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The Smithian explanation of economic growth (the pursuit of rational self-interest leading to specialization and to market production) requires, as a condition, specifically capitalist relations of production, which cannot result from the rationally self-interested actions of the precapitalist actors who support the existing precapitalist property relations. The transition from feudalism to capitalism is the unintended consequence of their actions, specially of the conflicts between precapitalist classes, and of the historically particular balance of class forces.