Hadas Thier

An exploitative system of commodity production and exchange arose over time, neither inevitably nor smoothly, appearing on the scene only recently in human history.

“great individual initiative and decisiveness”

This process was not smooth or automatic, nor one that came about without resistance.

Exactly how and why the transition from feudalism to capitalism came about is a highly contested and complex history,9

When capitalism emerged, it developed a wholly new social order, one that required severing the masses of people from access to land, tools, and resources.

Because the enrichment of the lord was dependent on violence, this incentivized each lord to make ever-greater investment in weapons and warfare

social order of haves and have-nots.

One thing, however, is clear: nature does not produce on the one hand owners of money or commodities, and on the other hand men possessing nothing but their own labor-power. This relation has no basis in natural history, nor does it have a social basis common to all periods of human history. It is clearly the result of a past historical development, the product of many economic revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older formations of social production.

Such insipid childishness is every day preached to us in the defense of property.

not through the frugalness and intelligence of a small elite. It was the outcome of a violent upheava