America's Unendng Revolution

AMERICA’S UNENDNG REVOLUTION How did a deferential republic become a mass democracy and a commercial colossus? A crucial transformation of America, historians agree, was under way during the early Republic, but they have debated the nature of this “transition to capitalism” and its political implications. Our budding capitalists, it now seems clear, were the country’s enterprising laborers, not its leisured few. And the democratic ideas that spurred them on were vigorously contested—as they still are. 36 Gordon S. Wood explores the creation of capitalism 47 Sean Wilentz navigates the formative debates over democracy Was America Born Capitalist? by Gordon S. Wood f all the “isms” that afflict us, capitalism is the worst. OAccording to many scholars, capitalism has been ultimately responsible for much of what ails us, in both the past and the present, including our race prob- lem, our grossly unequal distribution of wealth, and the general sense of malaise and oppression that academics in particular feel. It is not surprising therefore that scholars should be interested in the origins of such a powerful force, especially one that seems to affect them so personally. The trouble is that we scholars cannot agree on the nature of the beast. Some dalism to capitalism lay in the changing identify it with a general market economy; nature of rural society. Only when the others, following Marx, with a particular farming population increased its agricul- mode of production, involving a bour- tural productivity to the point where it geoisie that owns the means of production could allow an increasing proportion of its and a proletariat that is forced to sell its members to engage in manufacturing and labor for monetary wages; still others, fol- at the same time provide a home market lowing Weber, with a system of calculative for that manufacturing—only then, it is and secularized rationalism; and still oth- assumed, could the takeoff into capitalistic ers, with simple hard work and a spirit of expansion take place. development. As has often been pointed For this reason, American historians out, the way in which scholars define the have tended to focus on the agricultural term capitalism usually determines the productivity of early New England, where results of their analysis. presumably American capitalism first Despite the confusion of definition, developed. Of course, from almost the however, nearly everyone seems to agree beginning of professional historical schol- with Marx and other theorists on the way arship in the late-19th century, many in which capitalism originally developed American historians assumed that nearly in the West. Most scholars seem to believe all early American farmers, especially that the sources of the transition from feu- those in New England, were incipient cap- 36 WQ Spring 1999 The scene in 1799 at the corner of Third and Market in Philadelphia. italists, eager to make money and get land (among others), the colonial farmers, par- and get ahead. Most colonial farmers, it ticularly the New England farmers, did not seemed, were involved in trade of various possess a capitalistic mentality after all. sorts—sending tobacco and wheat to The colonial farmers were not much inter- England and Europe, selling fish, food- ested in markets and were not primarily stuffs, and lumber to the West Indies, and interested in working for profit. For these exchanging an array of goods among them- historians, the farmers’ disregard for the selves. For these historians, usually labeled bottom line is something to be cherished. “liberal” or “market” historians these days, The less capitalism the better, as far as they explaining the origins of capitalism in are concerned. America has never been an issue: America has always been capitalistic. hese moral economy historians Three decades or so ago a group of his- have mounted a major challenge torians, generally labeled “social” or Tto the older view that Americans “moral economy” historians, began chal- were born free, equal, and capitalistic in lenging this view of early America as a the 17th century. All of them, in one way modern market-oriented capitalistic or another, are seeking, in the words of world. According to these scholars, includ- Henretta, a professor of history at the ing James Henretta, Alan Kulikoff, University of Maryland, “to confound an Christopher Clark, and Michael Merrill uncritical ‘liberal’ interpretation of America’s Unending Revolution 37 independence of their households. They sought land not to increase their personal wealth but to provide estates for their lin- eal families. Indeed, providing for their families and transmitting their accumulat- ed property and customary beliefs from one generation to another were the major preoccupations of these farmers. They were certainly not major exploiters of a wage-earning labor force. he economy that resulted, these historians say, was inevitably a Tmoral one. Household interests and communal values overrode the acquis- itive and exploitative instincts of individu- als. The farmers were enmeshed in local webs of moral and social relationships that inhibited capitalistic behavior. Self- aggrandizement gave way to concern for A cooper one’s family and neighbors, and communi- ty-regulated “just prices” were often more important than what the market would bear. Not the Atlantic world but their tiny American history,” primarily by demon- communities were the places where most strating that “capitalist practices and val- of these farmers’ exchanges occurred. ues were not central to the lives of most of Most of them may not have been techni- the inhabitants of British North America cally self-sufficient, but the towns and before 1750.” Many American farmers, small localities in which they lived more especially in the South and middle or less were. colonies, may have been producing for dis- Rather than relying on the market, farm- tant markets, but most New England farmers met their needs by producing their own ers were not. goods for consumption and by swapping or To be sure, many colonial farmers pro- exchanging goods and services within their duced “surpluses” that they sold to distant local communities. They charged each markets, but the very term suggests that other for these goods and services, but the this sort of production was not normal or prices were set by custom, not by the mar- primary. Most of their output was for fami- ket, and in the absence of much specie or ly or local consumption, not for sale in the coin, the charges were usually not paid in market. The anthropologically minded cash but were instead entered in each per- moral economy historians, borrowing an son’s account book. Through these numer- important distinction Marx made, argue ous exchanges, farmers built up in their that most of the northern farmers were not localities incredibly complicated networks producing for exchange; they were pro- of credits and debts—“book accounts”— ducing for use. Farmers were involved in a among neighbors that sometimes ran on household mode of production in which for years at a time. Although litigation they sought only to satisfy their family could and did result from these obliga- needs and maintain the competency and tions, such credits and debts were based >Gordon S. Wood, a former Wilson Center Fellow, is Alda O. Way University Professor and professor of history at Brown University. He is the author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), which won the Pulitzer Prize for history. Copyright © 1999 by Gordon S. Wood. 38 WQ Spring 1999 largely on mutual trust, and thus they way it originally happened in America? Is worked to tie local people together and to the rise of capitalism inevitably linked to define and stabilize communal relation- the development of a democratic society? ships. Therefore, instead of seeing the Is it possible that anything that happened New England farmers as would-be entre- in New England in the late 18th and early preneurs waiting for markets to rescue 19th centuries can have any significance them from stagnation, these social histori- for the world today? ans see them as pre-modern husbandmen trying to avoid market participation in hatever answers ultimately order to preserve their moral and commu- emerge to such large political nal culture. Wquestions, we certainly know This “transition to capitalism” debate, much more now about the behavior and which has gone on now for several values of the early New England farmers decades, is no petty ivory-tower dispute; it than we did before. Especially helpful in actually goes to the heart of what kind of the debate has been the work of Winifred people we Americans are or would like to Barr Rothenberg, a professor of economics become. The moral economy historians in at Tufts University. In From Market-Places particular have been very explicit about to a Market Economy (1992), Rothenberg this. They have more at stake than just has cleared the air of a lot of cant by sim- recapturing an idyllic past. For them, such ply concentrating on some basic questions an 18th-century communal world offers a about the rural New England economy noncapitalist vision of what still might be, that can be empirically investigated. in the words of Michael Merrill, coeditor Marketplace economies, she says, have with Sean Wilentz of The Key of Liberty: existed for thousands of years; people have The Life and Democratic Writings of always bought and sold goods, even over William Manning (1993), a vision of long distances, without experiencing market economies. Only when the market sep- a lived and viable alternative to cap- arates from the political, social, and cul- italist relations, institutions and tural systems constraining it and becomes practices. Alongside the world itself an agent of change, only when most of capital and its ways we would people in the society are involved in buy- point to an alternative world of ing and selling and think in terms of bet- labor and its ways; alongside the tering themselves economically—only world of cities built on money and then, she contends, can we talk of the contract we would point to an alter- beginnings of a market economy.

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