Fourteenth-century crises determined which bourgeoisies would create global capitalism

Evidence

“Capitalism was from the beginning an affair of the world economy and not of nation-states… . Capital has never allowed its aspirations to be determined by national boundaries.” Capitalism has been such a fundamental globalising influence precisely because it is an economic rather than a political order; it has been able to penetrate far-flung areas of the world which the states of its origin could not have brought wholly under their political sway. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 174 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The momentous events of which we speak were: the periodic famines that struck Europe in this period, the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century and subsequent years, the Hundred Years War (1337–1453), and the rebellions of peasants and artisans. Together they had a devastating impact on western Europe and the Mediterranean—decimating the populations of cities and countryside alike, disrupting trade, collapsing industry and agricultural production—leveling, as it were, the bulk of the most developed regions of western European bourgeois activity. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 162 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Europe’s late medieval crisis had contested causes but clear contraction effects; Capitalism’s form was determined by preexisting feudal civilization; Famines, plague, war, and rebellion leveled Europe’s most developed bourgeois regions — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 162 (+3 more)

Related

• Famines, plague, war, and rebellion leveled Europe’s most developed bourgeois regions (similarity 0.88)
• Fourteenth-century catastrophes shaped which European bourgeoisies built the world system (similarity 0.84)
• Europe’s late medieval crisis had contested causes but clear contraction effects (similarity 0.82)
• Sixteenth-century bourgeoisies were not lineal descendants of medieval ones (similarity 0.80)
• Feudal collapse transferred power to merchant capital that birthed capitalism (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism’s non-political nature enabled its global penetration beyond state reach #complicates (0.72) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 174
• Famines, plague, war, and rebellion leveled Europe’s most developed bourgeois regions #corroborates (0.70) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 162
• Europe’s late medieval crisis had contested causes but clear contraction effects #qualifies (0.60)
• Capitalism’s form was determined by preexisting feudal civilization #corroborates (0.55)