One thing that becomes immediately apparent when visiting the medieval witchcraft museum in Iceland[1] was how strategic the use of Witchcraft accusations were by the middling elite.
One cunning foreign family with ties to occupying Denmark was able to secure land hold rights for nearly an entire peninsula from local Icelanders on the northwest through the strategic use of witchcraft accusations. During this period of occupation nearly 120 trials occurred over a 60 year period[2].
The people weren’t superstitious - they were corrupt.
This is essentially the thesis of Silvia Federici’s tremendous book, “Caliban and the Witch.” Witch hunts were pursued to reorganize familial, gender, and labor relations to suit the needs of an emergent Capitalism:
>For serfs, who tilled the land in exchange for a share of its crops, home was work, and vice versa; men and women grew the potatoes together. But in capitalism, waged laborers have to work outside the home all the time, which means someone else needs to be at home all the time, doing the domestic work. Gender roles, and the subjugation of women, became newly necessary.
Early feudal elites in rural Europe enclosed public land, rendering it private and controllable, and patriarchy enclosed women in “private” marriages, imposing on them the reproductive servitude of bearing men’s children and the emotional labor of caring for men’s every need. Pregnancy and childbirth, once a natural function, became a job that women did for their male husband-bosses—that is to say, childbirth became alienated labor. “Witches,” according to witch-hunting texts like the Malleus Maleficarum, were women who kept childbirth and pregnancy in female hands: midwives, abortionists, herbalists who provided contraception. They were killed to cement patriarchal power and create the subjugated, domestic labor class necessary for capitalism.
You're going to have a tough sell with that for folks who haven't read her work. I have, and it was more or less the first thing I thought of when I read the title of the article.
I mean, if "primitive accumulation" isn't a thing you're curious about, then her work is just gonna not make a lot of sense... but I personally find her ideas quite convincing. So I am not surprised when folks who aren't in that political discussion reject theses like those out of hand.
So, yeah, I think it's relevant. Sorry you got folks who don't seem familiar with the material responding as if they were.
I find that most people are amenable to a materialist conception of history if you just phrase it without the Marxist specific terminology. No need to go into primitive accumulation or explaining dialectics.
Wouldn't it be nice if history were actually this simple?
The idea here is that Romans, with their pater familias, or the Confucian Chinese, for whom the father was a mini-emperor, were just preparing the way for capitalism, 2000+ years before the fact?
Marriage and home-bound women were not an invention of the late medival world. Women may well have been more free in the preceding period, but that was the exception, not the norm.
Her’s is specifically that the conditions of European feudalism created an emergent communalism that was then subjugated through witch trials and their mythology in service to the new, Capitalist ordering.
She doesn’t argue that gendered forms of subjugation have no prior context in history. And whether or not the changes in women’s social/economic conditions were “temporary” depends on a rationalization of the violence that was used to reorder society and a fallacious appeal to nature that makes little sense in terms of how Capitalism otherwise radically transformed societies.
Witch trials were virtually non existent in post-reformation Catholic countries (e.h. Spain, Italy and France). I have never seen any source indicating that women were more free in these countries.
You might not expect them, but the Spanish Inquisition did also have witch trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Witchcraft.... And if you see witch trails as a way to get ride of and blame someone you could label as "different" then the difference become even smaller.
> It’s seems a rather peculiar definition of capitalism, if it emerged so late.
It's really not; historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers generally point to a few key features of capitalism, and can date it quite well. Federici draws from that argument.
But point is, that question is far from settled. Especially if you consider the key features being the free market and private property, then capitalism goes far into BCE.
The key feature of capitalism is the economy is defined by capital, i.e. money that makes money, preferably at scale. That didn't exist in any sustained, important way until the early modern period in Europe.
I was thinking of Roman moneylenders like Seneca as I wrote that. But they didn't lend money for "means of production" like steam engines etc. Everything was all slave power. But even if we allow Rome as capitalism (which I don't agree with, but fine) it still disappeared (again, at scale) for a millennium or two afterwards.
Well, I'd argue that slaves were the means of production.
But also things like olive oil presses. There's this example of an ancient Greek philosopher Thales essentially inventing the option derivative contract by buying the rights to use oil presses before the harvest for cheap, and charging a high price to use those presses once the harvest proved to be bountiful.[1]
The dip in banking during the Dark Ages in Europe is mostly the effect of Christianity banning usury. But globally the practices didn't stop.
I'm not sure, why it's important to show that capitalism a) equates to banking, and b) is some relatively late invention of the Western civilization. Because it's not in both cases.
> Well, I'd argue that slaves were the means of production.
This is not what "means of production" means in political economy.
>I'm not sure, why it's important to show that capitalism a) equates to banking, and b) is some relatively late invention of the Western civilization. Because it's not in both cases.
Capitalism does not equate to "banking", but it is, historically speaking, late in Western civilization.
I’m not sure what you mean exactly by “political economy”? In any case, what is excluded usually from definition of means of production is human capital. Slavery is decidedly not that. It is the ownership and dehumanization of people. There is no choice, no labour market. I don’t see a reason why it’s not a means of production other than “the textbook said so”.
—
What do you mean? It is a late phenomenon in the Western civilization or it is equatable to banking lately in the West?
>I’m not sure what you mean exactly by “political economy”?
Political economy is the predecessor to economics, and is (in some places) still alive today as modern/radical political economy.
> It is the ownership and dehumanization of people. There is no choice, no labour market.
"Human capital" is excluded precisely because it is "living labour" as opposed to "dead labour" (machinery etc.) and can therefore be exploited to extract more value than what was paid. This is the same principle with both slavery and wage labour - living labour.
Besides this, twe're talking beside the point. Capitalism is no more of an abstract transhistorical concept than "the Reformation" or "the medieval period" or "the Rennaisance" are; even if ancient Roman slavery had most of the features of capitalism, it would not constitute capitalism in the sense of the period of human history where these features reach their heights. For example, Marx points out that there was production and trade in commodities in non-capitalist societies, but only in capitalist society does trade in commodities become generalized and pervasive.
> Political economy is the predecessor to economics, and is (in some places) still alive today as modern/radical political economy.
I know that. What I still don't know, is whether you've meant Adam-Smith-proto-economics or LTV-inspired ideology. Because those things aren't interchangeable.
Not to mention why two schools of thought which are on their own obsolete at this point matter here.
> "Human capital" is excluded precisely because it is "living labour" as opposed to "dead labour" (machinery etc.) and can therefore be exploited to extract more value than what was paid. This is the same principle with both slavery and wage labour - living labour.
What about live stock? What about seed stock? What about IP? What about machinery that was bought under market price?
The only reason I can see why this separation might be important is if we remember that labour and employment affects aggregate demand through wages. Obviously that doesn't apply to slave labour.
> Besides this, twe're talking beside the point...
Glad you agree.
But if we redefine "capitalism" as "historic period" now, we might as well define it as a form of music and compare to Frank Zappa songs...
I mean, if we take the features of society which were dominant the most to define the historic period, we might as well call ourselves primitive humans, since out of our ca. 2 billion years of history, that was the most dominant features of our society.
All of this partitioning is arbitrary and has nothing to do with economics. It is more about setting a political narrative. But that isn't tethered to reality and we might as well be using astrology.
>Not to mention why two schools of thought which are on their own obsolete at this point matter here.
They're alive enough for heterodox economists and philosophers of economics, and I think that's quite important, in the same way nobody would like Google Chrome to be the only browser.
>What about live stock? What about seed stock? What about IP? What about machinery that was bought under market price?
These are complications (especially with regard to IP), but in the long run, things like buying machinery under the market price tend to even out, and there is no change in the economy as a whole, in which the capitalist's gain is the same as the machine vendor's loss. It doesn't explain the creation of new value.
>But if we redefine "capitalism" as "historic period" now, we might as well define it as a form of music and compare to Frank Zappa songs...
My point is that it's not a redefinition, that's literally the way it's defined by mainstream economists and everyone concerned in its study. It is specifically historical, not merely a set of abstract principles. Marx thought the same about communism, for that matter.
It has everything to do with economics - not only are trends and terms in economics defined and set by those looking to set a particular political narrative (accidentally or not), but political narratives are important. It's no less of a political narrative to say that ancient Roman society was "capitalist" to pull the favorite trick of the old political economists and indeed many of the neoclassicals - to convince us that capitalism really is a kind of human nature. You don't need a Marxist to claim otherwise, since there's lots of research on ancient society and their modes of production.
I think that an abstract ahistorical definition of capitalism is even less tied to reality than the anthropologist's one.
Agricultural Capitalism is listed as starting in 1350 by Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism But, it’s hard to pin down a date because individual ownership of the means of production is arguably the default state.
Tool use age by various animal species is generally used by the individuals that locate and or create the tools. Similarly the defense of hunting territory by individuals or families is another means of production. Complex social structures and collective ownership are very much the exception.
The witch hunt as a means of enforcing female subservience in the context of an emergent capitalism is a just-so story that is driven more by a desire to demonize capitalism than anything else.
Gender roles have remained pretty static throughout European history so it doesn't make sense to pin down witch paranoia on a changing of gender roles or attitudes that never changed in the first place.
The better explanation is the one offered by the OP, that a pre-existing desire by religious authorities to root out heresy found fertile ground in the fervor of the reformation era. The result was witch hysteria.
>Gender roles have remained pretty static throughout European history
I've generally heard the inverse statement. Compare the women in Chaucer to the women in Shakespeare, and you'll immediately notice a huge difference in behaviour.
Usually, people say that women's rights took a precipitous dive in the 1600s, with the invention of things like brutal punishments for 'nagging', and so on. Which would fit with the idea it was related to primitive accumulation.
I don't really agree with the grandparent thesis, but I think the chronology is correct.
In my reading of history, hysteria is often driven by plagues or famines. Look at the Mayan culture of human sacrifice. It's very similar to witch hunting. I think when a formerly thriving society is struck by a series of disasters that threaten the social order, false enemies get created as scapegoats. Either it's an angry god or a witch's curse.
I'm sympathetic to the foundation of the argument, about enclosure as the means by which capitalism became capitalism (and classical liberalism's invention of inherent property rights as the means by which this was justified.)
But for reasons others give here I think this is a rather weak analysis to explain the rise of the modern patriarchal family form. And in reality in working class homes women continued to work outside the home anyways, in factories and the like.
The ideological foundation for patriarchy runs much deeper, pre-capitalist, pre-feudal, and goes back to pre-Roman times, but in the context of later Europe it was accentuated by the early Christian church, which was positively _obsessed_ with issues like abortion, pre-marital sex, and women with any kind of power.
Frankly, seems rather far off. This is looking at the past through modern (or better, current news) eyes. The peaks of witch-hunting and capitalism are rather well spaced. And there was no need for patriarchy to do anything - they were firmly in control with zero contestants.
Women and men have significant biological differences, and from my understanding of our evolution, they've had these significant differences for a much longer time that capitalism has existed. Evolution suggests that these biological differences result from differences in selection criteria, which supports the idea that men and women have served different roles over the majority of human existence.
Very high mortality rates associated with child birth meant that ability to birth and care for children used to be a highly selective trait. It's modern medicine that has made child birth and caring for children a much easier and safer endeavor, and allowed women to prioritize other roles in their life.
There’s little uniformity in women’s social and economic roles across the entire spectrum of human civilization, cultures, and history. Women have been equal members of communal tribes, religious and political leaders, agricultural and industrial laborers, fully subjugated and fully autonomous. Any attempt to place the diversity of these experiences into narrow, erroneous appeals to nature is so reductive as to be almost meaningless.
I love that you're being downvoted for saying something so utterly non-controversial. It's almost as if the fact that there were large matriarchal societies inhabiting America for centuries (arguably millenia) before the first European man set foot on the continent has never been taught to the average HN reader..
"I know of many exceptions to your evolutionary argument, which makes it entirely worthless"
It's not controversial, but it's missing the point. Nobody is arguing that ever single woman in our history preceding capitalism had to prioritize child care over leadership or labor.
If you're talking about the role of women over time, you're talking about how it applies to averages. It'd be impossible to discuss this with any sort of scale if you had to reconcile every generality with it's various exceptions.
Those articles are more interesting than OP's article.
When I research a lot of wealthy families I frequently find their level of comfort not possible to replicate because it is something considered impropriety today. Taking advantage of an imbalance in the socioeconomic order that was promptly fixed as soon as anybody noticed.
The Cargill/McMillan family is probably the most famous of these in the US. They’ve kept their company private and have managed to stay under the radar fairly well considering their level of wealth.
They definitely do, and LEO knows. The schemes and cons, deflection... they’ve not changed.
Think about, this is only 3-4 generations back. What neuroscience is revealing about shared/inherited brain structures and limbic->cortex system algorithms, the habits of agency haven’t had that long to fade out, especially as we clung to tribal communities and abusive nuclear family silos.
But those families control LEO, so their mandate is to fight DVD player theft and smoking pot.
They again demonize our individual minor failings to control the greater human narrative, gift trillions to their buds while we fight over TP, face masks, and flat or skeuomorphic UI day to day. Doing the real important social work!
Western culture hasn’t really evolved it’s emotional organization habits all that much until recent times, say the last 20 years.
Now that the first generations raised primarily on science and a much less overt, yet still present, racism are coming into power, we’ll see.
Until the last generation though, most people in power were raised in “story mode”. “Be a godheaded manipulator, manage the masses effort and agency, for of course they’re idiots for not having your job of rich guy! If I can do it anyone can! Why they aren’t is their free will!”
India is supposed to be an example. Families with extensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagir holdings under the Mughals were apparently relatively easily convinced that their possibly de facto but definitely not de jure hereditary estates would be better protected under John Company, whose officers had grown up assuming de jure hereditary estate transmission.
I read the premise of that book and it doesn't square with what I know about rich people from personal experiences with them.
What I've learned is that money is a multiplier for personality and if you have a humble personality, then you'll stay humble while you're rich (with some caveats about people that are not truly humble).
I agree with you completely on the humility, that's the only ones I would best be involved with, but these are not the ones who make it into this kind of book.
The emphasis is on the extreme, privileged and over-the-top attitudes stereotypically encountered.
Fortunately, exclusive communities with these stereotypical aspirations are not as overwhelming as they could be.
It's a small book, largely true quotations, and I think worth reading as an entertaining way to refresh awareness of peculiarities that can arise as riches are struck or wealth is created or increased.
For example, the family that was able to exploit the socioeconomic order to pick up those land plots from people indicted for witchcraft probably still owns those land plots, but new people will not be able to use the same tactic to obtain land now.
This is more or less how the Israeli "settlements" work; land is taken for "security" reasons and given to someone else.
The Russian privatization post Communism also handed a large amount of state resources to the well connected, who are now in many ways more entrenched than they were under Communism.
Something something Manifest Destiny. Also, the Great Land Robbery (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/this-la...). The Western model of land ownership is perhaps necessary for our way of life, but is certainly at the root of any number of atrocities.
Much more. Even under the CPSU public opinion could change and you could be ousted. If you're an oligarch unless you die what you control, you control.
Except that the Israeli “settlements” are on previously annexed land from 1967. It is more like an eminent domain seizure. And it is quite reasonable in theory to exercise sovereign power for such purposes to improve the land’s cultivation, so long as compensation is awarded (not sure if Israel gives it to the Palestinians)
I was under the impression that it's illegal to settle on occupied land and what Israel is doing is hence illegal under international law. Am I somehow misinformed?
Are laws of men corruptible? Do you appeal to international law as the highest? Or do you submit to a higher perception?
I ask because your entire judgment is not based on anything consistent with civilization’s record with property claims and is really a 20th century phenomenon.
maybe not witchcraft accusations per se, but im quite unsure how you can be aware of events occuring in the world right now and think that exploiting the current socioeconomic order to gain land and wealth is not done.
Or any of the other modern topics people have mentioned. It'd need to be combined with having the ability and intent to acquire the property of the targeted people.
In the above example, being the people don't seem to really own much/any property anyway, maybe it's harder than it first looks?
Most likely that you had enough wealth and owned enough productive land or other capital to secure the lifestyle of your progeny for generations to come.
Probably, but he's far from alone. It's practically the definition of what the nobility and the gentry/bourgeoisie have in common.
In contrast, workers and professionals must sell their personal skills in the labor market to survive. Unless they are extremely lucky, opportunistic, and hardworking and doing so become part of the gentry, their children will have to do the same.
Do you have any sources relating to the foreign family you mention, and of them securing landholding rights? Based on what I've found, the man that was burned wasn't rich (his family does appear to have become moderately well off by the time's standards at a later date, however).
I haven't found any mention of foreigners. The lawyer in the matter was Icelandic.
The _elites_ weren't superstitious, but that doesn't mean noone was. Evil always needs useful idiots to grab power, a dynamic that's only accelerated with the move to democracies (though to be clear, this isn't a knock on a democracy: I'm with Churchill when he says democracy is the least bad of all the forms we've tried).
One cunning foreign family with ties to occupying Denmark was able to secure land hold rights for nearly an entire peninsula from local Icelanders on the northwest through the strategic use of witchcraft accusations. During this period of occupation nearly 120 trials occurred over a 60 year period[2].
The people weren’t superstitious - they were corrupt.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strandagaldur
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3n_R%C3%B6gnvaldsson