Marx’s Blind Spot: The Millennium of Commercial Wealth Behind the Industrial Illusion

The Human civilization earned their livelihood through trade and commerce, the scope was underscored by the formation of a groups formation extended to creating village, city and nation states. The required economic underbelly was created on the necessity of exchange of domestic production of produces with the।domesticate  needs that are not produced but needed in-territory. The basic theory of exchange was founded on the principle of equitable benefit of the participants. But here the music ensued, beneath this avowed “ equitability” lurked the intention of interest of one-up-ness. Every participant wants to gain from the deal and and wants to gain ‘,something more" mostly intangible that would feelingly “satisfy” the dealer. There lies the paradox , some might call it dialectical. This paradox in-seeps the factor of power,the crudest and obvious form of which is military power. In comes the arms race within commerce . They win who are militarily more powerful. Commerce therefore is primarily and ultimately contingent upon military power. Thus commerce started on an organized scale along with the start of City State or nation state formation that started at least since 3000 BC or in some isolated islands even before that. Slowly and steadily with passing of more time, technology and political divisions including ideology, commerce turned itself into an appendage of warfare. National diplomacy is another form of warfare. No wonder therefore the birth bath tub of inter-national commerce and concomitantly commercial revolution would be Europe and western (dis)civilization. 
There is a second important point. Eastern society had plenty of food and fibre and other natural products with many varieties. So they never felt any animosity against the “others”, while Europe was barren, they were rather goaded to make war. Europe turned into a hotbed of all possible types of internecine long and short term skirmishes battles and warfare. Combined with various types of differences (they cobbled those as racism) Europeans lost their menfolk in these squirmishes. Asians did not need that, Men and womenfolk expended their total strength labour,labour power and time in agriculture to produce little more than their family needs. These were amassed by village traders to sell outside their administrative boundary. The markets flourished for another  50 centuries scaling to even 30% of the world's net asset in the 20th century.

The modern and present banking and financial system took its birth from the Silk Route mechanism। It was not a single highway but a ‘Space” including all kinds of logistics and protected through fare including maritime movement under strict surveillance by the “military administration” by the there and by the then  power of the local military power that be(was). Now, for ease of one-stop-shoppe came up the phenomenon we call banking and finance and that “ease” gave rise to fly money or paper chit or promissory note instead of carriage of heavy indestructible heavy metals. The need of increased production of these metals and the lack thereof underlining the unnecessary and unwanted inflation thereof created  the need of promissory chits and paper currency, much much before money converting itself into “Capital”. It was not the simple conversion of labour-power and skill into measurable Capital and creation of monetary capital which could generate interest further increasing the exploitation.  Much earlier to the development of post European-feudalist-capitalism came into existence this Silk Road led banking and finance reigned it's full circle and amassed money and wealth ( from ,3000 BCE to  18th century CE) thus this linear five stages of “economic history” needs major reparations.
 
The Chinese had their names associated with the various mid-level artefacts around tis space, Islamic activists ( especially Uzbecks) had their names, Mongolians and Indians had theirs. This proves that every civilization considered this “space” their work space. And this work space was the non European commercial endeavour and business. 
Commercial endeavour defined the then economics, much ere to Western or European Capitalism. The five linear stage was far too myopic. And could not scale up to an all round world view. Marx's continuous search  for “other” methods that  we fathomed in his ethnological  manuscripts  showed that this “linear pantheon” was simply a case study . Commercialisation process is the principal modus operandi of wealth amassing, and that is in any civilization and state rule. Europeans always wanted to own up  anything that they can eulogize.  So was the case here. Marx’s folly was to de-mention such a massive phenomenon. The process of wealth amalgamation was never completed in his works.
 
Capital formation does not have only one kind of genesis never had been. It was and is not and very unlikely to ever be only a wage labour or simply be a labour power exploiting phenomenon. Finance capital is not only stemming out of any type of urban based manufacturing . Trade , commerce was and will depend on clandesctine military and economic power , which constructed itself through Valorising not so essential (disposable to a great extent) needs but deeming it as necessary. Commerce of the Silk Route pattern  precursed imperialism . Silk Road type of globalisation is not the European type . Devrloped in contrast to the European mechanism  giving birth to socially necessary and socially developed  pattern of wealth amassing. Banking developed outside the dominant need of manufacturing for organising of warfare and logistics. 

A second point is why was the European commercial revolution that ostensibly and allegedly “,understood” to have started in 11th century till up until 18th century had to be known  as a two phase “revolution” , the first from 11th to 15th , and the second from the latter half of 15th till the 18th? Why was the latter half was termed as “Mercentalist “?
 
One possible explanation could be corroborated through the logic of massivity . The massive contingents could be organized only through very big land holdinng lords and knights with strong military prowess.  

The administrative and military superstructure decided every aspect of the European pattern of lordship without much regard to  even the lower practitioners of the trade or logistics. Based totally on the writ of the lords this system never left much leeway even on negotiations. Silk Route syndrome or activities had more democratic leeway or economic space from smallest individual traders to very big State controlled caravanserais all paid their stipulated portions called taxes and then had a journey under the surveillance on the pass card, which was honoured by every other sub surveillors . Very soon the hard metal exchange material was replaced by promissory notes. In Europe this kind of collaborative arrangements were by and large not heeded to leading to thousand years of war and very private banking system. Europeans primarily based on their of light skinned supremacy had their permissions-notes as military passes.Mercantailism is that military power based system that converged into State to State commerce. We have this methodoology continuing till date. It was never meant to be , nor designed to be collaborative. This is the mechanism and raison-d-etre of mercantailism, which they called “revolution” there had been never any direct rationale of need of industrialisation and the need of funding them through banking. 

Revisiting the original point - wholesale de-mentioning the entire process and period of European commercial revolution that reined supreme for more than a millennium toward the formation of world Capital might have served Comrade Marx in building up of the Industrial revolution and giving it the prime preponderance but did not do justice to the amassing of Wealth on the hands of autocrats who adorned themselves as the later day oligarchs in the later day aristocratic feudalism 
 Marx mentioned the capitulation of Cromwell to the aristocratic oligarchy but slipped quite a height in not being able to account for their already amassed wealth and were not  able to give the bestest account of their ability to fund industrial and technological research of what we eulogistically term as industrial revolution (!?). Then and still Today we go Gaga in terming this as Scientific Revolution! Wealth meanwhile changed itself in financial “fly” banking whereby we have dropped ourselves down into ‘fiat’powerof making money as much as we wish as long as that currency printing country has the supreme military power and the threatening power (Trump driven US) with no holds barred। The birthmark is no such European industrial and/or Scientific Revolution but the millennium long double phased Commercial Revolution. De mentioning or inadequate mentioning of such a long history hurt the Historical analysis that could not build up the hiatus between the different production and the painful inequality of urban principally consuming sectors and the rural sector producing primary products.

Appropriate credence of commercial revolution (!?) even as the primary gaze could have corrected the trajectory. Capitalism was always elite centred from the beginning as it was ushered in the society by Feudalism in Europe by landed aristocracy and in the South through various social structures and hierarchy. None of these were progressive in regard to speed not in regard to changing social hierarchy. Investing wealth, money and capital in producing technology cannot be and may not be termed as progressive not revolutionary thru any consideration in any regard. Total workforce development is a zero-sum-game . The so-called explosion in urban  employment on one hand for not scaling up the general growth of participating individuals and thus the society, on the other hand it denuded down rural employment and rural growth of producing populace. For all practical purpose and intents on addition to the Gem-Z buzzword known as Global South and Global North we should appropriately have “ Global Urban” and “ Global Rural” as well.