Date: 08 Feb 1993 15:47 -0500 (EST)
From: s_sanderson <ERCPTSC@grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Foss on Sanderson
To: wsn@csf.Colorado.EDU
Comments: "World Systems Network (wsn@csf.Colorado.EDU)"
 
Daniel Foss is critical of my article on Japanese capitalism because he says
there can't be a transition from feudalism to capitalism.  Feudalism defines a
political entity, he says, rather than an economic one.  I've heard this one
before, but don't exactly agree with it.
 
First of all, the notion of a transition from feudalism to capitalism is not of
my own doing, but has been there in the literature -- especially the Marxist
literature -- for many years.  So I'm simply inserting myself into an ongoing
debate and established terminology.
 
Now the problem with the Marxian notion of feudalism is that it limits it
purely to an economic system characterized by dependent serfdom.  This makes
the concept so general that it can be found all over the world and throughout
history, and indeed that conclusion has not been resisted.
 
What to do?  I reject the narrow economic notion of feudalism used by most
Marxists, but I also reject the notion that feudalism is something purely
political.  I have been persuaded by Perry Anderson's argument that feudalism
is marked by an inextricable fusion of the economic and the political.  The
landlord class and state are virtually one and the same.
 
So, it still makes sense to talk about a transition from feudalism to
capitalism to me, inasmuch as the meaning I give to feudalism is economic as
well as political.
 
It is, of course, entirely possible that there are terminal problems with my
article, but I don't think this is one of them.
 
Stephen Sanderson