The Problems of Transition and the Question of Origin

The history of theoretical Marxism in Britain assumes the form of writings on history. It is a particular kind of historical writing: one which focusses on the origin and growth of capitalist relations, exploring the nature of feudalism and questions of periodisation. Debate on the nature of contemporary capitalism among Marxists has taken for granted that this is primarily a historical question — an assumption that for example made the debate between the Board of New Left Review and E. P. Thompson in the mid-1960s possible. As Perry Anderson wrote in 1964, ‘the present crisis can, in effect, only be understood in terms of the differential formation and development of British capitalist society since the seventeenth century’ (Anderson, 1964, p. 28). The burden of Thompson’s criticisms were directed against the manner in which historical arguments were then deployed, while the overall strategy was never questioned. Anderson has since gone on to push the boundaries of historical research a few centuries further back, while Thompson has concentrated on the structure of relations in eighteenth-century England.