askchapo

Trade. Specifically, trade overseas (sea transport is much faster than land transport to the point of qualitative difference) allowed by long-distance ships. This seems to have had dramatic effects from very early on centred around the Mediterranean (e.g. Bronze age, Hellenic world, Rome, etc for more detail see Broodbank's The Making of the Middle Sea). The secret to merchants' capital and hence merchants' power is found in ch5 of Kapital:

The form of circulation within which money is transformed into capital contradicts all the previously developed laws bearing on the nature of commodities, value, money and even circulation itself. What distinguishes this form from that of the simple circulation of commodities is the inverted order of succession of the two antithetical processes, sale and purchase. How can this purely formal distinction change the nature of these processes, as if by magic?

But that is not all. This inversion has no existence for two of the three persons who transact business together. As a capitalist, I buy commodities from A and sell them again to B... [A&B] step forth only as buyers or sellers of commodities. I myself confront them each time as a mere owner of either money or commodities, as a buyer or a seller, and what is more, in both sets of transactions I confront A only as a buyer and B only as a seller. I confront the one only as money, the other only as commodities, but neither of them as capital or a capitalist, or a representative of anything more than money or commodities, or of anything which might produce any effect beyond that produced by money or commodities.(258)

Even in the relatively even playing field of the Mediterranean, this creates the ability of one party, the capitalist, to hold an overwhelming advantage of knowledge of (closer to) the entire process of exchange, instead of one part. In addition, this creates impetus to find new sources of valuable materials (a source of relative surplus value) spurring expansion. These twin impulses help drive and enable early European expansion. The next key to super-imperialism lies in the medieval monasteries.

Moving quickly (for more detail; Landes The Invention of Time and parts of Crosby The Measure of Reality), medieval monks became very fixated on routine, schedule, fixed times unchanged by the movement of the sun, etc. This made them efficient workers, and it spread into the cities. This conception of time (time composed of homogenous, discrete units instead of heterogenous, continous movement) is a necessary precondition for the existence of the capitalist mode of production, but here we are interested in its relationship to the construction of the modern escapement clock (as opposed to e.g. water clocks, sun-dials, etc).

Modern clocks (basically the kind where time is measured by discrete intervals of sounds; the tick) arise from this conception of time, as a way to create clocks that are more consistent. At first, a main goal of such clocks was to regulate monastery life better; it spread to cities and burghers from there. At this point, we are at the pendulum clocks, and these serve well for use on land. However, the clock has applications for navigation.

In sea navigation you wanna know how far North/South you are (latitude) and how far East/West (longitude). Latitude is much easier to find to an accurate degree than longitude, so it was a major limiting factor in naval navigation. The pendulum clock allowed for much more accurate longitudinal readings, but pendulums do not work at sea. Even more complicated, smaller, mechanical clocks were needed, and they were created. This allowed Europe to reinforce its naval navigation advantage regarding trade.

From 1492 and even earlier, the ships developed through mass trade in the mediterranean saw Europe become a global middleman, buying (or stealing) goods in places where they were common and selling them in places where they were rarer. This was ultimately the source of European wealth and power, as they enjoyed a collective near monopoly on (direct) intercontinental trade, flow of information and military movement.

Europe's dependence on those ships gave it impetus to develop more intricate clocks and ships, and the wealth flowing into Europe gave it the means. As Europe shifted more towards exporting manufactured goods, this created impetus for methods to rapidly produce tons of shit. As manufacture turned into industry (meaning; as the machine was invented and the human turned into a mere motive power and machine-minder), a more controllable motive power was needed, and coincidentally existed in large quantities in the centre of manufacture (Britain).

The information gap also makes resistance, or even intention to resist more difficult:

The circulation of commodities differs from the direct exchange of products not only in form, but in its essence. We have only to consider the course of events. The weaver has undoubtedly exchanged his linen for a Bible, his own commodity for someone else's. But this phenomenon is only true for him. The Biblepusher, who prefers a warming drink to cold sheets, had no intention of exchanging linen for his Bible; the weaver did not know that wheat had been exchanged for his linen. B's commodity replaces that of A, but A and B do not mutually exchange their commodities...We see here, on the one hand, how the exchange of commodities breaks through all the individual and local limitations of the direct exchange of products, and develops the metabolic process of human labour. On the other hand, there develops a whole network of social connections of natural origin, entirely beyond the control of the human agents. (208)

...

Since money does not reveal what has been transformed into it, everything, commodity or not, is convertible into money. Everything becomes saleable and purchaseable. Circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as the money crystal.(229)

Conditions of production (e.g. extraordinarily brutal slavery, unprecendented ecocide, etc) are similarly in "the hidden abode of production on whose threshold there hangs the notice 'No admittance except on business'"(279-80), so for example while someone might reject trading furs for alcohol if they knew the alcohol was made with horrific slave labour, the conditions of international trade kept most knowledge in European hands. Without being aware of the conditions of oppression, without lines of communication, without immediate knowledge of the Europeans' goals, etc, co-ordinated defence against Europe is difficult.