Treating the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism as a Shared Exemplar for Teaching Marxist Theory

This article is about one method for teaching students to “think like a Marxist.” Following Thomas Kuhn, it stresses the role of shared exemplars in learning and constituting paradigms. A shared exemplar is a paradigm’s distinctive solution to a classic problem in its field of study. The shared exemplar developed in this article is a Marxist analysis of the transition from feudalism to capitalism in England. Many difficult Marxist concepts, such as holism and dialectics, can be more easily understood by studying the emergence of capitalism in England. The article’s historical analysis stresses the differences between petty commodity and capitalist production, although both are kinds of market societies. The article also compares and contrasts aspects of the political-economic history of China and England. JEL Classification: A2, B51, N93