Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2025

Department

Equine Industry

Department

Economics

Abstract

Many scholarly articles and books have been written about the transition from feudalism to capitalism over the decades. The various points of views on what is the “main driver” or “prime mover” of the transition have been debated in various forums by historians and economic historians with a different major factor being advocated by different proponents or schools of thought. This paper tries to offer another analysis of how the horse could have been an important “means to an end” in the development of capitalism, and this analysis possibly can lead to support for more than one view of what constitutes a main driver in the transition from one mode of production to another. One contribution of this research note is the use of estimates of British economic data that date from the 13th to the 19th Centuries to show the probable and profound influence of the horse on economic activity during part of this time period as horses become an important economic tool of capitalistic development. In this way, as with how capitalism exploits other aspects of nature, the horse becomes a commodity and part of what has become known as alienated speciesism, or the devaluation of non-human animal life. This is despite the fact the horse becomes a critical ally in meeting human needs for food and transportation. Yet its contribution in the transition from feudalism to capitalism is often ignored or given short mention.1

ORCID

0000-0003-2453-1407

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