A History of Capitalism - Part 3

Earlier I had mentioned that one of the characteristics of Capitalism is the accumulation of the means of production into a few hands. The first steps in this direction took place in England in a process known as enclosure. According to Wikipedia, enclosure was the process whereby common land (defined as land under the ownership of one person but to which others had certain traditional rights like grazing rights etc.) was fully taken into private ownership and use. Thus enclosure led to land that had previously been used by a number of people being used by one person or family.

The process of enclosure had started piecemeal as early as the 13th century; accelerated towards the end of the medieval period and reached its peak in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While the process of enclosure had many causes, one of the most important ones was the development of a unified market area. Over time, as the central government expanded the area under its effective control, there was an elimination of internal barriers to commerce and this helped in the development of a unified market area. In pre-industrial times, land was the primary generator of wealth. A unified market area with no internal barriers to commerce (like excessive tolls and taxes from one region to the next) created an incentive to increase agricultural production in order to create a surplus that could be profitably sold. Enclosure led to the creation of larger farms that could produce the required surplus. The process also led to the depopulation of villages as people lost their traditional rights to the former common land. Any compensation offered took the shape of land of far poorer quality. So for a large mass of people, the only alternative was to migrate into the urban centers in search of a livelihood. This led to dramatic expansions of the major urban centers which led to further incentive to produce a surplus to feed the growing urban population which in turn created an incentive for enclosure.

The rapid expansion of the urban areas, specially during the peak of the enclosure movement, was fortuitous development from an industrial (and capitalist) point of view. The peak of the enclosure movement coincided with the start of the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was a complex process invloving many factors. A discussion on the causes of the industrial revolution are beyond the scope of this essay. What is of interest here is the effect the industrial revolution had on the development of the nascent capitalist mindset.

The enclosure movement had displaced a large number of people who were then forced to migrate into urban areas in search of a livelihood. This migration displaced them from their family and social networks rooted in their villages and led them to live amongst strangers. Migrants could no longer rely on immediate and extended family networks that had previously supported them. Thus an indivdiualistic way of thinking became necessary for survival in a strange environment. Another effect was that the migrants became dependent on other people for their livelihood. In other words, they had to find a job in order to survive. Thus in migrating from villages to cities, people became wage earners. This also suited the owners of capital who had established factories utilizing the new systems of production made possible by the industrial revolution. These factories required a workforce that was made available as a result of the enclosure movement. So, by the middle of the 19th century, all the elements of the capitalist system were firmly in place.