Epochs of Ecology: The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

The transition from feudalism to capitalism has undoubtedly been one of the most fruitful and complicated debates amongst economic historians in the 20th and 21st centuries. With the advent of global ecological collapse, there is a necessity to examine and theorize the movement from feudalism to capitalism through the lens of ecology. While in mainstream economics the environment is either entirely dismissed or nature’s role in economics remains subsidiary to the human economy, in the field of Marxian economics, human’s interacting through nature is at the core of the entire theory. For that reason, this thesis takes earnestly Marx’s contributions to ecology, while also utilizing a broadly Marxian approach to grasp the social and natural dynamic forces involved in the transition from feudalism to capitalism in England from the 14th to the 19th century. This thesis historically examines the dissolution of the feudal mode and the rise of the capitalist mode by highlighting three socio-natural relationships vital for the transition: the relationship to agriculture, wool and textile production, and mining. By exploring these relationships historically through the lens of economics and ecology, we will characterize most aptly the rupture in ecology brought about by the capitalist mode