In her powerful book Caliban
and the Witch (Autonomedia 1998/2014), Silvia Federici makes the important
claim that the medieval witch-hunt across Europe constituted part of the
processes of primitive accumulation, preparing the ground for the emergence of
capitalism. While the enclosures put an end to people’s access to the commons,
the witch-hunt resulted in the loss of women’s control over their bodies. In
this blog post, I will reflect critically on Federici’s assessment of the role
of the witch-hunt in the emergence of capitalism.
The Black Death of the mid-14th
century had decimated population levels across Europe. As a result of the
subsequent shortages of people, peasants became empowered. ‘For a broad section
of the western European peasantry, and for urban workers, the 15th
century was a period of unprecedented power’, writes Federici. ‘Not only did
the scarcity of labor give them the upper hand, but the spectacle of employers
competing for their services strengthened their sense of self-value, and erased
centuries of degradation and subservience’ (Federici 1998/2014: 46-7).
Emboldened by their new-found strength,
the common people started to challenge the nobility’s power. Heretic movements
sprang up, indicating paths of development beyond feudalism. ‘Throughout
Europe, vast communalistic social movements and rebellions against feudalism
had offered the promise of a new egalitarian society built on social equality
and cooperation’ (Federici 1998/2014: 61). The foundations of the feudalist
social relations of production were shaken to the core. ‘The heretics’
challenge was primarily a political one, since to challenge the Church was to
confront at once the ideological pillar of feudal power, the biggest landowner
in Europe, and one of the institutions most responsible for the daily
exploitation of the peasantry’ (Federici 1998/2014: 33-4).
Capitalism is regarded by Federici as
both ending the potential alternatives emanating from the heretical movements
as well as putting a stop to the more independent life and opportunities of
women, afforded to them in feudalism. ‘Capitalism was the counter-revolution
that destroyed the possibilities that had emerged from the anti-feudal struggle
– possibilities which, if realized, might have spared us the immense
destruction of lives and the natural environment that has marked the advance of
capitalist relations worldwide’ (Federici 1998/2014: 21-2).
The witch-hunt is for Federici a part of
the processes of primitive accumulation. While people were driven off the land
and lost their access to the commons, men gained control over women and their
bodies. ‘The witch-hunt deepened the divisions between women and men, teaching
men to fear the power of women, and destroyed a universe of practices, beliefs,
and social subjects whose existence was incompatible with the capitalist work
discipline, thus redefining the main elements of social reproduction’ (Federici
1998/2014: 165). In other words, the witch-hunt was an essential aspect of the
establishment of capitalist social relations of production. ‘There is no
doubt that in the “transition from feudalism to capitalism” women suffered a
unique process of social degradation that was fundamental to the accumulation
of capital and has remained so ever since’ (Federici 1998/2014: 75). The
control of women and their bodies became a direct part of capitalist
accumulation. ‘The female body, the uterus, [was placed] at the service of
population increase and the production and accumulation of labor-power’ (Federici
1998/2014: 181).
The new patriarchal order emerging from
the witch-hunt became tightly linked to the establishment of capitalism itself.
This does not imply that women’s position in society had been one of equality
in feudalism. Nevertheless, ‘in pre-capitalist Europe women’s subordination to
men had been tempered by the fact that they had access to the commons and other
communal assets, while in the new capitalist regime women themselves became the
commons, as their work was defined as a natural resource, laying outside the
sphere of market relations’ (Federici 1998/2014: 97).
This is a powerful interpretation of the
role of the witch-hunt in medieval Europe. Federici’s analysis, however, does not take any notice of particular local or national
specificities. Equally problematic, primitive accumulation in the form of the
enclosures of the countryside and the commons is regarded as a uniform process
throughout Europe. And yet, while scholars such as Robert
Brenner assert the importance of the emergence of agricultural capitalism
in Britain in the 16th century as a result of the enclosures, he
also illustrates how this was a rather specific development, very different
from agricultural development in France or Eastern Europe.
There is no doubt that the witch-hunt
had been devastating for women across Europe. Nonetheless, rather than being
part of the emergence of capitalism and some kind of form of primitive
accumulation, could we not argue that it was a response to the crisis of
feudalism from within feudalism, similarly perhaps to the emergence of the
international system of absolutist states? As Benno Teschke
and Hannes
Lacher show, capitalism emerged into a pre-existing international system of
absolutist states. Perhaps, equally capitalism emerged into a pre-existing
system of patriarchal relationships? Of course, the subordination of women is
part of, and has been shaped by, capitalism. But it has not emerged in tandem with
capitalism itself.
Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
Andreas.Bieler@nottingham.ac.uk
Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net
14 February 2019
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