Robert Brenner Explained

Robert Brenner
Birth Name:	Robert Paul Brenner
Birth Date:	28 November 1943^[1]
Birth Place:	New York City, New York, US
Known For:	Brenner debate
Thesis Title:	Commercial Change and Political Conflict^[2]
Thesis Year:	1970
School Tradition:	Marxism
Doctoral Advisor:	Lawrence Stone^[3]
Notable Students:	Gopal Balakrishnan, Manali Desai
Main Interests:	Tudor–Stuart English history
Workplaces:	University of California, Los Angeles
Awards:	Guggenheim Fellowship (1977)

Robert Paul Brenner (; born November 28, 1943) is an American economic historian. He is a professor emeritus of history and director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA,^[4] editor of the socialist journal Against the Current, and editorial committee member of New Left Review. His research interests are early modern European history, economic, social and religious history, agrarian history, social theory/Marxism, and Tudor–Stuart England.^[1]

Brenner contributed to a debate among Marxists on the "Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism",^[5] emphasizing the importance of the transformation of agricultural production in Europe, especially in the English countryside, rather than the rise of international trade as the main cause of the transition.^[6]

His influential 1976 article, Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, started the Brenner debate.^[7] He argued that smallholding peasants had strong property rights and had little incentive to give up traditional technology or go beyond local markets and no incentive toward capitalism. In his introduction to the book, Rodney Hilton writes, "Brenner strongly emphasizes the class struggle rather than developments in the forces of production as being determinant of the various historical developments in the countries of late mediaeval and early modern Europe".

In the spring of 2017, Brenner and Vivek Chibber assumed editorial duties and co-launched the academic journal Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, with the assistance of Jacobin magazine.^[8]

Books and publications

• 1976: News: Robert . Brenner . Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe . Published by Past and Present . 650345 .
• 1993: Merchants and revolution : commercial change, political conflict, and London's overseas traders, 1550–1653 (Princeton, Princeton University Press)
• 2002: The boom and the bubble : the US in the world economy (New York, Verso)
• 2006: The economics of global turbulence : the advanced capitalist economies from Long Boom to Long Downturn, 1945–2005 (New York, Verso)
• 2009: Property and progress : the historical origins and social foundations of self-sustaining growth (London, Verso)

External links

Articles

• "Dobb on the Transition From Feudalism to Capitalism". Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1978, 2, 121-140
• "The economy after the boom: a diagnosis", International Viewpoint, 342, July/August 2002.
• The origins of capitalism (with Chris Harman). International Socialism Issue 111, 3 July 2006.
• Structure vs. Conjuncture: The 2006 elections and the rightward shift . . II . 43 . 48 . New Left Review . January–February 2007 .
• "Devastating Crisis Unfolds", Against the Current, 132, January/February 2008.
• "The Economy in a World of Trouble", International Viewpoint, 411, April 2009.
• "What is Good for Goldman Sachs is Good for America - The Origins of the Present Crisis" (October 2, 2009). Center for Social Theory and Comparative History. Paper 2009–11.

Videos

• "Robert Brenner: The Consequences of Dependence on Asset Price Bubbles" (April 8, 2010). Rethinking Capitalism Conference. University Center, UC Santa Cruz

Notes and References

1. Web site: Curriculum Vitae . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304185818/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/issr/cstch/cv-brenner07jun.pdf . March 4, 2016 . dead . Brenner . Robert Paul . June 2007 . University of California Los Angeles College - Social Sciences . . December 2, 2016 .
2. Brenner . Robert Paul . 1970 . Commercial Change and Political Conflict: The Merchant Community i Civil War London . PhD . Princeton University . 49370299 . .
3. Book: Brenner, Robert . 1993 . Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653 . Princeton . . xvii . 978-0691055947 .
4. https://web.archive.org/web/20070123062505/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/issr/cstch/index.html Center for Social Theory and Comparative History (CSTCH) Home Page
5. https://books.google.com/books?id=u23ilntsjfMC The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe
6. Denemark . Robert A. . Thomas . Kenneth P. . March 1988 . The Brenner-Wallerstein Debate . 2600412 . . 32 . 1 . 47–65 . 10.2307/2600412 . The world-systems perspective put forward by Immanuel Wallerstein has elicited a great deal of critical comment. Its stress on a system level of analysis and the importance it attaches to trade have not, however, gone unchallenged.... Robert Brenner's "The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism" (New Left Review, 1977) is a complex Marxist critique of the first of Wallerstein's world-system volumes .
7. Brenner, Robert. "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe". Past and Present 70 (1976), pp. 30–74
8. Web site: Announcing Catalyst . . May 4, 2017 . . Jacobin . June 10, 2017 .