Question

Also describe how Marx’s theory can explain the emergence of capitalism from feudalism.

Answer 1

Karl Marx in his theory of epochal change explains that as the agricultural surplus added, the estates emerged into the towns, with the emergence of trade a new class called as the merchant class also emerged, slowly this merchant class freed themselves from the feudal control and use to have there own government, militia and courts. In towns the economy gradually shifted to money based from the earlier land based and the payments, other exchanges were made with money as a medium.

Now with the rise of cash based system, money gained its value, life revolved around money than land, land was used to produce cash crops which acted as a raw material for the production of non agricultural goods, the profits are now made in the form of money, and again this money was reinvested in trade and technology. Such money was called as capital, and the merchants that holds it, called as the capitalists.