Abstract

This article attempts a fresh look at the fundamental processes that took shape inside feudalism and prepared the ground for the original transition to capitalism. Towards this end, the limitations of the approaches based on the "class conflict" school and on the productive forces/production relations framework are exposed and an alternative framework is proposed. This consists of three basic elements: first, the specific features of the feudal social structure that give rise to this system's dynamism are explored; second, the interactive process between the feudal society's expanding productive capacity and its changing social structure is fully analyzed; third, the role of class conflict as the mediating link in the above process is made explicit. Last, within this framework an alternative explanation of the crisis of the feudal order is given.