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ages" from its beginning in pre-Renaissance Europe (Braudel, 1992). Just as
Pirenne had done, Braudel viewed the strength of the capitalist system to be
its constant need to replenish capitalist 'stock' in order to maintain its adaptive
and aggressive spirit of risk and innovation:
"The northern countries took over the place that earlier had so long and so
brilliantly been occupied by the old capitalist centres of the Mediterranean. They
invented nothing, either in technology or in business management. Amsterdam
copied Venice, as London would subsequently copy Amsterdam ... What was
involved ... was a shift in the centre of gravity of the world economy, for economic
reasons that had nothing to do with the basic or secret nature of capitalism"
(Braudel, 1977, 66-67).
Eric Mielants, a former student of Ghent University, rejuvenated the Pirenne
thesis by arguing that the western European city states of the medieval era
were nurseries of the emerging capitalist system, in which the western Euro-
pean merchant bourgeoisie was the critical player (Mielants, 2007).
Apart from his 'institutional' approach to capitalism, Pirenne also shared
his beliefs in the lengthy evolution of capitalism and mass movements with
Marxist historians and others who focused on structure and long-term devel-
opments. In a famous article on the stages of capitalism, he argued that the
evolution towards capitalism did not follow a teleological course.
He developed his thesis on the stages of capitalism in an address he
delivered at the International Congress of Historical Studies at London in
April 1913. One year later the text was published in English and in French
nearly simultaneously. Pirenne addressed the question of the pendulum of
capitalism swinging between expansion and recession. He connected times of
expansion with economic freedom and times of recession with economic
regulation (Bademli, 2009, passim). In three periods of expansion, territorial
and economic growth went hand in hand. During the first expansion period,
the crusades and colonisation of the Mediterranean islands stimulated
commerce. The discovery of the Americas triggered the second period of
expansion. When some of the African and Asian countries were colonised
and pulled into the system following the Industrial Revolution, the third
period of expansion started. Recession ensued when entrepreneurs decided
against taking further risks. After working for a long time and accumulating
enough capital, they invested their capital in landed property and began
collecting rent from their land. They became aristocrats, a new social class.
Once entrepreneurs withdrew from business, their hegemonic power
declined, until others took their place (Pirenne, 1914, 515).
PIRENNE AND ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL THEORY
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The Ghent historian Jan Dhondt called Pirenne's argument on the recur-
rence of capitalism "l'œuvre la plus remarquable qu'ait laissée Pirenne" (the
most remarkable work Pirenne left behind) (Dhondt, 1976, 89). Dhondt wrote
that Pirenne gave several lectures on the theme of "liberty and regulation" in
the history of capitalism between 1911 and 1924. After 1924 he never again
addressed this topic, and never developed it in a more extensive way. This
Pirenne thesis evoked little resonance in continental historiography.
25
Lucien
Febvre applauded the audacity of the concept and suggested some general
afterthoughts (Febvre, 1946, 141-142, our translation):
"… one of the great benefits of Pirenne's remarkable theory is that it allows us to
demolish one of the most indigestible and confusing notions in our conception of
social evolution: the notion of the middle class. Across history, there is no compact,
homogeneous middle class complete in itself".
Fernand Braudel showed less enthusiasm (Braudel, 1992, 478-482). Pirenne's
theory "concerns the periodisation of the social history of capitalism, which is
still worth some consideration," Braudel wrote, agreeing with Pirenne's effort
to describe capitalism as a successive, repeated series of movements. How-
ever, Braudel wrote that Pirenne's notion
"bypasses conjunctural explanations, suggesting rather a recurrent social pattern
which can be confirmed in the context of individual or rather family behaviour"
(Ibid., 478).
According to Braudel, the fact that merchant families do not appear to have
survived more than two or three generations and abandoned trade for less
risky and more prestigious activities does not indicate that they withdrew
from the capitalist sphere. Social rhythms in capitalism were directed at
social groups and not at individual families as such:
"So it was possible to advance by stages within capitalism: a merchant could
become a banker, a banker become a financier, and both become capitalist rentiers
– thus surviving as capitalists for several generations
" (Ibid. 480, original italics).
Advancing by stages within the world of capital was only possible if society
offered a choice:
"the reasons for eclipse and replacement are indeed at this level explained by
economic change".
25.
References in non-Anglo-Saxon works are rare (e.g., Béraud & Changeur, 2006, 131-132).
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Thanks to the reprints of the original article in English and the English trans-
lation of Fernand Braudel's works, Anglo-Saxon social scientists took up
Pirenne's stage theory of capitalism more enthusiastically. Most scholars who
analysed the history of capitalism over the long term, initiating its develop-
ment long before the Industrial Revolution, included Pirenne in their
pantheon of famous sources of inspiration. As Richard Hartwell (1969, 15)
summarised:
"These historians recognised two phenomena – the rise of capitalism and the
Industrial Revolution – but reckoned the latter to be a later stage in the development
of the former, and were therefore more interested in the transition from pre-
capitalist to capitalist economy than from early to industrial capitalism. And
although they distinguished earlier commercial and financial capitalisms from
industrial capitalism, it was only a distinction of degree, usually measured by
capital intensity".
"The phenomena of the 16th century are reproduced," wrote Pirenne of the
19th century, "but with tenfold intensity". In one of his earlier articles Robert
Brenner (1972, 361) labelled Pirenne's 'generalisation' as oversimplified. He
wrote:
"Nevertheless, Pirenne did try to understand economic change in terms of the men
who actually carried it out. In this respect, his approach can provide a necessary
corrective to the economic determinism which has characterised many more recent
publications of economic development".
Therefore, Pirenne clearly inspired historians with a structural and long-term
focus, including Marxists. But how 'Marxist' was he himself? Some have
written that Pirenne had Marxist influences.
26
Verhulst made this claim fairly
recently in his conclusion to the proceedings of the conference dedicated to
Pirenne in 1989 (Verhulst, 1986). The charge is partially correct but much
exaggerated, to a certain extent due to the fact that Pirenne used terminology
thought to be exclusively Marxist, such as 'classes', in his articles. For
Pirenne and many of the historians and economists who were his
contemporaries this was a general term to design a social group. All
historians and economists used this concept from the end of the 18th century
until the beginning of the 20th century, including Adam Smith, the 'father of
26.
According to Prevenier (2010, 492): "It was Pirenne's acquaintance with Karl Lamprecht
(which) led to a temporary flirtation with Marxist analyses from circa 1900 on". Certainly
Marxism influenced Pirenne much earlier, during his stay in Germany in the 1880s and his
contact with the 'German historical school of economics' there and later; see above.
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