[Please write your responses and questions in the comments to this post]

Hulya Kartal wrote:

Naomi R. Lamoreaux refuses to settle in a binary argument for the timeline of the American farmers utilizing capitalism. During the late 1970s, so-called moralist economists, M. Merrill, J. Henretta, and C. Clark claimed that the American economy was not capitalist until the late 19th century. In 1981, W Rothenberg made a counter-argument claiming that the farmers starting in the late 18th-century act like capitalists: shop for the highest prices for their crops refuting the theory of moral economists that the farmers’ intention was not centralized around profit, and their priority was social harmony.

The author rejects to cling into either theory and that she claims that the farmers did have more in common with merchants and manufacturers unlike the moralist economists could admit and yet she refuses to call them capitalist. Lamoreaux does not want to fall in a pitfall coerced by the classic neoliberal economics: dichotomy.

What intriguing in this essay is that the author transcendences the dichotomy relying on recent economic theories to shed light in grey areas, and that not oversimplifying whether the farmers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were capitalist.
On the otherhand, one would appreciate the clear definition of what capitalism is. During the colonial era, the colonialist confiscated the land, expropriated natural resources, and kidnapped and exploited labor power. I agree that the colonialists certainly had different ways, ie. calculating the profit. Yet, are such practices suffice enough evidence to avoid calling them capitalists? Also, how appropriate to use the current capitalist practices to measure the two hundred years old ones?

David Noven wrote:

This week’s readings center around the development of Capitalism in The United States. James Parisot’s, essay “The Two Hundred and Fifty Year Transition: How the American Empire Became Capitalist” is primarily a summary of the history of market forces through Reconstruction that formed our current economic system. By beginning his work with a discussion of Max Weber’s and Karl Marx’s ideas concerning capitalism, he enters into the debate regarding the definition of capitalism, which is covered in all of this week’s readings, as well as the role of agriculture and manufacturing in its evolution. In short, Weber sees capitalism as a social structure that supplants traditional (and religious) values and ethics with one that is centered around “rational economic rationalization” (pg. 590). For Marx, the pursuit of surplus value (capital) derived by owners as a result of the difference between labor costs (wages) and production, forms the guiding principle of capitalism, a system where the relationship between the worker and owner favors those who control the means of production over those doing the work. The Hamilton essay this week practically foreshadows the Weberian ideal of a society centered around commerce and the pursuit of wealth. Jefferson’s essay extolls the idyllic virtues of an agricultural society and argues that the new country should avoid manufacturing at the risk of becoming just the sort of society that Hamilton expounds. The remainder of Parisot’s essay describes how farming and manufacturing contributed to, or slowed, the road to capitalism through various regions of the country due to differences in trade practices, work compensation practices, land agreements, etc. He touches on the roles of slaves, immigrants, indentured servants, and women, the latter of whom are the subject of Jeanne Boydston’s detailed essay on women’s market labor. Naomi R. Lamoreaux has an excellent discussion of the debate concerning the role of farming and manufacturing in developing capitalism, using empirical evidence such as changing bookkeeping practices and how familial roles influenced capitalism’s formation over a more communal system.
I appreciated the Parisot essay as an excellent introduction to the growth of capitalism but found the other essays more compelling due to their more narrowed subject matter. Boydston’s work, by limiting its focus to the role of women, explored her subject deeper, making it more convincing. The Lamoreaux essay was intriguing, but I failed to be convinced that accurate bookkeeping is necessarily tied to a capitalistic drive. Bookkeeping would surely evolve in manufacturing as businesses became large enough to hire specialized clerks, accounting practices became more standardized, and businesses relied more on money over trade in consort with the rise of commerce and banking. With greater access to education outside the home, larger corporate structures, and better transportation, the necessity and desire to hire from outside the family would increase. Today, however, will still see that the family business remains alive and well, even up to the highest levels of government. The converse argument showing bookkeeping in agriculture also rings a little flat. As farmers increased their productivity and developed their farms, they would most likely require less need for accurate bookkeeping and could focus their efforts on production. In addition, with the absence of a tax on profits in early America, bookkeeping was not legally mandated.