Randy O. ’20

Introduction

The capital system of today that we function in is something that no early modern English royalty could ever have predicted would come about. In our current capital system, the times and rules have changed into something much more oppressive and filled with competition, greed, and corruption. Capitalism has evolved into something that is very ingrained not only into our minds but into our everyday living. Some would go as so far as to say our psyches as well. Our mannerisms, customs, and even cultural traditions do now reflect or have elements of capital in them. When we sit back and analyze what the world has become, is it hard to see it without capitalism.

One element of capitalism that helps its existence is the psychological element of it. In order for it to exist, the masses of humans must adjust to it and become subjects of said system. With that being said, some contemporaries would argue that capitalism was not a system that originated out of a particular place, but rather a step in the evolutionary ladder and a natural path that humans took in order to survive and evolve. Much like Darwin’s theories, capitalism fits the ideologies of those who do and those who do not, or preferably those who will survive and those who will be forced to help others survive. Human evolution did not only occur in one area of the world but eventually, over time, it happened throughout the world wherever humans may have been. However, certain events throughout history occurred with only specific people in certain parts of the world that came to affect the whole world. Capitalism is one of those events. Of course, the idea of business and currency and working have always existed. There is no civilization in which there were not those who were the workers, the royalty, and the auxiliary. Nevertheless, a system of exploitation that was strictly for selfish gains was still something non-existent and even more so on a global scale before the 15^th-17^th century. Even with all this being said, capitalism is hard to define in the context of exploitation. There has to be an insight into the social consequences of capitalism. When the origins of capitalism are discussed, it could be challenging to pinpoint when the social change occurred, and when capitalism became something programmed into the psyche. However, an overall starting point, time, place, and specific events are much easier to be pinpointed.

Establishing Capital

America, surely, is run on capitalism. Yet, it is certainly not the exception to capitalism. The majority of the entire world runs on capitalism, and those countries or nations that do not, have a hard time maintaining themselves. More specifically, in the economic sense. When we look at the world and how it is run, capitalism has been a major factor in the schematics behind it all and forces the world to stay interconnected. The question that comes to mind is the start of it. The capitalism that is being spoken of here must be first clarified in order to understand its origins fully. Before going any further, though, a clarification must be made on what the definition of capitalism is. Ellen Meiksins Wood says, “Capitalism is a system in which goods and services, down to the most necessities of life, are produced for profitable exchange, where even human-labor power is a commodity for sale in the market, and where all economic actors are dependent on the market.”[1] It is important to note that the capitalism that has been defined above is not something England would have recognized at this time. The term “capitalism” came much later with Karl Marx and his contemporaries, but it is important to note that capitalism came before it was officially granted a term. This interconnecting system, which has left some rich and many others underprivileged and oppressed, must have its origins in the past of what we would classify as the western world. Reason being that it is the western world in which we see capitalism being the means of dominance and common practice. The history of any nation or any continent at any time, more particularly in the past, will show signs of trade and use of some sort of currency. Even so, these trade systems and currency did not branch out into a general sense until England took the capital system to another level. It was in England during the 16th and 17th century where capitalism found its origins and began to form, more specifically, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth from November 1558 to March 1603. The origins of this system and the way it is understood in this day and age originate from the late 16th and 17th century England because it was here where international trade began to have a serious incline in the British economy and when England began to become a world power in which their economics at home played a vital role in this.

Prior to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, England did not have a rapid population expansion or upward expansion of economics. Queen Elizabeth’s coronation did not come easy for her or England. She followed up after a sharp line of her own family. The reign of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, and Queen Mary, all came before Queen Elizabeth. With those before Queen Elizabeth, there was constant turmoil with religious changes and their subjects. King Henry VIII started a chaotic period of struggle with the Catholic Church. Consumed with initially trying to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII’s economic initiatives and attention were mainly spent in trying to change England’s religious identity to make his divorce and future divorces go over easier. When the son of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, came into power, the religious turmoil became even more pivotal. King Edward VI was only nine at the passing of King Henry VIII, and the advisers who surrounded King Edward VI were all Protestants, and this reflected very much in his reign. King Edward VI did all he could to make England strictly Protestant while his father left England in a pseudo-Catholic-Protestant state. It was then after King Edward IV’s passing that Queen Mary came into power and focused England back on a Catholic path by reversing the acts of her father King Henry VIII during his reign. All of these religious turmoil left England very unstable and unable to focus on growth and the true prosperity of the people. “Elizabeth’s’ advisers and supporters proclaimed the dawn of a new, more optimistic, and glorious age under a queen who would bring harmony and peace.”[2] Under the almost 45-year reign of Queen Elizabeth, England grew in more ways than one. She was able to focus less on the religion of England and put effort into other things that would set up England to become the powerful nation it is now. Queen Elizabeth was known to be very indifferent to any official religion of England. Sitting on the sidelines of her family’s reign, Queen Elizabeth observed and learned what not to do for her reign. “Our inquiry must begin with a single, fundamental fact which drove much of English social and economic history during this period: between 1525 and 1600 the population of England and Wales rose from about 2.4 million souls to 4.5 million.”[3] For capitalism to grow in the early stages, it is important to have expansion. Population growth and economic growth is vital.

A major factor that contributed to the population growth was the advancement of technology that allowed more woodland to be cleared for farming. The wheel plow for example allowed farmers to now prepare the fields faster and more efficiently for planting. Crop rotation and the draining of marshes were also seen during these times to improve farming overall. More food equals more nutrients, less poverty, and more sustaining of life. A concept to understand here is how the value of the land would change not only to the farmer but to England overall. Before this boost in farming, the land that was tilled was valued, but with the increase in technology and better care for the land, the way the land was valued changed as well. The concept of ownership became more intense as competition amongst landowners and farmers arose. Wood speaks on what followed this, “This brings us to the most famous redefinition of property rights: enclosure.”[4] The enclosure of property is something very symbolic of ownership and making a statement of “it is not yours to use.” The 16th century saw a change with enclosures by large landowners who sought to enclose what might have been common land at one point or communal farmland and use it strictly for themselves and personal gain for profit. The common wanderer or vagabond was no longer allowed to be in what was once a communal land, “no trespassing” was now a thing. The farmland that was once passed down through generations with no official paperwork was a thing of the past. Wealthy men now bought the land and had official rights to it granted by Parliament. This concept of the enclosure may seem normal in today’s day and age, but this was something unseen during the 16th century. The enclosure ideal was brought to the New World and left the indigenous people in dismay. Private property was now something that became a symbol of wealth, of power, it further separated the growing class gap and places landholders at the top and those who did not own land at the bottom.

Coming out of feudalism England, was accustomed to a similar system like this. However, a key difference between feudalism and the new growth of land accumulation was the distribution of the land amongst the wealthy. With transitions into new systems, there is usually a sort of quantity into quality exchange that takes place. During this period of time in England, as Queen Elizabeth was able to propel England economically, the wealthy landowners became fewer and fewer. Former feudal lords were either forced to relinquish what was once theirs or moved into the booming England cities for other opportunities. This also meant that those multiple feudal lords who once reigned many different areas of England countryside and rural areas started to become consolidated into one ultimate landlord. Capitalism thrives from the extreme separation of the upper and lower class. One thing about the upper class is the exclusiveness of it, and here is when it began. “In other words, in order to strengthen their weakened hold on the peasantry, feudal lords concentrated their formerly fragmented or parcelled coercive powers in a new kind of centralized monarchy.”[5] This new centralized monarchy was not dominated by the royalty, but the rich. The disappearance of feudalism did not leave England in an absolute pure capitalist system. The new monarch that was arising was not aware of the roots they would be planting, but rather they were seeking to keep their hold on the peasant masses. In trying to reassert their dominance of the peasants, a pivotal moment in the development of capitalism was achieved, more centralization of the wealth and separation of the wealthy and poor grew even more so.

Even with the growth of farming in rural England, jobs within the city grew. With this going on, there was no government regulation on economic practices. In other words, capitalism began to emerge even more so in England because of what was absent, government control over the business, constraints of economics. This time was vital for England also because of the way they began to appear to the rest of Europe. At the time, the Catholic Church had completely disassociated itself from England, and the Habsburg Empire was well in effect. England was peeking as a premiere nation. With no constraints on economic expansion comes another vital component of capitalism, competition. The expansion of farms was met with a demand for labor and a somewhat advanced landowner that was seen in early feudalism. Wood states, “Increasingly, as more land came under this economic regime, advantage in access to land itself would go to those who could produce competitively and pay good rents by increasing their productivity.”[6] Aside from this, industries and factories took off as well. England during Queen Elizabeth’s reign saw a great expansion of the textile industry and wool exports. In regards to England’s exports at the time, wool accounted for 56% of its imports giving birth to more capital schemes. Aside from wool and the textile industry, silk began to become a commodity that was coming from India. The working labor force that manned all this came from the migration from other European nations into England that helped dramatically increase England’s population, as is noted above. All of these things that were happening inside of England made England an international economic factor to not be reckoned with. A combination of job growth and population growth in such a short period gave birth to unrestrained capital growth. With this comes a multi-layered class system, there is no longer just the rich and the poor. The middle class begins to emerge. The landowner is not royalty, but he is not a poor worker either. The land and factory owners are able not to buy labor and exploit the labor for maximum profit, especially from immigrants who are seeking employment. Also, the building of roads and the growth of London was a major factor in England becoming an international trade mogul. “Already in the sixteenth century, England had an impressive network of roads and water transport that unified the nation to a degree unusual for the period. London, becoming disproportionately large in relation to other English towns and the total population of England (and eventually the largest city in Europe), was also becoming the hub of a developing national market.”[7]

Before 16th-17th century England began to emerge, there were forms of human labor for sale, most explicitly being slavery followed by feudalism. Nevertheless, the slavery that the world grow accustomed to during the Trans-Atlantic Period was very much the exception because of the way it exploited human labor for gain and globalized the trade of humans and the treatment of humans. Imperialism became a way in which money seekers and entrepreneurs could seek to propel not only England but also propel themselves and further separate from the peasant masses. Free labor became a staple of capital. To not have to pay your workers and to extract whatever natural resources that were up for the grabs for free were a profit that had been unseen. Slavery before all this did exist, but not to this extent, not to the point where the slave was not seen as a human, but rather as a commodity and something that was to be worked at maximum potential and only maintained at a minimal. The treatment of humans in a commodity sense is something very key in capitalism, which is something we see happening out of England in the 16th-17th century. John Hopkins set out in 1562 intending to capture Africans from the west coast of Africa, and shortly after, in 1564, after hearing of the success of slave merchant success, Queen Elizabeth sponsored Hawkins with a vessel named, “Jesus of Lubeck.”[8] This turned vigilante slave merchants into a government-backed business. Although Portugal was the first European nation to embark on the slave trade in and out of Africa, it would not achieve the global success, expansion, and rapid growth that England did.

Sponsorship of Hawkins was a pivotal move for the economics of England. With slavery now an officially backed government endeavor, the commodity of humans and their forced labor allowed for a massive expansion in trade and the import of products from England’s already striving colonies and new ones that would be established. Hawkins was an example of what early vigilante ship captains did for England’s capitalism, the domination of the seas. Aside from Hawkins slave trading, Hawkins represented an aspect of early colonialism that was not so much concerned with just the establishment of domination on land, but the controlling of trade routes and establishing trade monopolies and the controlling of specific commodities. Sharing and equal distribution was a thing of the past. A new age of competition and domination of the world was teething, and England was at the forefront, as a planter of the seed. One thing that helped England maintain this expansion; it is starting to have on the globe is not a standing military at home, but a standing military overseas at its colonies. By the time England had established itself with sugar and plantation economics in the Caribbean and a heavy hand in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Triangle. The exports coming from India were protected very well by England, and it is here that we see England establishing its military outside of England to protect its assets overseas.

“By the late seventeenth century, the English East India Company was fielding vast armies in India and fleets in the Indian Ocean, ready to fight the Dutch, French, and their native allies in order to force a monopoly trade on the local populace. Long before this, the English realized that the most effective way to infringe upon the Spanish, Dutch, or French trading position was to establish permanent bases or trading posts of their own in the New World.”[9]

It was due to people like Hopkins, who eventually become contracted mercenaries for England, that England, in comparison to other European nations, can maintain its strengthening economic holds and rise above its competition. With the international race for resources going on between European nations, England began to separate itself from the competition in various ways. Other European nations did not rise to the occasion as England did and did not experience the rapid growth of a city the way London did. Such factors were major components to England being the birthplace of the capitalism that we are accustomed to. The competition that came from inside England amongst the citizens themselves and the accumulation of resources from outside of England and their military presence which boost them up to world power. Something to note, though, is that England did not become a paramount nation on their own in an economic sense. For England to become a top contender, there had to be competition, and there had to be nations that would come in second place. A reason that England becomes the birthplace of capitalism is that they are the ones who will ultimately surpass every other European nation.

Conclusion

To pinpoint all the exact reasons and an exact time for the birth of capitalism is more than what can be reported in this essay. What is given here are certain events and periods in which capitalism was becoming something that the world would eventually feel. The 16th and 17th century England was a constant change ravished with new ideas and new ways of living. What is certain is an improvement in life and rapid expansion not only in England but worldwide. It was here in this time frame when the sun began to never set on the British Empire. The contributing factors to the capitalism we see grow out of England must be mainly accredited to global expansion and domination accompanied by an economic shift in the homeland. What also needs to be noted here is the other manners in which England was able to propel themselves outside of what is coined economical. With the exploitation of humans, whether it was domestic or overseas, there comes an approach of very harsh violence. A traditional Marxist argument is that capitalism can hold onto its power through means of coercion and the usage of law enforcement and the military to assert their reign or will. It is somewhat a general rule of capitalism. England was not special in this regard, but they were special with the means of using these means to not only colonize parts of the world but to hold onto them as well. Queen Elizabeth is not single-handedly responsible for all these things, but she is the primary ruler who saw and endorsed this great shift in England. The argument here is not whether or not capitalism is wrong, but what is the origin of it. The capitalism that we are accustomed to today is not what England had at the time, the system we live under is something with decades in the making, but England at the time was planting the roots that would branch out into what we have today.

Endnotes

[1] Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Origins of Capitalism. London, UK: Verso, 2017.

[2] Bucholz, R. O., and Newton Key. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2020.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Origins of Capitalism. London, UK: Verso, 2017.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] “The National Archives.” The National Archives , n.d. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/adventurers.htm.

[9] Bucholz, R. O., and Newton Key. Early Modern England 1485-1714: a Narrative History. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2020.

Randy O.

Coming from Long Beach, CA, Randy O. is a senior at Concordia University of Irvine. He is a History/Political Thought Major. Politics and history fascinate him because for him it explains how we as a society get ourselves into the situations that we get ourselves into. The historical figures of the left provided him with answers to the questions of the world and why the people of color are treated like second hand citizens. Although she has passed, his grandmother is his biggest inspiration and he says he will never forget where he has come from.