INTEGRATIVE LEVELS 



work of historians, such as Pirenne^ and Borkenau,^ gives us an insight 

 into the first embr}^onic origins of the new form of appropriation of 

 surplus value which was later to be known as capitalism. Far back 

 in the middle ages, the beginnings of long-distance transport, especially 

 by sea, initiated the tradition of free finance and unlimited profit- 

 making which did not come into its own until in seventeenth-century 

 England the City of London, backing Cromwell's military force 

 with all its might, made our country safe for Spencer's "sagacious" 

 bankers. The process so brilliantly begun came to its fullness a hundred 

 years later in France, when the chains of feudalism were finally 

 broken and Europe's large-scale industries could develop in earnest. 

 It must, of course, be emphasised that in those earlier days the middle- 

 class "merchant venturers" and industrialists were the really progres- 

 sive class. By Herbert Spencer's time, this was ceasing to be the case. 

 Spencer stood just at the critical point when the middle-class was 

 hesitating between the old policy of Manchester light industry and 

 the new policy of Birmingham heavy industry. The export of finished 

 goods was about to yield its hegemony to the direct exploitation of 

 colonial countries and peoples, in a word, to imperialism. State 

 expenditure upon the army was 14-9 million pounds in 1873-5, 

 18 -I in 1893-5, and 28-0 in 1911-13. Upon the navy it was 10-4 

 million pounds in 1873-5, 17-6 in 1893-5, and 45*3 in 1911-13. No 

 wonder Spencer noted a "retrogression" from the industrial to the 

 predatory state. The sociology for which he stood was that of the 

 early nineteenth-century English middle class, favouring "cheap 

 production and cheap government," i.e. low wages and no social 

 legislation, a small army and navy, and even a moderate republicanism 

 since bureaucracy and royalty might be thought unnecessary expenses. 

 Still in the position of the early mill-owners and ironmasters, he 

 objected equally to the expenses of imperialism and to the pressure 

 towards social legislation exerted by the growing working-class 

 movement. His grand sweep of vision from the nebulae to man 

 truncated itself in the narrow prejudices of the dying class to which 

 he belonged. But it is none the less valuable to us, for we can draw 

 the conclusions he would not, and look forward to the inevitable 

 further onward march of the principle of progressive integration and 

 organisation. 



^ H. Pirenne, Economic and Social History of Mediaeval Europe (London, 1936). 



' F. Borkenau, Der Ubergang von feudalen ^um biirgerlichen Weltbild; Studien lur 

 Geschichte der Philosophie der Manufakturperiode (Paris, 1934). 



257 R 



