Transition from feudalism to captalism

The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism both provides a guide and makes its own distinctive contribution to the debate on the character of European capitalist development. It reviews the theoretical traditions of Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Max Weber and argues that neither the drives of rational economic man, nor the expansion of productive forces bursting through outmoded social relations, nor the fateful march of rationalisation, is adequate as an explanation of the transition to capitalism.

R. J. Holton argues that no unilinear evolutionary account provides an adequate account of the transition, particularly emphasising the weakness of theories which situate the origins of capitalism in the experience of feudalism. Rather, he argues, it depended on the emergence of certain post-feudal institutions and practices particularly developments in state organisations and within landed society and a broader Graeco-Roman and Christian cultural legacy.

Individual European nations involved in the transition to capitalism each displayed certain unique developmental features. At the same time, the consolidation of capitalism depended as much on the broader European geopolitical and cultural context as on the endogenous features of individual nations.

The series 'New Studies in Sociology published in conjunction with the British Sociological Association and edited by Michael Mann, London School and Political Science.