As Engels describes, those bourgeois commodity producers, in the towns, were not some continuation of the old ruling feudal class, but were from some of those layers of the old society most oppressed by it, the “serfs and villeins”. The bourgeoisie arises, in the towns, as capitalist production begins there from the 15th century onwards, because, out of this mass of independent commodity producers, a process of differentiation, driven by competition, produces the two entirely new classes of modern society – the industrial bourgeoisie and industrial proletariat. Lenin describes, precisely, this process, and shows why it only extends into agricultural production at the end, in his polemics against the Narodniks, for example, “On The So Called Market Question”, and most comprehensively in “The Development of Capitalism In Russia”.
Secondly, and related to the first point, is that capitalist production is not only premised upon existing commodity production and exchange, but on the existence of sufficiently large markets for those commodities, so as to make large-scale, capitalist production worthwhile. Where do those large markets come from, if there is continued large-scale direct production, by peasants, who simply meet their own needs? Thirdly, the idea of clearing the land to turn over to sheep, itself, confuses the supply of a commodity – wool – with capitalist production. It confuses commodity production and exchange, which existed for at least 7,000 years, before capitalism, with capitalist production itself.
As Marx notes in Theories of Surplus Value, during all that previous history of commodity production, there were failures of commodity producers, but they then became debt slaves, serfs or paupers, not proletarians, not industrial wage-labourers. It is only when the growth of the towns results in an expansion of the market that capitalist production, i.e. production on a larger-scale, to meet that demand, becomes possible. It is the larger-scale of production that makes capitalist production more efficient, enabling it to grab market share, and so, now, the failed commodity producers become wage-labourers, and their means of production become capital in the hands of their new employers.
Far from the bourgeoisie arising as the pet or protégé of the existing ruling class, it had to develop in combat with it, and, as Marx and Engels note, in this process of class struggle, at first, it does this with the active support of the industrial proletariat it brings into existence alongside it.
“The struggle of the bourgeoisie against the feudal nobility is the struggle of town against country, industry against landed property, money economy against natural economy; and the decisive weapon of the burghers in this struggle was there resources of economic power, which were constantly expanding through the development of industry, at first handicraft, and progressing, at a later stage to manufacture, and through the spread of commerce. Throughout this struggle political force was on the side of the nobility, except for a period when the crown played the burghers against the nobility, in order to keep one estate in check by means of the other; but from the moment when the as yet politically powerless bourgeoisie began to grow dangerous owing to its increasing economic power, the crown resumed its alliance with the nobility, and by so doing called forth the bourgeois revolution, first in England and then in France.” (p 209)
This illustrates another important point, as also, set out by Lenin, in his polemics against the Narodniks. As Engels notes, in relation to France, as the classic example, the political regime had remained unaltered, with the old nobility still in control, but, despite it, the economic relations had changed, and outgrown it.
“In terms of political status, the nobleman was everything, the burgher nothing; but in terms of the social situation the burgher now formed the most important class in the state, while the nobleman had been shorn of all his social functions and was now only pocketing his revenues in payment for those vanished functions.” (p 210)
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