The podcast Chapo Trap House’s miniseries Hell on Earth is an entertaining story which proposes that the Thirty Years’ War midwifed the birth of capitalism. Ultimately, however, the interesting argument doesn’t hold up.
I believe that Matt’s general argument was that England had it’s own political crisis, which was similar, but far less destructive, the English Civil War. The simultaneous nature of both crises essentially created a ripping up of the old feudal order, and from there the search began for the next thing that would create stability between the great powers, which clearly wouldn’t be bloodlines. It was the fact that their political crisis wasn’t nearly as destructive that allowed them to ‘get ahead’ in terms of capitalist development.
While England didn’t become absolutist (at least after the death of Cromwell) it did completely consolidate the effective state away from the king and around Parliament. However, both types of restructuring created a need for more diverse wealth generation (as they were now in competition with each other), which created the need for an empowered bourgeoisie class, in all European states.
It wouldn’t come crashing down for the European monarchs until Napoleon, and because of the nature of the development of the English bourgeois, the monarchy never actually had another reckoning.
Plus, the Long Crisis of the 17th Century produced the Westphalian nation state, which was the state formation that Capitalism would eventually require to enforce reify itself.
It was the fact that their political crisis wasn’t nearly as destructive that allowed them to ‘get ahead’ in terms of capitalist development.
But how did capitalist development begin then? Does Matt argue that capitalism is an inevitable outcome of absolutism? Then where does English capitalism come from if they didn’t develop their own absolutism? Or does he think that capitalism is historically inevitable?
Matt argues that the steps that would lead to capitalism, in particular the empowerment of bourgeoisie, came out of as a ‘hammer to many nails’ solution to several independent political crisis, because the economic model, on a smaller scale and based mostly in trade, not industrial development, had already been developed and morally justified by the dutch. He argues that it likely would have come about even earlier if it hadn’t been for the crisis period, but the political crises themselves came out of wealth growth (and subsequent feelings of independence) seen by the German princes who were interacting with this model. Essentially, the thirty years war was an attempt to prevent the spread of political and economic power caused by what was already occuring, but the political crises itself proved that such conflict would be unending unless the large powers also adopted those economic methods to sustain the structural changes that they had made in responding to the crisis.
Idk if he would say it was ‘historically inevitable’, it’s just that it was likely ‘inevitable as of the Thirty Years War’ and the fact that the crises couldn’t get rid of it meant that it was here to stay. Hence the references to birth and midwifing, the fetus is already fully formed, it just has to survive the ‘first trauma’.
Edit: I also want to be clear that a) it has been at least half a year since I listened to this (though I have listened to it fully twice) so I could be very wrong here, and b) I don’t know enough about this period of history to really know who is correct or incorrect here.
I will say, much like the Thirty Years war itself, the podcast is abit disorganized. Matt has a tendency to skip around abit, which means when I went through the second time I actually started writing down dates and events to create a timeline, because there is a lot of stuff that happens simultaneously but it is addressed in different parts.
It’s a fun listen for sure though, incredibly brutal. Really feel bad for the ana-baptists.
The domain owner had some old blog that is sitting on potentially valuable domain name. Looks like this podcast offered them $500 for the domain (guessing based on the timing but there are other projects with similar names including Doom 2, a documentary and a book series) which they thought was too low. They have made the site into a splash page of offensive images for anyone looking for the pod in order to incentivize Mat to pay more to avoid reputation damage. In order to prevent any legal take over of the domain they have created a plausibly deniable facade of it being an inoffensive art work.
I believe that Matt’s general argument was that England had it’s own political crisis, which was similar, but far less destructive, the English Civil War. The simultaneous nature of both crises essentially created a ripping up of the old feudal order, and from there the search began for the next thing that would create stability between the great powers, which clearly wouldn’t be bloodlines. It was the fact that their political crisis wasn’t nearly as destructive that allowed them to ‘get ahead’ in terms of capitalist development.
While England didn’t become absolutist (at least after the death of Cromwell) it did completely consolidate the effective state away from the king and around Parliament. However, both types of restructuring created a need for more diverse wealth generation (as they were now in competition with each other), which created the need for an empowered bourgeoisie class, in all European states.
It wouldn’t come crashing down for the European monarchs until Napoleon, and because of the nature of the development of the English bourgeois, the monarchy never actually had another reckoning.
Plus, the Long Crisis of the 17th Century produced the Westphalian nation state, which was the state formation that Capitalism would eventually require to enforce reify itself.
But how did capitalist development begin then? Does Matt argue that capitalism is an inevitable outcome of absolutism? Then where does English capitalism come from if they didn’t develop their own absolutism? Or does he think that capitalism is historically inevitable?
Matt argues that the steps that would lead to capitalism, in particular the empowerment of bourgeoisie, came out of as a ‘hammer to many nails’ solution to several independent political crisis, because the economic model, on a smaller scale and based mostly in trade, not industrial development, had already been developed and morally justified by the dutch. He argues that it likely would have come about even earlier if it hadn’t been for the crisis period, but the political crises themselves came out of wealth growth (and subsequent feelings of independence) seen by the German princes who were interacting with this model. Essentially, the thirty years war was an attempt to prevent the spread of political and economic power caused by what was already occuring, but the political crises itself proved that such conflict would be unending unless the large powers also adopted those economic methods to sustain the structural changes that they had made in responding to the crisis.
Idk if he would say it was ‘historically inevitable’, it’s just that it was likely ‘inevitable as of the Thirty Years War’ and the fact that the crises couldn’t get rid of it meant that it was here to stay. Hence the references to birth and midwifing, the fetus is already fully formed, it just has to survive the ‘first trauma’.
Edit: I also want to be clear that a) it has been at least half a year since I listened to this (though I have listened to it fully twice) so I could be very wrong here, and b) I don’t know enough about this period of history to really know who is correct or incorrect here.
Hmm, not sure if I agree with much of this, but it’s still very interesting. Gonna listen to the podcast and do my own research.
That’s fine. I don’t expect you to perfectly summarize 20 hours worth of podcast in few paragraphs. Thanks for the effort!
I will say, much like the Thirty Years war itself, the podcast is abit disorganized. Matt has a tendency to skip around abit, which means when I went through the second time I actually started writing down dates and events to create a timeline, because there is a lot of stuff that happens simultaneously but it is addressed in different parts.
It’s a fun listen for sure though, incredibly brutal. Really feel bad for the ana-baptists.
That’s the thing that scares me about this podcast tbh. Is there maybe a book I can read that has this thesis laid out in a more organized way?
Idk if anyone else specifically shares this thesis, but I believe they have all the works cited on their website? Which I think is hellonearth.com?
lmao wtf is this website
Clearly not the right one! Mb, it’s this one https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/views/podcast/
It’s a shakedown.
The domain owner had some old blog that is sitting on potentially valuable domain name. Looks like this podcast offered them $500 for the domain (guessing based on the timing but there are other projects with similar names including Doom 2, a documentary and a book series) which they thought was too low. They have made the site into a splash page of offensive images for anyone looking for the pod in order to incentivize Mat to pay more to avoid reputation damage. In order to prevent any legal take over of the domain they have created a plausibly deniable facade of it being an inoffensive art work.
Lol try this one
https://hellonearth.chapotraphouse.com/
You should consider sharing this some time!
I would if I hadn’t thrown it out when I moved recently. I can probably do a recreation over winter break at some point.