Coexistence And Interaction: An Analysis On The Different Roles Of British City And Rural Area In The Origin Of Capitalism

Thesis:Coexistence and Interaction:an Analysis on the Different Roles of British City and Rural Area in the Origin of CapitalismWhen researching the history of capitalism,we must date its opening phase in England.The origin of capitalism has always caught so wide attention in academic talk and in historical writing .Historians from home and abroad have led intensive and full-scale research into the origin of capitalism from some aspects,such as class struggle,trading element,and so forth.Based on the academic outcome of the predecessors,taking England for example,this essay tentatively makes a preliminary analysis on the distinctive roles that both city and rural area played in the transtion period. With respect to the relationship between city and rural area,the academic review of the present essay shows the recent achievement of studying the origin of capitalism,including the arguments,the famous works and essays,the schools,and so on.The main section of the essay consists of three parts:Part one begins with an analysis of the origin of medieval cities of England.City is the necessary component of the feudal organism.Deeply rooted in feudal society, medieval city of England made itself an obstacle of the further development of commercial economy.Part two focuses on the re-understanding of the rural area of medieval England.lt explores the reason why there was still room for commercial exchange in the traditional farming society.In addition,the part pays more attention to the importance of judicial system of rural society.The customs and the manor court made the consistent accumulation of individual peasants'assets possible. In some sense,the legal element is a kind of "capital" which is crucial to the success of the social transition in England.Part three offers a detailed discussion and analysis on the development of the country industry (mainly woollen industry). On one hand, the 13th century witnessed the steady growth of agricultural productivity in England,which was an essential prerequisite for the development of country industry. In addition, rural area had some advantages that attracted the urban capital very deeply:abundant supply of rural aborers, plenty of natual resources, cheap raw material, and so forth; On the other hand, in view of city, handicraft gild which produced anti-competition and monopolistic policy made the development of commercial economy inevitably meet bottleneck. Historically, based on ariculture, country industry realized its vigorous development, which depended to a great degree on the capital of urban merchants.Conclusion: Both city and rural area had their own limitations that could not be overcome by themselves, as a result, the embryo of capitalism failed to grow up in any one of them. The medieval history of England tells us that the coexistence and interaction between city and rural area provided the origin of capitalism with fundamental power. The successful transition of England have offered us some enlightenments, such as how to handle correctly the relationship between industry and agriculture, the importance of individual accumulation, which can be used for reference by China in the course of industrialization.