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The Political Economy of Maurice Dobb View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The University of Utah: J. Willard Marriott Digital Library THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MAURICE DOBB: HISTORY, THEORY, AND THE ECONOMICS OF REPRODUCTION, CRISIS, AND TRANSFORMATION by Hans G. Despain A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Department of Economics The University of Utah May 2011 Copyright © Hans G. Despain 2011 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of ____________Hans_G._Despain____________ has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: ___________Hans Ehrbar__________, Chair ___8/3/2006___ ___________E. K. Hunt___________, Member ___8/3/2006___ ___________Al Campbell__________, Member ___8/3/2006___ _________Cihan Bilginsoy________, Member ___8/3/2006___ _________Richard Chapman________, Member ___8/3/2006___ and by ______________Korkut Erturk_______________, Chair of the Department of ________________Economics________________ and by Charles A. Wright, Dean of the Graduate School. ABSTRACT Maurice Dobb (1900-1976) was a political economist at Cambridge University from 1924-1976. Dobb made numerous contributions in the fields of economics, history, politics, sociology, and philosophy of science. In spite of his impressive contributions and accomplishments there has been a relative neglect of his work, especially a comprehensive study of his work as a whole. This dissertation is a contribution toward a more comprehensive understanding of the political economy of Maurice Dobb. An institutional interpretation of Maurice Dobb is employed. In the first chapter of the dissertation Dobb’s overarching contributions to social science are enunciated and his economic histories analyzed. In Chapter 2 it is shown that Dobb’s economic histories initiated the emergence of a school of economic history which now constitutes a unique approach to history, or a separate tradition of historians. Several of the contributing economic historians of this tradition are outlined and scrutinized. Chapter 3 unfolds the political economy of Maurice Dobb. Emphasis is placed upon his institutional approach to political economy, his critique of mainstream neoclassical economic theory, and Dobb’s theory of capitalist economic crisis. In Chapter 4 Dobb’s methodology and philosophical underpinnings are examined and delineated. Finally in Chapter 5 several conclusions from this study are summarized. iv To Elyana, Jackson, and Kessler with all my love CONTENTS ABSTRACT................................................iii 1. INTRODUCTION.........................................1 1.1. Maurice Herbert Dobb and Political Economy......7 1.1.1. A Brief Biographical Sketch.............11 1.1.2. The Institutional and Methodological Emphasis in the Political Economy of Maurice Dobb............................12 1.1.3. The Theoretical Themes of Dobb’s Political Economy.......................13 1.1.4. Esoteric Themes of Dobb’s Political Economy.................................18 1.1.5. An Institutional Reading of Dobb: From Static Analysis to Dynamic Analysis.....30 1.1.6. Dobb’s “Methodological Primacy of the Pathological”...........................32 1.1.7. The Intellectual Retreat from History...34 1.1.8. A Pioneer Critique of Empiricist Ontology................................37 1.1.9. Social Theory: A Convergence of History and Theory......................39 1.1.10. The Role of Maurice Dobb in the Convergence of History and Social Theory..................................44 1.1.11. The Marxian British Socioeconomic Historians..............................47 1.2. Dobb’s Studies.................................50 1.2.1. Mode of Production as the Entry Point to History..............................52 1.2.2. Relational Social Theory and Transitory History......................55 1.2.3. Stages of Economic Development and Themes of Studies.......................58 1.2.4. Definition of Feudalism.................60 1.2.5. Forms of Serfdom........................61 1.2.6. Feudalism as a “Natural Economy” and the Commercialization Model.............65 1.2.7. Dobb’s Dissatisfaction with, or Immanent Critique of, the Commercialization Model.................66 1.2.8. Internal Articulation: Trade and the Merchants...............................73 1.2.9. The Petty Mode of Production............79 1.2.10. Feudal Crisis in the Thirteenth Century.................................81 1.2.11. Intensification of Feudal Exploitation............................84 1.2.12. Townships as Part of Feudal Internal Articulation............................85 1.2.13. Hyper-Exploitation and Social Differentiation of the Peasantry........88 1.2.14. Class Differentiation Within the Feudal Township.........................92 1.2.15. Some Concluding Comments................94 1.3. The Transition Debate.........................110 1.3.1. Sweezy’s Interest in Dobb’s Studies....111 1.3.2. Sweezy’s “Critique”....................112 1.3.3. Sweezy’s Alternative Explanation.......118 1.3.4. Dobb’s “Reply”.........................123 1.3.5. The Weakness of Dobb’s Definition of Feudalism...........................128 1.3.6. Agency and the Stability of Feudalism..............................130 1.3.7. Dobb’s Rejection of an Era of “Pre- Capitalist Commodity Production”.......134 1.3.8. The Process of Social Differentiation Restated...............................138 1.3.9. Reasserting the Dual Road Thesis.......140 1.3.10. Takahashi, Procacci, and Lefebvre on the Dual Road Thesis................143 1.3.11. Institutional Arrangement and Internal Articulation Revisited........147 2. MAURICE DOBB REINTERPRETS ECONOMIC HISTORY.........157 2.1. Maurice Dobb and the Study of History.........157 2.1.1. Communist Historians’ Group 1946-1956........................... ..159 2.1.2. Dialogue Between Marxist and non-Marxist: Past and Present......165 2.1.3. 1956 ‘Crisis’ and 1958 “Breakthrough”.........................169 2.2. Studies and the British Marxian Historians....175 vii 2.2.1. Primacy of the Pathological, Feudal Crisis, Bourgeois Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and the Proletariat: Rodney Hilton, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, and E. P. Thompson.....................178 2.3. Rodney Hilton and Economic History............180 2.3.1. Hilton on Feudalism and the Peasantry..............................184 2.3.2. The Myth of a Passive Peasantry........185 2.3.3. “Prime-Mover”: Modes of Exploitation and Resistance.........................189 2.3.4. Feudal Production and Market Exchange...............................191 2.3.5. Resistance of Feudal Exploitation via Political Action.......................192 2.3.6. Twelfth-Century Forms of Feudal Emancipation...........................194 2.3.7. Feudal Investment and Technology.......199 2.4. Christopher Hill and Economic History.........203 2.4.1. The Decisive Seventeenth Century.......205 2.4.2. The Undercurrent of Potential Unrest: Reform and Revolution..................209 2.4.3. The Industrious Sorts of People Versus the ‘Monopolies’ of Bishops and Crown..............................210 2.4.4. Economic Conditions of Seventeenth- Century England........................218 2.5. Eric Hobsbawm and Economic History............226 2.6. E. P. Thompson and Working-Class History......237 2.7. Broad Lessons from a Study of the British Marxian Economic Historians...................258 3. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MAURICE DOBB...............263 3.1. The Rise and Making of a Proletariat Class....263 3.1.1. The Historical Process of Social Differentiation........................265 3.1.2. The Inadequacy of (mere) Demographic Explanations...........................266 3.1.3. The Importance of Institutional Factors................................267 3.1.4. The Fairly Familiar Institutional Factors................................268 viii 3.1.5. Less Familiar Institutional Factors Giving Rise to the Formation of an Industrial Working Class...............270 3.1.6. English Mining Communities as an Illustration...........................276 3.1.7. Russian Agrarian Peasant Communities as an Illustration.....................278 3.1.8. Lessons from Dobb’s Illustrations......282 3.1.9. The Dobbian Notion of Agency...........290 3.1.10. Methodological Considerations of Dobb’s Notion of Agency................293 3.2. A Prelude to the Industrial Revolution........298 3.2.1. The ‘Qualitative’ Revolution...........300 3.2.2. The Monopoly Merchant and the Mercantile Element.....................301 3.2.3. The Petty-Mode of Production...........304 3.2.4. Craftsmen as the “Really Revolutionary” Force..................................306 3.2.5. A Dobbian Paradox......................308 3.2.6. Dissolution of Feudalism: The “Really Revolutionary Way”.....................313 3.2.7. Social Differentiation as the Begetter of Capitalism.................317 3.2.8. Internal or Domestic Markets Emerge in England.............................319 3.2.9. Democratic Aims and Revolutionary Social Results.........................321 3.2.10. Dobbian Conclusions: A Revolution of Social Relations.......................322 3.2.11. Dobb’s Real Intentions of Studies......326 3.3. Dobb’s Historical and Methodological Achievement...................................331 3.3.1. Dobb’s Theoretical Achievement.........334 3.3.2. The Role of History in a System’s Internal Articulation..................338 3.3.3. The Role of the Capitalist
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