Putting Theory to Work

This is a reply to criticisms made by contributors to the ‘Symposium’ on Theory as History published in HM 21.4 and to one or two points among the many raised by Henry Bernstein in his discussion of the book in JAC 13/3 (2013). It defends the need for a specifically materialist historiography of modes of production other than capitalism; argues that Marxists should see history as being driven by the state as much as it is by classes; defends the scientific value of the category ‘merchant capitalism’; and explains why Marx came around to seeing the slave plantations as part of ‘total capital’. It concludes by suggesting both that Marx allowed for different levels of determination when thinking about the origins of capitalism, and that Brenner’s account of the transition in English agriculture has now been seriously weakened by Jane Whittle’s critique of it