Le Mort Saisit Le Vif: Jacobinism and Capitalism in World Historical Perspective

This commentary responds to the six symposium pieces that critically engage my book Capitalism, Jacobinism, International Relations: Revisiting Turkish Modernity (CJIR). I am grateful for and challenged by this engaging, and diverse set of responses to CJIR. Below, I will first provide a summary of the substantive and overlapping points raised by my interlocutors. I will then address their critiques in three interrelated sections. In ‘How to Conceptualize Capitalism?’ section, I will discuss how to define and historicize capitalism from the perspective of Political Marxism (PM) while dealing with the question of class and state in historical research. In ‘How to Theorize the Expansion of Capitalism: or What to Make of Jacobinism?’ section, I will introduce Jacobinism and elaborate its distinctiveness with a theoretical focus on the ‘uneven and combined’ character of world historical development. In ‘How to Conceptualize the Modernity–Capitalism Relation?’ section, I will explain my perspective on the concept of modernity, considering its relationship to capitalism. In conclusion, I will briefly elaborate on the implications of Jacobinism for future research.

Critics of CJIR

CJIR presents a new narrative of the development of the modern world through a reevaluation of the consequences of the French Revolution. It challenges the conventional view that the French Revolution facilitated the development of capitalist modernity. Instead, it proposes that the revolution generated a (geo)political economy alternative to capitalism, namely, Jacobinism. Furthermore, the Jacobin project became a model for modernization in and beyond Europe. It demonstrated to the old regimes around the world the geopolitical feasibility of an alternative model of modernization that did not require the systematic commodification of land and labor. Therefore, Jacobinism, combined with local social and intellectual resources, turned into an international vector that significantly impacted the economic and political dynamics involved in the making of the modern world. The book applies this new interpretation to Ottoman and Turkish modernizations. It argues that the first hundred years of Ottoman/Turkish modernization, up until the 1950s, was defined by a historically specific form of Jacobinism rather than by capitalism. This perspective offers fresh insights into Turkey’s Ottoman and Kemalist past, as well as providing a new explanation of its subsequent transition to, and authoritarian consolidation of, capitalism. As such, the book engages with Turkish modernization via Jacobinism (and vice versa), and in doing so, it aims to lead to a fundamental rethinking of the social forces and institutions involved in the formation of the modern world.

Of the critiques of CJIR, the most persistent one concerns the historical specificity of Jacobinism. For example, Cenk Saraçoğlu, in his excellent review, writes that he is not convinced by my interpretation of Jacobinism as ‘a novel regime of property relations that emerge[d] in opposition to capitalism’. Instead, he argues that social forms and institutions I associate with Jacobinism were ‘contingent elements within capitalist social formations’. Capitalism’s expansion did not happen in a unilinear fashion, but resulted ‘in various political and ideological manifestations across different temporal and spatial contexts’, of which Jacobinism was only one instance. ‘Modern republicanist notions, themes, and institutions associated with “Jacobinism” . . . emerge[d] contingently through class struggles, thereby contributing to the reproduction of a capitalist social formation at specific junctures in time and space’. Accordingly, Saraçoğlu contends that Ottoman and Turkish modernizations ‘unfolded within the framework of global capitalism, dictated by the imperatives of capital accumulation’; therefore, they can only be understood as an instance of the uneven and combined development of capitalism, rather than that of Jacobinism. These arguments also echo Klevis Kolasi’s critique that CJIR ‘mechanically separates Jacobinism from the history of capitalism, which is unnecessary or even counterproductive’. According to Kolasi, given that even CJIR itself acknowledges the continuity of extra-economic forms of compulsion and appropriation under capitalism, there is not much reason to see Jacobinism as a mode of modernization distinct from capitalism. In other words, non-market forms of modernization associated with Jacobinism can still be viewed as part of, rather than an alternative to, the unfolding of capitalist modernity. In a similar fashion, Pınar Bedirhanoğlu finds my argument regarding Jacobinism ‘bold but highly problematic’. She argues that capitalism and Jacobinism cannot be made sense of at the same level of analyses, implying that Jacobinism was not a distinctive alternative to capitalism, but has to be understood as integral to the development of capitalist social relations.

This skepticism toward understanding Jacobinism as a distinct regime of political economy is explicitly or otherwise rooted in a critique of my understanding of capitalism as market-dependence. Saraçoğlu explicitly raises this point, criticizing me for adopting a ‘pure’ notion of capitalism, which, in turn, according to him, forces me to read Jacobinism as a distinct non-capitalist path to modernity. Saraçoğlu writes that I tend to adopt an idealized conception of capitalism, that is, CJIR ‘portray[s] capitalism as a society entirely reliant on the market, where traditional extra-market mechanisms for subsistence and social reproduction are supplanted, and the imperatives of capital accumulation reign supreme’. According to Saraçoğlu, such an idealized view overlooks that

capitalism has never manifested as a purely market-dependent society; rather, it has taken on diverse concrete forms across different temporal and spatial contexts, shaped by the specific integration of these non-commodified and extra-market domains into the logic of capital accumulation.

Instead of market-dependence, Saraçoğlu suggests conceptualizing ‘capitalism as a mode of production characterized by distinct class relations rooted in private ownership of the means of production, the exploitation of “free” labor, and the perpetual drive of capital for expansion’. This definition, according to him, does a better job in terms of registering that ‘extra-market mechanisms of social reproduction not only coexist with capitalist markets but also are indeed essential for sustaining capitalist relations’. Similarly, Klevis Kolasi and Alp Yücel Kaya find my conception of capitalism too narrow. For example, while endorsing the consequentialist interpretations of the transition to capitalism, Kolasi, following Neil Davidson’s definition, proposes that capitalism must be conceptualized more broadly, ‘not as a system of market compulsion, but as one of competitive accumulation based on wage-labor’. This would, according to Kolasi, capture the persistence of non-market social forms within capitalism more accurately, thereby enabling a better understanding of the heterogeneity of the uneven and combined development of capitalism.

In addition, some of my critics found problematic my conceptualization of the modernity and capitalism relation in CJIR. Charles Post, for example, problematizes my use of the term ‘modernity’, expressing caution against its applicability to non-capitalist societies. Given that certain aspects of modernity such as the ‘impersonality’ and ‘rationality’ of political rule ‘are only generalized and successfully reproduced under capitalism’, according to Post, my use of the term for French absolutism and then the French Revolution tends to stretch the concept to the point that modernity is understood as anything and everything new in modern society. In a similar vein, Kolasi does not find convincing ‘CJIR’s insistence on divorcing modernity from capitalism’, whereas Kaya charges me for conflating capitalism with modernity, which, he thinks, makes me to ‘prioritize the historicization of modernity [at the expense of] the historicization of capitalism with its uneven and combined dynamics’.

Indeed, the question as to how to historicize the transition to capitalism was central to CJIR. Therefore, it is not surprising that some of my critics have taken issue with my way of theorizing the processes of (non-)transition. Alp Yücel Kaya, for example, in a rather polemical tone, contends that CJIR adopts a ‘state-centric’ perspective, in which the process of historical change is driven by elites or ruling classes, whereas other classes either do not exist or, if they exist, they are relegated to passive receivers of ruling class policies and preferences. In this sense, Kaya concludes, CJIR ‘does not contain any account of the class struggle’, which, according to him, not only defies the most basic premises of PM, but also overlooks the ‘combined’ nature of world historical development. That is, given its alleged state-centrism and neglect of internal class struggles, CJIR, according to Kaya, reduces the concept of ‘uneven and combined development’ to ‘uneven development’. The latter prioritizes the question of inter-state rivalries over the question as to how international political and economic dynamics got combined with domestic class forces, ideologies, and institutions in the process of transition to capitalism. Kaya’s remarks concerning the lack of class struggles also seem to align with Bedirhanoğlu’s argument that CJIR suffers from a lack of ‘appropriate [conceptual] tools . . . to examine Jacobinism as a historically specific state form shaped by class struggles’.

How to Conceptualize Capitalism?

I believe that all participants in this symposium would agree that capitalism is not a transhistorical but a historically specific phenomenon. They would, therefore, distance themselves from, for example, the circular narratives that equate the origins of capitalism with commerce. Rightfully so, because the commercial logic of ‘buying cheap and selling dear’ is almost transhistorical; therefore, associating it with capitalism in an unqualified manner results in the transhistoricization and naturalization of capitalism. The dynamics of capitalism are projected back into history; consequently, the rise of capitalism turns into a teleology, expected to emerge from the accumulation and progressive liberation of a transhistorical commercial logic.

Obviously, my interlocutors would do everything to avoid such a conclusion. After all, most historical materialist approaches today begin from a denial of any notion of transhistorical individual economic rationality. But even here there is a tendency to beg the question in various ways. That is, it is quite debatable to what extent historical materialists themselves have really departed from transhistorical conceptions of capitalism. Consider the definitions of capitalism provided by two of my most formidable critics, Cenk Saraçoğlu and Klevis Kolasi. According to Saraçoğlu, capitalism is ‘a mode of production characterized by distinct class relations rooted in private ownership of the means of production, the exploitation of “free” labor, and the perpetual drive of capital for expansion’. In a similar vein, Kolasi identifies capitalism with ‘competitive accumulation based on wage-labor’. There are commendable aspects in these definitions. In particular, they imply that commerce by itself cannot explain the emergence of capitalist social relations; instead, the dispossession of the peasantry and the emergence of wage-labor have to be taken as the starting point of capitalism.

The struggle-ridden emergence of ‘wage-labour’ thus appears to be a crucial fix to the circularity of the trade-based explanations of the transition to capitalism. Yet, one burning question still remains. What makes possible the ‘perpetual drive of capital for expansion’ (à la Saraçoğlu)? What compels the bourgeoisie to ‘accumulate competitively’ (à la Kolasi)? What forces the producing classes to sell their labor-power on a systematic basis? In other words, what guarantees that the propertied classes subordinate labor to the dictates of capitalist accumulation, continuously invests in production, constantly improves productivity, and generalizes commodity production? More accurately, what makes sure that appropriating classes produce ‘capital’ relation, that is, what enables and forces them to systematically reduce labor-power into abstract labor, increase the ‘ratio of unpaid labor to paid’, perpetually reduce the ‘socially necessary labor time’ involved in appropriating ‘surplus value’, and continuously shape the space and scale of production according to nothing else, but the requirements of profitability and competitiveness?

My interlocutors remain silent on these points, but Saraçoğlu’s and Kolasi’s definitions of capitalism are either directly drawn from or very close to Neil Davidson; therefore, let me briefly engage with Davidson’s original argument. Davidson (2012: 423) contends that people ‘can develop such a propensity [to produce capital] under certain conditions and without compulsion’. There is a grain of truth in this formulation. Human beings may indeed ‘choose’ to systematically reorient their material existence according to the dictates of competitive production. It would be rational for them to do so especially when the opportunity cost of staying outside the market is repeatedly higher than becoming dependent on the market. In other words, a structured opportunity space, partly rooted in the producers’ increasing inability to meet the historically and socially acceptable levels of subsistence, can indeed enable and force the producer to generalize commodity production. That said, however, Davidson’s formulation of market participation, by and large, rests on opportunity per se. He tends to suggest that in a pre-capitalist agricultural setting a small stratum of peasants, following the market signals, can give up the ‘safety-first’ logic of agriculture, rise as capitalist farmers, and transform the countryside along capitalist lines (Davidson, 2012: 523–529) and considers sufficient the mere existence of a dispossessed population to encourage bourgeois classes to seek for ‘opportunities’ for investment (Davidson, 2012: 416). Therefore, in my view, it is not clear to what extent Davidson departs from seeing capitalism as an inherent aspect of human nature (cf. Dimmock, 2014: chap.8). Let me explain further.

Safety-first logic of agriculture refers to the risk-averse strategies adopted by peasants to ensure their survival and minimize vulnerability to external shocks, such as adverse weather conditions, market fluctuations, or social and geopolitical instability. Under pre-capitalist conditions, given low levels of productivity, many peasants focused on subsistence farming, producing primarily for their own consumption rather than for the market, which reduced their exposure to volatility of market prices and dependency on external buyers. In particular, peasants had customary rights to possess land and they did not have access to stable alternative sources of food and credit. Therefore, most peasant farmers were forced and enabled to prioritize subsistence production over production for the market. Clearly, this is not to suggest that peasant did not use the market at all, but simply that they marketed only their surplus product and surplus labor, choosing not to subject themselves to ‘the dictates of the market and the whole transformation of life that transformation would have entailed’ (Brenner, 1989: 289).

A richer stratum of peasants or even big landowners employing wage-labor might still ‘rise’ in this context, but they would not able to change the socio-legal basis of the ‘safety-first’ agriculture unless a systematic political intervention was made (a) to progressively eliminate the peasantry’s non-market access to land and (b) to provide them with alternative sources of food and credit. Put differently, richer peasants and big landowners would not be able to initiate a process of capitalist accumulation unless they were able to change the ‘rules of reproduction’. Furthermore, historical research shows that even when there was a pool of dispossessed population, there were myriad risks associated with market competition that historically deterred big landowners and merchants from supervising and organizing the labor process, cutting costs by introducing labor-saving technology, and so on (e.g. Bhaduri, 1973; Post, 2011). To remain free from competitive constraints was perfectly rational especially in the absence of ‘institutionalized markets’, that is, institutions that forced, induced, and governed market competition by mobilizing land, labor, credit, and other elements of the productive process. But even in the presence of relatively developed market institutions, more often than not propertied classes themselves have jeopardized the further development of market relations that would have subjected them to the pressures of (international) economic competition (Chaudry, 1993; Chibber, 2005).

Furthermore, besides these pitfalls, the uncritical equation of capitalism to wage-labor leads to an inaccurate account of historical development. In England, for example, enclosures before the 1640s transformed the conditions of access to land, yet did not lead to an outright widespread dispossession of the peasantry or wage-labor. Tenants remained in place for a long period of time yet without the customary rights that used to bind them to land. Therefore, peasants, dependent on market competition for their survival, progressively became capitalist farmers ‘before the widespread proletarianization of the workforce and as a precondition to it’ (Wood, 1999: 176–177). Likewise, in what was to become the capitalist core of the United States, the closing off of access to free or inexpensive land, the imposition of heavy taxes and the enforcement of debt payment gradually subordinated Northern peasants to market competition on their own land. Although the conditions of access to land drastically changed, however, there was no immediate and insurmountable political pressure on peasant possession of land. The labor-power requirements of capitalist industries, which grew over time partly as a response to the market demand generated by market-dependent farmers, were largely met by the liberalization of immigration laws, and thereby it did not presuppose the immediate and forceful dispossession of farmers and sharecroppers (Post, 2011). In early modern France, unlike England and the United States, despite some level of peasant dispossession and wage-labor, no systematic abolition of customary rights occurred. Social structure and logic remained unchanged despite high levels of commercialization in some parts of absolutist France (Lafrance and Miller, 2024).

Therefore, the ‘Davidsonian’ definitions of capitalism tend to be too broad and vague, that is they tend to overlook that ‘capital’ relation would fulfill social reproductive needs of ruled and ruling classes only in particular settings. To put it more bluntly, to take ‘commodity production’, ‘dispossession’ or ‘wage-labour’ as necessarily synonymous with capitalism can be sustained only by presuming the existence of a transhistorical capitalist agency. While capitalism undeniably amplifies production, commerce, and the commodification of the workforce, viewing these outcomes as timeless indicators of capitalism’s existence in history conflates the consequences of capitalism with its causes.

Read together, we need a definition of capitalism that (a) avoids circular explanations of capitalism’s origins and (b) captures the historically changing conditions of the transition to capitalism. In other words, we need a conception of capitalism that is both historically specific and historically dynamic. CJIR argues that PM is able to provide precisely such a conception of capitalism by drawing attention to the ‘political’ and ‘international’ dimension of the transition to capitalism. As for capitalism’s specificity, PM contends that the transitions to capitalism cannot be understood as the quantitative extension of any ‘economic’ phenomena, but are best understood in terms of socially and temporally varying ways of organizing social relations and institutions that ultimately compel and enable people to produce ‘capital’. Put differently, the transitions to capitalism did not follow a universal pattern, but all transitions, in principle, presuppose a strategic political intervention into the conditions of access to land and the elimination of non-market survival strategies (Brenner, 1985a: 20). Depending on spatial and temporal circumstances, the form of ‘market-dependence’ constantly changes: it is sustained through a variety and combination of dissuasive and stimulating conditions and policies that secure the continuity, irreversibility, and expansion of commodity production, for example, the closure of access to free land, relative mobility/disposability of labor-power, extension of credit for the introduction of cash crops, provision of fertilizer and machinery, strategic compensation of risks related to market competition, stabilization of the conditions of food supply, and so on. As a result of these interventions, the market turns into the main (but not the only) institution responsible for social reproduction for both the appropriating and appropriated classes. Therefore, in a society which is becoming capitalist, we must be able to observe that the appropriating and appropriated classes increasingly lose their ability to socially reproduce themselves outside the marketplace, a process accompanied by the legal mobilization of the so-called factors of production, that is, land, labor, and credit.

As such, by focusing on the political/legal/institutional origin of capitalism, PM diverts our attention from transhistorical phenomenon usually considered as ‘preconditions’ to the birth of capitalism such as commerce, wealth, or wage-labor. Capitalism as market-dependence does not presume capitalism to be there from the very beginning, but explains capitalism’s rise through the historically specific and historically changing interventions into the political and institutional structure governing social reproduction.

Indeed, I suspect it may be precisely this emphasis on the political/institutional origin of capitalism that leads Kaya to charge me with state-centrism. According to him, in CJIR state elites are prioritized so much so that the struggles waged by other classes disappear, and lower classes are reduced to passive receivers of the dictates of elite politics. Well, on one hand, this signals a severe misreading of my book; for CJIR is all about explaining how lower-class reactions and demands, alongside geopolitical exigencies, derailed the elite vision of political economy both in France and in Turkey, the primary outcome of which was Jacobinism. On the other hand, I believe that my emphasis on the ‘political’ is still well justified. For, as Perry Anderson (1974: 11) notes in his account of historical transitions,

one of the basic axioms of historical materialism [is] that secular struggle between classes is ultimately resolved at the political–not at the economic or cultural–level of society. In other words, it is the construction and destruction of states which seal the basic shifts in the relations of production, so long as classes subsist.

Furthermore, Kaya’s insistence on engaging non-state actors for the sake of ‘class’ analysis implies that he himself might have a transhistorical understanding of ‘class’ reduced to the point of production. As I discuss extensively in the theoretical chapter of CJIR, in non-capitalist class societies, peasants had custom-based access to land; therefore, surplus could be pumped out of them only through extra-economic means. What this means is that in non-capitalist societies relations of surplus extraction (i.e. class relations) can be analyzed only by reference to variations in political power that allocate differential access to the means of life. In other words, in the absence of a market-dependent society, the economic process and prices were instituted through non-market means. Issues concerning property and income were immediately and necessarily tied to one’s position in the system of political hierarchy and privilege. It was one’s position in the political and geopolitical structure, rather than exchange and production per se, that gave access to the means of life. Kinship, custom, and political/jurisdictional and territorial arrangements thus constituted class relations themselves (Polanyi, 1977). Likewise, having a share of, investing in, and being recognized by political authority was the main way to maintain access to the sources of profit and subsistence. ‘Accumulation’, therefore, immediately and necessarily took political and geopolitical forms (Brenner, 1985a; Teschke, 2003). It is only when capitalism established a politically shielded ‘economic’ sphere, in which land and labor were systematically commodified, that relations of exploitation could be reduced to the point of production and circulation. In this sense, it is true that class may take an ‘economic’ form, and be understood as ‘the relations of production’ in capitalist society, but it would be totally wrong if we take this form for granted and project it backward. The equation of ‘class’ to ‘economy’ or ‘production’ on a priori basis, therefore, not only reproduces transhistorical conceptions of capitalism, but also does considerable damage to our understanding of the dynamics of non-capitalist societies. In short, in a non-capitalist context in which the ‘political’ and the ‘economic’ were fused, state and class powers were inseparable: state was class and class was state.

In addition, is my understanding of capitalism as market-dependence too ‘pure’, causing me to overlook the heterogeneity and extra-economic aspects of capitalist social relations, as Saraçoğlu, Kolasi, and Kaya argue? In other words, has my search for a historically specific notion of capitalism resulted in a too narrow focus on the ‘market’? Hardly, in my view. For one thing, as I discuss extensively in CJIR (Duzgun, 2022: 30–31), the proliferation of market relations does not necessarily imply the withdrawal of extra-market factors. It is true that in a capitalist context, given the commodified nature of land and labor, the mere threat of unemployment and dispossession may be sufficient to ensure the continuity of capitalist appropriation and accumulation. Yet, this by no means excludes the possibility of the use of non-economic means of coercion. Legally coerced wage labor, extremely authoritarian forms of social control and imperialist interventions are very commonly used to ensure the (geo)political basis of capitalist dominance and discipline. Equally important, in a sense, markets and political power are even more strongly integrated in capitalism than they ever were previously. The decisions concerning the allocation of labor and resources have never been more thoroughly subjected to the dictates of profitability and the production process has never been more closely regulated and managed (Wood, 1981: 92). Likewise, the state is sine qua non for all market economies given its market-correcting, market-enabling, and market-saving role. None of these interventions, however, offer a way out of and indeed they all are designed to perpetuate market-dependence. Even in the most generous welfare states, for example, turning labor and land into commodities on a systematic basis is a prerequisite to providing (limited and temporary) welfare protection to the least fortunate members of society. Likewise, despite the continuity of ‘corruption’ and extensive use of political power for personal economic advantage in various capitalisms, the market society is ultimately premised on the ability of public and private powers to achieve material reproduction by perpetuating and deepening the conditions of market-dependence.

In a similar vein, capitalism universalizes not by undoing entire lifeworlds, traditional hierarchies, or political regimes, but by transforming only those relations and institutions vital to the creation of a market-dependent society (Chibber, 2013: 233–232). In particular, market-dependence requires the systematic elimination of non-market survival strategies linked to different political and cultural practices, so that the market turns into the main (not the only) institution responsible for social reproduction. As long as people are subordinated to the imperatives of the marketplace, therefore, the existence of different political and cultural principles is not necessarily in conflict with the drive to expand and deepen capitalist accumulation. Also, for most places market-dependence generates unprecedented insecurities and uncertainties for the working class; therefore, it may be in workers’ material interest to try to use traditional social bonds and cultural networks to maintain their welfare and status. Therefore, the existence of repressive labor practices and moral economies are not remnants of an archaic past; nor are they manifestations of a bastardized capitalism, but they are universal possibilities built into capitalism itself. Therefore, I totally concur that capitalism, while universalizing in its reach, has not created uniformity. Yet, as Saraçoğlu himself notes, we also need to identify the ‘core’ dynamics of capitalism to better trace its historical specificity and historical mutations.

Indeed, that is precisely why in CJIR I have emphasized both the historical specificity and the socio-temporally changing and internationally determined conditions of capitalist transitions. That is, CJIR insists that there can be no ‘transhistorical laws’ governing the path to capitalism, because of the changing inter-societal context of capitalist transformation as well as the variations in social reactions from ‘below’. For ‘once breakthroughs to ongoing capitalist economic development took place in various regions these irrevocably transformed the conditions and the character of the analogous processes, which were to occur subsequently elsewhere’ (Brenner, 1985b: 322). Thus, by recognizing the cumulatively changing character of international relations, PM defies transhistorical interpretations of ‘market dependence’. This implies that while market-dependence signifies the minimum socio-legal prerequisites to the existence of capitalist social relations, its focus cannot be on any static phenomena/policy. Depending on past socio-institutional legacies and the timing and international context of capitalist transition, the mechanisms that ensure market-dependence take different forms. The socio-institutional content of market-dependence is not fixed, but cumulatively changes. As a consequence, PM neither sets up pre-given norms for the transition to capitalism, nor does it treat subsequent transitions as counter models to privileged ideal types. In sum, PM has a potential to save the processes of ‘modernization’ from the straitjacket of ever-present and static conceptions of capitalism, thereby providing a deeper understanding of the social content, tempo, and multi-linearity of world historical development.

In CJIR, I utilized these insights to reinterpret and re-periodize the development of capitalism in Turkey. Based on this definition and discussion, I have argued that it is not possible to retain the long-held conventional argument that a (peripheral) capitalism developed in Turkey during the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. The conventional argument can be sustained only by resorting to some form of transhistorical understanding of capitalism. In two long chapters in CJIR, I have discussed these issues, showing that regardless of the intentions of some political-economic actors, rules of reproduction did not go through a systematic transformation, that is, no market-dependent society developed even in the most commercially advanced parts of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. From this angle, I agree with Saraçoğlu and Kolasi that there is empirically ‘robust’ historical research on Turkey, but, one needs to keep in mind that especially since the ‘mode of production debates’ of the 1970s, most of the new generation historians of capitalism in Turkey have had little, if any, interest in theorizing capitalism and its specificity from a macro historical-sociological perspective. Given this lack of theoretical engagement, they have by and large reproduced the old (or dare I say ‘hegemonic’) arguments using new jargons. They have continued to see capitalism developing in the interstices of 19th-century Ottoman society (if not earlier) based on the existence of commercial agriculture, internationalization of ‘capital’, the existence of peasant indebtedness, pockets of dispossession, or just wage-labor. Yet, these social phenomena and processes have existed transhistorically. As such, the transition to capitalism in Turkey has continued to be more assumed than explained. My hope is that CJIR will be taken as an invitation by these historians to think of the history of capitalism in Turkey in more theoretical terms.

Coming full circle, it seems we would all agree that capitalism does not homogenize as it universalizes. Yet, there are also certain core tenets of capitalism, which, as Saraçoğlu also acknowledges, do not change. Therefore, we can’t afford to leave capitalism too vague and too broad. Instead, we need to specify its core logic as well as its spatially, temporally, and internationally changing forms. I believe market-dependence can be considered a starting point to explore these historically specific and historically dynamic forms, hence allowing for a more precise understanding of what constitutes capitalism and enabling a more accurate tracing of its developmental trajectory.

How to Theorize the Expansion of Capitalism: or What to Make of Jacobinism?

This brings us to the question of whether Jacobinism can be seen just as a (contingent) element integral to the uneven and combined development of capitalism. My answer is both yes and no. Yes, because, as I have discussed at length in CJIR, Jacobinism was a ‘combined’ form, that is, it was, at least partly, born out of an attempt to create a British-like society on absolutist soil. The geopolitical and fiscal challenges on one hand, and intra- and inter-class struggles on the other prompted the absolutist and revolutionary elites to look for ways to selectively emulate British capitalism. This led to a process of examining, learning, and internalizing some aspects of British society and British constitution.

No, because emulation, even if selective, proved to be an impossible task. The fundamental problem that confronted France was the policy of enclosures that empowered Britain geopolitically. Enclosures had produced a market-dependent society in England by the 18th century, generating a novel system of rule and appropriation. Yet, implementing enclosures in France would mean the destruction of the customary rights and obligations that came to constitute the French political economy. Therefore, enclosures were socially and geopolitically too risky for the absolutist and revolutionary elites to carry out. In other words, under severe social and geopolitical circumstances, the French political and economic elites did not or could not expropriate the customary rights of peasants and artisans, hence unable or unwilling to create a market-dependent society. Customary agrarian tenancy, customary regulation of artisanal labor, and commercial monopolies continued in new forms, so did the primacy of the state for the reproduction of ruling class incomes and status. In this context, instead of conditioning people’s right to land to their success in the marketplace (as was the case in Britain), the ruling elites linked the right to subsistence to people’s service to the ‘nation’ (in ways unheard of in Britain).

The most immediate form of serving the nation was participation in the newly formed citizen-army. In France, until 1815, people obtained access to land and equality not because they were successful commodity producers, but because they participated in universal conscription and became citizen-soldiers. Participation in the army, rather than participation in the marketplace, gave them land and civic status. In a similar manner, given their inability to subject the peasantry to capitalist market imperatives, the French ruling elites attempted to centralize and universalize public education as an alternative institution through which to mobilize and appropriate peasant bodies and labor. In return, when education became accessible to all subjects, it, at least in principle, ended the systematic exclusion of the lower classes from the state and state-generated income (which was the main source of social reproduction in France, unlike in Britain). The need to appropriate, discipline, and mobilize peasant labor and bodies, in other words, brought in its train the generalization of access to the state, which, over time, led to the emergence of a large ‘citizen-bureaucracy’. Therefore, in addition to the ‘army’, the ‘school’ emerged as another extra-market institution, providing a path to the political appropriation and acquisition of income and status for (geo)politically ‘useful’ citizens.

In short, the French elite, unable or unwilling to initiate an organized attack on peasants’ customary rights on land, linked the enjoyment of these rights to peasants’ service and socialization in the army and public school. As a consequence, in revolutionary and Napoleonic France, subsistence, property, and equality were conditioned to military and bureaucratic mobilization, rather than successful market competition. This means that unlike socialism the French elite did not annihilate private property, but at the same time unlike capitalism it did not subordinate the right to subsistence to the right to property either. Instead, it reversed the capitalist hierarchy between subsistence and property: one’s right to subsistence could now rule over another’s right to own and ‘improve’ property. The birth of citizen-soldier and citizen-bureaucrat was not just a political and military phenomenon but signified the rise of a new form of property and political economy. I have called this new form of (geo)political economy Jacobinism.

Having said that, I agree with Post and Saraçoğlu that Jacobin rules of reproduction – the exact mechanisms of non-capitalist surplus extraction and political accumulation – could have been further clarified in CJIR. Yet, at least one thing must be clear regarding the political economy of Jacobinism. Jacobinism was based on the perpetuation of a non-absolutist, non-capitalist, and non-socialist mode of life. Through the citizen-army and public education, the Jacobin project universalized and institutionalized a set of new rules of social and geopolitical reproduction embedded in institutions, laws, and cultural practices that reinforced the de-commodified character of land and labor.

Relatedly, Kaya’s assertion that my account boils down merely to ‘uneven’ development, neglecting the ‘combined’ aspects of world history is far off the mark (also see Duzgun, 2021). CJIR repeatedly argues that Jacobinism was not a mere derivation of capitalism or a simple continuation of absolutism. Instead, it was a historically novel combination of the two: the geopolitical contestation between British capitalism and French absolutism produced Jacobinism as a historically specific (geo)political economy. Jacobinism was, at least partly, a result of the cumulative adaptation of the British social forms into France, which brought about the end of absolutism without leading to capitalism. Therefore, CJIR uses uneven and combined development (UCD) while sterilizing it from transhistorical assumptions about capitalist development.

Furthermore, pace Kolasi, although both capitalism and Jacobinism involve the continuity of extra-economic measures, this should not lead us to overlook their substantial differences, that is, the overall logic, dynamics, and relations that perpetuate both regimes of exploitation are fundamentally different and even contradictory. In that sense, unless one takes a (very) long-termist perspective, it would require quite a bit of gymnastics to construe the consequences of Jacobinism as conducive to the development of capitalist social relations.

Likewise, pace Saraçoğlu, unless we stretch the concept of capitalism, it is difficult to sustain the argument that Jacobinism ‘contribut[ed] to the reproduction of capitalist social formations’ and was merely a ‘contingent’ political and ideological element within the uneven and combined development of capitalism. Moreover, even if one accepts that Jacobinism was a contingent component to capitalism, is it not strange that such a one-time contingency reaction/measure that arose in French history became almost a universal phenomenon? In other words, why did institutions and notions such as universal citizenship, universal equality, universal conscription, and nation-state, which Saraçoğlu deems contingent to capitalism, became almost worldwide phenomena? If contingent, why did capitalism take a Jacobin or Republican form almost universally?

The answer, in my view, lies in the fact that Jacobinism, at least for a while in world history, transcended being merely a political and ideological phenomenon. Instead, it was anchored in a historically specific political economy that demonstrated the (geo)political efficacy of an alternative model of modernization – one that did not rely on the creation of market-dependent societies. To be sure, in most countries in most countries in Western Europe, capitalism and Jacobinism were implemented in a combined manner. For instance, the Prussian elites, shaken by their defeat by Napoleon’s armies in 1806, launched two major initiatives at the same time: they started the process of creating a market-dependent society while promoting the idea of popular sovereignty by introducing the citizen-soldier as a key element of their military strategy. Over time, this mutually contradictory course of development led to the gradual subsumption of Jacobin socio-economic forms in the logic and relations of capitalism. In the course of the 19th century, radical forms of popular governance associated with Jacobinism were mostly suppressed and slowly integrated into a constitutional framework of mass politics. By watering down and isolating radical interpretations of nationhood and citizenship within a separate ‘political’ sphere, distinct from the ‘economic’ sphere of appropriation, Prussian/German capitalism not only significantly weakened the revolutionary appeal of these concepts but also reshaped them into counter-measures against working-class radicalism and internationalism.

Yet, as I elaborate in CJIR, Jacobinism had a much longer trajectory in the case of Turkey. A historically specific Jacobinism, combined with local social and intellectual resources, prevailed in Turkey from the late Ottoman to the end of the early Republican period, creating a much more obstinate Jacobin legacy that did not boil down to merely another form of capitalism until the 1950s. Asserting the non-capitalist character of this Jacobin legacy not only allowed me to reinterpret the social and political novelties of the first hundred years of Turkish modernization (such as Kemalism), but also led to a novel interpretation of the subsequent transition to and authoritarian consolidation of capitalism in contemporary Turkey.

Therefore, once we employ a historically specific understanding of capitalism, that is once we cease to transhistoricize and everything-ize capitalism, we begin to understand the process of its expansion in a new light. Yet, I suspect that my critics may still be unconvinced. The main point of resistance, I guess, may be closely linked to Saraçoğlu’s argument that Jacobinism, no matter how specific, still ‘unfolded within the framework of global capitalism, dictated by the imperatives of capital accumulation’. Perhaps, Bedirhanoğlu’s concern for the incompatibility of the level of analysis between capitalism and Jacobinism also speaks to this point.

In my view, this objection stems from the adoption of too-encompassing conceptions of capitalism that overlook socio-spatial specificities in historical analysis. In CJIR, I have endeavored to show that pressures of and production for the capitalist world market do not of itself necessarily lead to the development of capitalist social relations. Based on the relative strength of contending classes and broader (geo)political configuration of power relations, commercial expansion driven by world market competition may engender outcomes other than capitalism. Equally important, we need to exercise caution when one speaks of ‘global capitalism’ in history. No doubt, capital has an inherently globalizing dynamic. Yet, we cannot take for granted its globality from the outset. The globalization of capital was a protracted process, during which, as Marx (1982: 91) famously remarked, even the foremost industrial nations of 19th-century continental Europe

suffer not only from the development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that development. Alongside the modern evils, we are oppressed by a whole range of inherited evils, arising from the passive survival of archaic and outmoded modes of production, with their accompanying train of anachronistic social and political relations. We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead. ‘Le mort saisit le vif’.

Indeed, capitalism has become more pervasive and dominant than it had been two centuries ago, and the relations, institutions, and ideas linked to Jacobinism are already subsumed under the capital relation. To comprehend this process more accurately, however, we need to stop conceiving capitalism as a phenomenon that absorbed everything from the very outset. Otherwise, we would not just fall back into a structuralist/functionalist argument of sorts. Additionally, for example, besides Jacobinism, we would be compelled to view even the Soviet Union as another form of capitalism, which I believe would be a highly problematic argument (I am not suggesting that the Soviet Union was the opposite, that is, a workers’ state). In this sense, I believe that CJIR offers a more nuanced perspective that (a) registers more accurately the increasing subsumption and incorporation of aspects of social life that do not stem from capitalism itself and (b) better explains how the actual structure and organization of capitalism is influenced by these past legacies (cf. Lacher, 2006: 103–104).

How to Conceptualize the Modernity–Capitalism Relation?

Charles Post is certainly right to argue that in CJIR I deliberately adopted, at least initially, a broad and conventional conception of modernity that includes anything and everything related to the modern age, which as Derek Sayer (1990) notes, is a ‘nicely tautological definition’ (p. 1). This blanket conception of modernity encompasses phenomena as diverse as capitalism, nationalism, modern-state, the Enlightenment, and so on. Yet, I have sought to concretize the meaning of modernity by problematizing its relation to capitalism. A central, albeit implicit, argument of the book has been that the transition to modernity cannot be equated with the transition to capitalism. And, in this sense, as Post correctly points out, I have diverged from Benno Teschke’s now-classic The Myth of 1648. Let me clarify.

There have, indeed, been many explanations for the capitalism–modernity relationship, yet the general tendency in historical sociology scholarship is to subsume capitalism under modernity, or vice versa. While some approaches assume that capitalism, in the course of ‘economic’ development, laid the groundwork for the political and cultural modernization that generated modernity, others see the political and cultural ‘rationalization’, driven by geopolitical competition, as responsible for the economic rationalization associated with capitalism. In short, capitalism is either conflated with or understood simply as the ‘economic’ aspect of modernity.

Teschke argues that the assumed ‘co-genesis’ of modernity and capitalism is applicable only to early modern England, where the rise of capitalism and the formation of a modern-state contingently coincided and developed in mutual dependence. On the continent, by contrast, and especially in France, the territorial absolutist state developed in the absence of capitalist social relations. This implies that the so-called early modern period in continental Europe witnessed nothing but ‘non-transitions to modernity’ and ‘eo ipso the absence of the modern state’ (Teschke, 2003: 41, 145). By the same token, the transition to modernity in France, contends Teschke, cannot be explained by reference to social dynamics internal to French society; instead, modernity was an externally driven and protracted process that began with 1789 and did not fully materialize until the late 19th century, that is, until one can finally speak of the separation of private/economic and public/political powers (Teschke, 2003: 192).

Much of the analyses presented in CJIR are inspired and in agreement with Teschke’s work. Yet, an important point of divergence remains. In my view, Teschke tends to adhere to an unqualified association of the transition to capitalism with the transition to modernity. True, certain aspects of modernity, for example, ‘abstract individuality’, ‘culture of improvement’, and ‘impersonal state’, may kick in when economic and political processes are sufficiently differentiated from each other. Yet, Teschke’s focus is exclusively on the conditions of the emergence of capitalist modernity, which causes him to view non-capitalist modes of politico-legal centralization, ‘public’ order, and subject-formation as ‘non-modern’. For example, as Gerstenberger (2007: 14) writes, the ‘public’ character of modern rule in continental Europe well predated, hence did not result exclusively from, its abstraction from economic power. In France, for example, especially from the mid-18th century, a ‘public’ sphere was under construction, yet without being rooted in capitalist social relations. The ‘public’ was increasingly underlined, not by the impersonality of market society, but by the impersonality of new conceptions of political community and subjectivity, such as ‘general will’, ‘nation’, or ‘humanity’ (Baker, 1990: 186). Likewise, political-religious centralization, albeit incomplete, was underway in absolutist France during the early modern period. On one hand, as Teschke argues, the successive French governments could only partially harvest the fruits of their centralization attempts. Most of the reforms, aiming to better regulate the poor, penetrate peasant culture and discipline the provincial elites, never fully succeeded in ‘getting the state machinery working properly’ (Briggs, 1998: 152). This should not lead one, however, to overlook that the Bourbon state, in its late 18th century form, ‘displayed unmistakable characteristics of modernity’. ‘Sovereignty over territory was no longer a matter of serious dispute, despite a residue of geographical and administrative untidiness, and the native population no longer challenged the taxing prerogative of the crown’ (Jones, 1995: 45–46).

In short, Teschke’s perspective leaves us to wonder how to make sense of a whole gamut of 18th- and early 19th-century developments, such as religious-political centralization, standardization of knowledge, emergence of a ‘public sphere’, new conceptions of political community, universal citizenship, and above all the Enlightenment, most of which originated in continental Europe, especially in non-capitalist France, rather than in capitalist England (Wood, 1991: 24). Relatedly, if we follow Teschke’s reasoning without qualifying it, we risk viewing

the process that brought us the best of Enlightenment principles–resistance to all arbitrary power, a commitment to universal human emancipation, and a critical stance towards all kinds of authority . . . [as] the same process that brought us the capitalist organization of production. (Wood, 2012: 222)

In my view, therefore, Teschke’s dismissal of the relevance of ‘modernity’ for the non-capitalist, hence non-English world, is hardly convincing. From this angle, CJIR neither reduces modernity to capitalism (pace Teschke), nor divorces modernity from capitalism (pace Kolasi), nor conflates capitalism with modernity (pace Kaya). Instead, it proposes that a more fruitful solution to this problem can be found in Ellen Meiksins Wood’s distinction between capitalist modernities and non-capitalist modernities (Wood, 2001: 182–189). Non-capitalist and capitalist modernities, as exemplified by Jacobinism, did not represent merely quantitative variants of the same process of ‘rationalization’. Rather, they were geopolitically related yet historically distinct projects that activated mutually incompatible interpretations of property and equality. I believe that, in CJIR, recognizing these distinct genealogies allowed me to evaluate the historical trajectory and balance sheet of ‘modernity’ in a more precise manner.

In Lieu of Conclusion: What Has CJIR Achieved and What to Do Next?

I (proudly) acknowledge that CJIR is, as Saraçoğlu describes, a ‘provocatively original’ book. However, what is strange is that the book has earned this ‘distinction’ by posing very basic questions at the very heart of the historical materialist tradition, such as what is capitalism, how to historicize it, and what to make of the French Revolution. Therefore, its provocative originality stems not from the novelty of its approach, but from addressing some of the most essential yet long-neglected issues that have rarely been discussed in an unconventional manner. That is, most of the ‘provocative’ ideas and findings that have informed CJIR have been there for about four decades, and yet these theoretical and historiographical debates have not received the attention that they deserved from critical scholars studying Turkey. Consequently, conventional assumptions about capitalism and modernity in Turkey have continued to be perceived as universally accepted norms. Similarly, highly debatable conceptions of capitalism and almost fictional narratives of the development of European modernity, which inform conventional narratives about Turkey, have been repeatedly reiterated over the years through various critical theoretical frameworks.

Equally interesting is the fact that while students of Turkish capitalism and modernity frequently reference Ellen Meiksins Wood’s work, particularly her writings on capitalism versus democracy, they have never systematically debated or applied her ideas about the transition to capitalism and analyses of non-capitalist societies to Turkey. I am unsure how to interpret this selective engagement with Wood’s work, but I think it hints at the level of entrenchment of the conventional arguments among scholars of Turkey. This likely explains their general reluctance to test the real implications of PM, which, as CJIR shows, leads to very provocative and original conclusions. While PM and Wood’s arguments may not convince everyone, the absence of systematic debate on such essential issues is a significant oversight within the historical materialist tradition – a tradition that prides itself on being ‘critical of all that exists’ CJIR is a modest step toward addressing this gap, aiming to stimulate debate. I do not anticipate it will result in a ‘paradigm shift’, but I do hope that the book has succeeded in propelling discussions on Turkish capitalism and modernity into relatively uncharted territories. Thus, it will serve (at least for a while) as a resource for scholars to dissect, debate, and (dis)agree with.

One of my gut feelings while researching for CJIR was Robbie Shilliam’s implicit suggestion that it might have been Jacobinism, rather than capitalism, that introduced the majority of the world to the relations and institutions of modernity. CJIR has attempted to substantiate this idea using the case of Turkey. Yet, may the concept of Jacobinism have explanatory power for the rest of the world? Tariq Tell’s brilliant review suggests that it does, at least in the context of the Middle East. For instance, according to Tell, Nasser in Egypt adopted a Kemalist-inspired model of peasant-centered Jacobinism. On one hand, he implemented land reforms and conscription, mobilizing the peasantry for nation-building and geopolitical purposes. On the other hand, he significantly expanded public education and created a bloated bureaucracy to accommodate the influx of new graduates. Branded as ‘Arab Socialism’, this strategy effectively dismantled the class base of the old regime, established state-controlled patronage networks that reduced market-dependence, and solidified Nasser’s absolute power.

Obviously, the claim that Jacobinism could serve as an alternative property regime in Egypt and the broader region needs further substantiation, particularly regarding the non-capitalist nature of property relations in both rural and urban areas. If properly substantiated, it could be inferred that Egypt engaged in forms of mobilization and appropriation that were neither capitalist nor socialist but distinctly Jacobin until at least the early 1970s. This, in turn, would profoundly impact our understanding of the social and geopolitical dynamics that shaped the contemporary Middle East. These points may serve as the starting point for future work on the uneven and combined development of Jacobinism, either by myself or others.