From The Origin of Capitalism to The Retreat from Class, Ellen Meiksins Wood was a Marxist thinker with major contributions to history, sociology, and theory.
The development of distinctive property forms in English agriculture entailed new forms of class struggle. If we want to sum up the ways in which class struggle between landlords and peasants 'liberated' capitalism, it might be closer to the truth to say that capitalism was advanced by the assertion of the landlords' powers against the peasants' claims to customary rights.
