carlin
took me a long time to read but glad I read it! definitely more rewarding the longer I read, and it totally helped answer some questions — why does capitalism necessitate an underclass? does money = capitalism? is claiming your traditional property as your own the same as private property? — and gave me more ideas to play with and think about — primitive accumulation, non-capitalist economies, markets as being naturally corruptive, improvement as the original sin, Ireland as a testbed of colonialisation, Scotland's part in that etc.
Wood's argument is elegant and powerful, and I found it's explictness — frequently re-elaborating — to be exactly what I needed to follow her argument.
The chief reason for the length of time it took me, was that I ended up using a lot of my energy getting through Part 1 which wasn't rewarding. I would recommend skipping it for almost everyone, as she's essentially gping through a bunch of arguments for the origin of capitalism and pointing out their holes. As I'm not familiar with these arguments (which she does largely explain), it didn't provide much use for me to go through them.
She provides quite a lot of historical context, but I did find myself wishing that I was reading a history book rather than an economic book. I find myself more drawn to history recently so maybe I'll try dabble.
took me a long time to read but glad I read it! definitely more rewarding the longer I read, and it totally helped answer some questions — why does capitalism necessitate an underclass? does money = capitalism? is claiming your traditional property as your own the same as private property? — and gave me more ideas to play with and think about — primitive accumulation, non-capitalist economies, markets as being naturally corruptive, improvement as the original sin, Ireland as a testbed of colonialisation, Scotland's part in that etc.
Wood's argument is elegant and powerful, and I found it's explictness — frequently re-elaborating — to be exactly what I needed to follow her argument.
The chief reason for the length of time it took me, was that I ended up using a lot of my energy getting through Part 1 which wasn't rewarding. I would recommend skipping it for almost everyone, as she's essentially gping through a bunch of arguments for the origin of capitalism and pointing out their holes. As I'm not familiar with these arguments (which she does largely explain), it didn't provide much use for me to go through them.
She provides quite a lot of historical context, but I did find myself wishing that I was reading a history book rather than an economic book. I find myself more drawn to history recently so maybe I'll try dabble.