affected the British workers or saying something to the effect that only Morriswas making sense. He also seems to have missed out on the political implications of the overall embrace by middleclass democracy of the radical and liberal segments from the middle class. Anderson Perry, Internationalism- : ABreviary, New Left Review, 14, March 2002

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Nor yet the space that I do see

Now I a fourfold vision see

And a fourfold vision is given to me :

Tis fourfold is my supreme delight,

And threefold in soft Beulah night,

And twofold Always. May God us keep

From single vision & Newton’s sleep. 251

Reference to the `Norman yoke’ by the Chartists can be seen as a metaphor ofoppression not only for the fates that befell the English countryside but alsocolonies like India. Ideas from the Norman period, “ of the king granting land tothe tenants who became both territorial power and eventually the supporters of theroyal power is surely one of the organizing concepts that the British used forunderstanding Indian political and social life.”252 Given that in 1820’s theexpansion of bourgeois monopolization of landed property in rural areas wascreating continued dispossession, colonial conquests was seen by the Chartists asthe extension of the logic of territorial acquisition. Abolition of private property inland, as distinct from private property as such continued to linger in the workingclass consciousness and taken together with the notion of original commonownership this notion was not just a part of their culture but the expression of thehiatus that had developed between town and country, akin to alienation creating

251 Blake W, 22 November 1802 from Stevenson H D [ed],William Blake, Selected Poems, London 1988

252 Ainslee T Embree, Landholding in India and British Institutions, in Frykenberg, R E, [ed] Land control andSocial Structure in Indian history, p. 36; “ Feudalism as pervaded English opinion and English constitution since theNorman conquest…that it is very difficult for an ordinary Englishman to understand what is familiar to other partsof the world.” , Calcutta Review, 1869, p. 154

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effects by longing. This was not a day dream or some chimera that was chased inthe sky but a real objective for working people. It was mainly an expression ofpractical concern for rural proletariat. As applied to India, the historical memorywith all references to the losses suffered, regarded by Christopher Hill as backwardlooking utopias,253 were seen more in terms of their continued applicability and notmerely as survivals,:“When we reflect but hastily on wars, artificial scarcities anddestroying pestilences…and on ignorance, vice, extensive poverty, crimes, politicaloppression…occasioned by the gross injustices of landed monopoly, we cannot failto regard it as the main source of moral and political evil – the Jaggernaut ofcivilized society.”254 More advanced views that linked riches derived from privatelandlordism to the mechanism of industrial and commercial system, fallingsomewhere between socialist moral universe and more revolutionary form ofsocialism can be found in the writings of C Hall. He seems to have been widelyaccepted within Owenites and radical workers which prompted a reprint in 1850,some 44 years after its first print, by John M Morgan, the cooperative socialist. Towriters like Hall and Thompson, capital was a means by which the employerextracted from the labour of his men so much `surplus value’ as would lead him topursue a miserable existence.255 Hall explained that once land was taken over inIndia by conquest, the capitalist system begins to operate. “If there were nomanufactures in India, it would be impossible for European nations to injure thenatives to a great degree. They would only take from them only few of their naturalproducts such as cinnamon, pepper, tea, etc. But by means of manufacture they cantake from them large quantities, the necessities of life…The natives are deprived ofmillions of thousands… bushels of rice and necessities which none of theEuropeans have received. Europeans have been deprived of millions ofthousands…bushels of wheat…of which Indians have not received onegrain….The bulk of people on both sides have been most miserably despoiled bythis system of trade.”256The motive for territorial expansion is now seen asestablishing power over more and more human labour. Here it is significant to note

253 Hill, Christopher, Puritanism and Revolution, London 1962, see Ch on `The Norman Yoke‘, p.122

254 Address of the Society of Spencean Philanthropists to all Mankind…, London, 1816, p 4 cited by Kemp-Ashraf,Op Cit., p. 192

255 Holwell Mark and Trent Fredrick, The Chartist Movement, London, p. 17

256 Hall C, Effects of Civilization, London, 1850, pp 71-72

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how the worker’s experience of the commodity labour, in terms of material cultureshaped their concepts in a reciprocal manner, acceptance and articulation. Byshowing the growth of trade in world market based on the morphogenesis ofmanufacture into a `manufacture of manufactures’, Hall concluded that thismechanism enormously increased the power of capital over labour and theexploited workers of both countries were in the same position governed by thesame system of the same machines operated by the same masters. Hence thedemand for social justice gets inherently bound with class conflicts.

Among the books in circulation in workers circles, which makes the phenomenonof knowledge both as a learning process such as argued by Vester, producingknowledge of the new kind for teaching and as historical evidence for the future orexpressed in terms of the unity of manual and intellectual labour that crosses thecommodity abstraction, mention may be made of William Howitt’s Christianityand Colonialism, which was regarded for its anti-clericalism. The Chartist Circularhad carried a 3-column article on India based on materials from a book byHowitt’s, William and Mary, both regarded as honest radicals apart from a numberof exposes in 1840-’41 carried by their writings.257 However, the Report of theSelect Committee on Handloom Weavers, 1834-’35 caught a good deal of attentionfrom important sections of British workers.. Data about cotton trade and labourwere quoted in different publications. Here was a case of expressing classsympathy with “2 million handloom weavers of Hindustan driven from labour bymachinery and many are perishing in famine.”258 The consequences of industrialrevolution based on the cotton production became clearer than earlier. There couldno longer be any doubt about the de-industrialization effect produced in India as aconsequence of forced demolition of the subcontinent’s system of manufactoriesand handicrafts upon workers receptivity in England in 1830’s as also because ofinterpreting Ricardo in a manner appropriate for prophecy. The present system was

257 Chartist Circular, Glasgow, 2/5/1840; Maccoby S, English Radicalism 1786-1832, London 1955,p. 89

258 Gaskell P , Artizans and Machinery, London, 1836; Minutes of Evidence of the Select Committee on HandloomWeavers, 1834-‚35; Conditions of labour in India was also learnt from evidence of English craftsmen in the FifthReport on the Affairs of E I C

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damned by Ricardo because it condemned the poor to eternal and undiminishedsuffering while the rich throve on `surplus value’ extracted from the poor.259 From1830, there was call for social restriction on machines by means of co-operativesof elected workers. Statements made in a `philosophical sense’ consideredmachinery as equivalent to elements of nature in a similar vein from an earlier timewhen Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations served as a book for radical workers whoobjected to sharing the product of their labour with their employees during the firstdecade of 19th c. In 1830’s Ricardo was seen to prophesy a `revolutionarytermination’ of oppressions by capital. 260Actually the question of limiting labour-time in factory production and machinery had become a serious issue with thecooperatives’ in particular who were demanding social control of machinery by the`republican principle’ of `a management chosen by the operatives from amongthemselves.’.261 Employees began to see the distinction between their own timeexpanded in the labour process and the employers time devoted single-mindedly tousing up the time of labour and see that it is not wasted. What mattered to theemployer was not the task but the value of time, `temps-measure.262 Francis Placehas left his own experience of work in 1829 : “ For six years the work I had to dofor 12-18 hours a day, when no longer able to continue working from a sickeningaversion, I used to run from it as rapidly as I could to Highgate, Hampstead…andthen return to `my vomit’. This is the case with every workman I have ever knownand as proportions as a man’s case is hopeless will such fits more frequently occurand be of a longer duration.” 263 Under these conditions of `division’ of labour, theexperience of work that destroys both the mind and body, the disgust of work toogets forcefully interiorized, independent of consciousness, the labour-process underthe factory system was taken up from 1830’s, with strikes demanding cooperativecontrol of means of production, rolling from one factory to another on the basis ofnetworking communication of newsagents and booksellers, publishers and street

259 Holwell M and Trent F, The Chartist Movement, p. 40

260 Ibid., p. 44

261 Magazine of useful knowledge and Cooperatives Miscellany, Oct, 1830,Artizan : Machinery, its tendencyviewed particularly in reference to the working class, 1843; English Chartist Circular, No 133, 1843, No 19, 1841;The Man, 25/8/1833 for a debate on the Rights of Man, Penny Paper, 27/5/1831

262 Thompson E P, Time, Work Discipline and Industrial Capitalism, Past and Present, 38, Dec. 1967, p. 61

263 Ibid., p. 76

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vendors.264The logic of capital accumulation with concentration and `monopoly’over means of production began to be discussed in terms of `labour being deprived’or `the end of labour independence for the second time by robbers of its machines’.This was the sentiment expressed at the time when English handloom weaverswere nearing their gradual extinction, about a long drawn out tragedy dragging outtill the close by 1840. Marx wrote: `World history offers no spectacle morefrightful’ than this gradual extinction of weavers.265 But the period 1830-’33 was acycle marked by glut following two preceding years of great increase in powerlooms and 1829 exported factory made cotton piece goods surpassing all previousyears that led to large scale strikes and comprehension by workers of their newpower as a result of concentration in a factory. This was among the most intenselearning cycle of class-conflict that threw up demands like co-operative take overof the means of production without the capitalist. This cycle ended in 1834 withanother wave of increase in the number of factories together with the passing ofnew poor rates. We find that when the instrument of labour undergoes atransformation to machine then `machinery and labour are in constantcompetition’, as Ricardo puts it. Because machinery de-skills work, reducinglabour-power to a particular skill of handling some tool, thereby robbing theworker of salable use-value, the workers feels vulnerable, like an inimical powerthat keeps the workers `on the edge’.266 The classical expression of the spirit of thefactory had been C Babbage, Andrew Ure, Jeremy Bentham and industrialists likeMarc Brunel and Henry Maudsley, all dedicated to the scientific organization ofthe capitalist system and forerunners too, in many ways.267 Though this realtransformation of production profile by means of machinery was creating newforms of class conflict, the truly radical, working class phase of Chartists, theirhigh water mark, yet this expansion was taking place in a single branch of industryat the expense of older handicrafts and manufacture in the world market. Cheap,factory produced articles together with revolution in means of transportation like

264 Royle E, Chartism, New York, 1986

265 Marx K, Capital , vol. 1, p. 557

266 Marx K , Capital, p. 557, 562; `When machinery seizes on industry by degrees, it produces chronic miseryamong workers who compete with it. Where the transition is rapid, the effect is acute and is felt by great mass ofpeople.

267 Cf Witheford-Dayer N, Cyber Marx, London, 1999

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steam navigation followed by railways and communication become real weaponsfor the conquest of foreign market. After ruining Indian handicraft production,machinery impacted by forcibly converting those producers to work in fields forproducing raw materials like cotton, wool, hemp, jute and indigo for Britain, whichchanged the composition of `collective labour’, the `combined working personnel’,using children, women of all ages and unskilled worker to work under the newdivision of labour or `cheap labour’ in the factories in Britain.268

As an aside, mention may be made of an intervention by the E I C , with belatedsuccess, to re-organize the production of raw silk on the basis of Piedmontesereeling technology in Bengal. Historically speaking, from early 16th c. n-w Bengalwas involved with handicraft mode and mulberry based silk production for theglobal markets through the main trading centre Kasimbazar. The system workedthrough the agency of `dadni’ merchants, a traditional merchant guild whomediated between the direct producers and Asian /European merchants frommoney advances that the exporters paid for production and auxiliary costs. It soonbecame a competitive and flourishing trade, supplying global markets withincreasing qualities of silk. This lasted for around two centuries, till 1740’s whenthere occurred a big trend reversal after the E I C gained control over revenues ofBengal 1750’s followed by the reversal in the flow of silver,269 after E I C wrestedpolitical control over Bengal, defeating the local governor Siraj-ud-daula in thebattle of Palassy in 1757. This was not the situation with the major item of import,i.e., cotton goods, which Bengal continued to produce and supply under terms andconditions set by the company, where brutality and force was always the threatbefore the producers in the name of quality controls. Piedmontese silk reelingmachines were forced externally upon the producers for a completely differentmethod of producing silk, wiping out the previous labour-process. Artisans were268 Marx, K, Capital, vol. 1, p 590; There is more than enough of neo-Malthusian literature, argumentation by usingnumbers that has been coming out regularly saying the change at the geological time scale was ushered in the 50years of `industrial revolution’ while its obverse is model logics of counter-finalities or non-analytical proofsthrough the algorithm of abduction logic, or proceeding backwards from the proof by eliminating the entiresequence that was supposed to have led to it and arriving to zero. So it may be a bit too early to see the industrialrevolution through the growth/developmental optics for now as we find in Clark G, The great Escape : IndustrialRevolution in Theory and in History, University of California, September, 2003

269 Choudhury K N, Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments, in Kumar D, [ed] Cambridge Economic History ofIndia, p 614, Vilar P, History of Gold and Money, London 1976, p. 285;

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`forced to work in company’s filatures, meaning a manufactory system wasintroduced with intention to control and intensify their work. Some experts werecalled from Europe to train the artisans from the year 1769, the year prior to the bigfamine in Bengal that took away more that a third of the population. From 1770’swork started in the production centres under strict supervision but colonialconditions were created in order to meet the expectations of output from producers.By 1780’s the new, improved variety of silk, of better quality than the previoustype reached the expected output target that EI C was marketing to Europe fromLondon. This seems to have created a panic in some of the traditional centres ofsilk production in European Low Countries and Italy. There was another panicsituation created in late 1820’s , the kind of excitation the Company was easilythriving on, though this too lasted for a short while because the entire productionsystem was dissolved in 1840, when increasing flows of clothing and linenproduced cheaply from Britain started pouring in.270 In effect the E I C made heftyprofits and the producers too gained some respite from the force used for controlfor working up the stipulated or the required output. But their condition did notimprove and nor did the condition of the local and regional economies as all of thisproduction was appropriated by E I C for selling in Europe. Britain was trying tobreak into the European market with the silk produced in Bengal though they couldonly make some brief incursions. This sort of experimentation may resemblediffusionism of sorts but hardly comparable to the diffusion of an entire economicdoctrine of Wu-Wai in Europe via Jesuit texts from China and visual diffusionthrough mimben images during the ceramic boom from 17th to 18th c. Wu –Wei co-evolved with laissez –faire but had considerable ideological impact resulting in thePhysiocratic doctrine of its founder Quesnay.271

270 The source is an article on the subject, cited for its novelty rather than the author’s `revisionist’ interpretation, isthe Commodities of the Empire Project, Davini R, A Global commodity within a rising empire : A history of Bengaliraw silk as a connective interplay between company bahadur, the Bengal local economy and society, and theuniversal Italian model, c. 1750-1830, Working Paper No. 6, Feb. 2008

271 Garlach C, Wu-Wei in Europe : A study of Eurasian Economic Thought, London School of Economics

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After the defeat of 1848 272 , followed by the pragmatic drift of 1851 on the issueof positioning standing army in colonies by Jones, which soon turned out to be acase of vacillation followed by a course correction, then a steady keel before thefade out towards the close of 1850’s, the Chartist `movement’ was over. Byengaging with Marx, Jones found a way to a better comprehension of the colonialissue though his shift towards Manchester radicals and association with IndianReform Association seen as a personal choice may have left its mark in Jones’sclarity in coming to grasp the revolt of 1857. Despite his courage and stand in 1857the paternalistic streak prohibited Jones from a comprehensive grasp of theunfolding situation in India. But he supported the revolt as a `sacred cause’ ofnational freedom no less than Poland or Ireland, regardless of the leadershipaiming to restore the Mughul dynasty. He saw it as a popular revolt supported bythe peasantry though he does not say anything about the nature of urbanparticipation. Yet, given that he was addressing the English workers, it was properto assume that the revolt must have called forth new forces just as othermovements for independence had summoned when he composed the imaginaryhistory of India, The Revolt of Hindustan, in 1857. But his critique was no matchfor O’Brian or Harney or Hetherington. The advanced workers of 1830’s weremaking a culture that was sensitive to criticism and having distinct, class ideas oncolonial liberty was accepted by popular consciousness. In 1835, Cole, who hadcomposed a satirical ode to the Duke of Willington, was a member of mechanicsunion who clearly saw the link between class struggle and emancipatory signs orstruggles in colonies. In his horizon, the days of independent craftsmen were overand only firm unity and solidarity could help protect any workingperson againstthe power of capital. Willington strikes him as quintessentially reactionary becauseof his record of military campaigns in Indian peninsula and his offer to get thearmy to defeat the Reform Bill in 1832, sending troops to deal with strikes and soon. Only the power that the likes of Willington could not understand, the moral andintellectual power of working-class solidarity could bring about his downfall.273

That, however, was also the time that expressed solidarity when Rammohun Roy

272 The vast number of arrests, persecution and short term imprisonment took out the main strength, its localleadership out of Chartist struggles in 1848. Chartists were in 1848, workingmen with no support. The repression of1848 was carefully orchestrated and effectively organized. John Seville points to at least ten acts available toauthorities for use against Chartists in 1848. Cf Charlton, The Chartists, p. 82

273 Cole C, Ode to His grace the Duke of Wellington, London, 2nd edition, 1835

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visited factories at Manchester, `the workmen struck work…while many of thegreat unwashed wanted to shake hands with him; some of the ladies…wished toembrace him…He seemed to have caught the spirit of the people. After shakinghands with hundreds of them he addressed them hoping that they would all supportreform.274Inter-racial solidarity would emerge later in the active field of self-organization with some force when in the London Conspiracy case, out of 3convicted and transported to Tasmania two were Irish, Thomas Fay and WilliamLacey and the third, the 61-year old black tailor, William Cuffey, President of theMetropolitan district summit of Chartists in 1848. In the latter half of 19 th century,it was no longer possible for workers of Britain to lay claims to the kind of centralrole which they held in the earlier half. German and U S industrialization wouldbring the German workers to the fore, alternating with workers militancy in the US. As a matter of fact, no longer would there be some kind of a centre that Britainhad become.

One concluding remark on the constitutive and explanatory power of volume 1 ofMarx’s capital seems relevant for now. The body of the work was not possiblewithout the contribution and the fall out of the English workers movement in thefirst half of 19th century. The materiality of the volume is made up of the self-consciousness of workers who opposed domination in the immediate process ofproduction, appearing through a diverse range of results showing forth the levels ofopposition to the rule of capital in both the prose and verse of the world. It was notjust a process with ideas taking on a material shape but also the very materiality ofideas themselves, revolutionary and with thousand consequences that are theessential, constitutive moment of Capital. What Marx did was to put them across ina historical-phenomenological perspective by systematically deriving all thenecessary concepts from its immanent logic.

274 Iqbal Singh, Rammohun Roy, A Biographical Inquiry..., vol. 3, Bombay, 1987, p. 374

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