Capitalism’s triumph required first expropriating peasants from common lands

Evidence

The transition from feudalism to capitalism was, in essence, a shift of the power to command from landowners to owners of capital goods. For that to happen, peasants had first to lose autonomous access to common lands. That’s why the enclosures in Britain were essential for capitalism’s birth: they denied British labour the opportunities Peel’s workers discovered in Western Australia. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 257

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s deep familiarity with enclosure history and land-as-infrastructure themes — enclosures are a recurring motif in the knowledge base. Also parallels Marx’s primitive accumulation. — connects to: Capitalism’s birth required peasants to lose autonomous access to common lands.; Revolutionary socialism triumphed only in predominantly peasant societies; Taxing peasants in money forced them into debt and market dependence — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 311 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s birth required peasants to lose autonomous access to common lands. #corroborates (1.00)
• Taxing peasants in money forced them into debt and market dependence #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 311
• Bourgeois landed property recast peasant customary rights as theft requiring punishment #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 141
• Revolutionary socialism triumphed only in predominantly peasant societies #complicates (0.72)