File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9802, message 115


Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 13:18:06 -0500
From: james m blaut <70671.2032-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Gunder Frank, the ole Mississip' etc


Mark:

Malcolm Caldwell (sp?) wrote a book a couple of decades ago explaining (I
think) the British Indusdtrial Revo on the basis of Britain's unique coal
supplies. I have to confess that I think this theory, echoed by you and
presumably Gunder Frank, reeks of environmental determinism. There is a lot
of coal in a lot of countries. N. China. Japan. Russia. Etc.Why wasn't it
used then in these places? so the argument shifts from coal resources to
society and we're back where we started. We're also back in the ranks of
the Weberians if we credit some super-rational Brit with having started the
whole thing by thinking up how to replace charcoal with coal. I'll bet you
that people knew how to do this much earlier, and not only in Britain (I'm
speculating, as usual). And isn't there something in Needham's *Sci. & Civ.
in China* about Newcomen's engine and its relationship to Chinese
techmnology?

I agree, hoever, that fossil fuels have an awful lot to do with the rise
and fall of capitalism, and, were there no Persian Gulf, we would have had
the revo by now. And probably you're right in arguing that the increasing
scarcity of oil wil bring either socialist revo or barbnarism.

En lucha

Jim Blaut  


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