Marx, Primitive (Original) Accumulation

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“Primitive” means “original’” The concept of primitive accumulation

means simply “first” or “original” accumulation

This refers to the origins of capitalism

Before capitalist production “stands on its own legs.” “The capitalist system pre-supposes the

complete separation of the laborers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labor. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale.”

Once capital stands on its own legs…. What about before?The question is, what happens BEFORE

capital stands in its own legs, How did capitalist relations of production

come aboutGenesis of capitalist system= “pre-history”

of capital

Accumulation as a social relation

Capitalist

Worker

Capitalism entails a social relation between capitalist and worker; the reproduction of this relation is called accumulation; the spread of this relation is called expanded accumulation

Marx states that: “As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale.”

The capitalist– wage labor relation not only reproduces itself over time, it extends itself over time. New producers are converted to the capitalist-wage labor relation.

The capitalist system is, according to Marx,A) based on the wage labor / capital

relation.B) based on doing business for profit.C) based on production for profit.D) has always existed.E) can be based on slavery.

Expansion of capitalist relations This prediction has certainly proved to be true on a world

scale; constantly expanding capitalist relations of production

Already in the Manifesto, the claim was made that The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all

instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

Question that these chapters on primitive accumulation answerMarx asks the question: What happens

BEFORE capital “stands on its own legs”?

That is, by its own dynamic, the capitalist system tends to expand, ONCE it is established. What about BEFORE?

How did it come to be established?

Primitive = original “The process, therefore, that clears the way for the

capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the laborer the possession of his means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage-laborers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-historic stage of capital and of the mode of production corresponding with it.”

Capital is a social relation between personscapital is not a thing, but a social relation

between persons, established by the instrumentality of things.

ExampleMr. Peel […] took him from England to Swan

River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000. Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 3,000 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. Once arrived at his destination, "Mr. Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river." [5] Unhappy Mr. Peel who provided for everything except the export of English modes of production to Swan River!

[5] E. G. Wakefield: "England and America", vol.ii. p.33.

Social conditions that were absent for Mr. PeelThe social conditions which separate the

direct producers from the means pf production (in this case land) were not present in Western Australia

The workers took off and became farmers.

DispossessionThe separation of the direct producers from

the means of production is a prerequisite of capitalist productionExamples

1) Marx– enclosures2) machinofacture destroying crafts3) abolition of slavery without “40 acres and a mule”

The capitalist system requiresA) a specific set of social conditions to

operate.B) dispossessed workers.C) the concentration of the means of

production in the hands of the capitalist.D) all of the aboveE) none of the above.

Double sense in which workers must be freeFree legally, to be able to sell and buy

freely on a market, to dispose of their own labor power

Free from ownership of means of production which would guarantee their own subsistence

Double sense of freedom“Free laborers, in the double sense that

neither they themselves form part and parcel of the means of production, as in the case of slaves, bondsmen, &c., nor do the means of production belong to them, as in the case of peasant-proprietors; they are, therefore, free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own.”

One sided nature of previous accounts of the development of “freedom”“[…] the historical movement which changes

the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds, and this side alone exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.”

Force and violence in primitive accumulationHistorically specific account of the

enclosures which generated massive dispossession of the peasantry

There is FORCE in the origins of the process, this did NOT happen merely through the workings of the market, it took FORCE

Primitive accumulation is a double process of1) dispossession of the direct producers

2) concentration of wealth and means of production into the hands of the capitalists

European expansion, slave trade, conquest of the Americas contributed to #2

Globalized dimension of primitive accumulation “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the

extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c.”

Slave trade and primitive accumulation“[…] at the Peace of Utrecht, England

extorted from the Spaniards by the Asiento Treaty the privilege of being allowed to ply the negro-trade, until then only carried on between Africa and the English West Indies, between Africa and Spanish America as well. England thereby acquired the right of supplying Spanish America until 1743 with 4,800 negroes yearly. This threw, at the same time, an official cloak over British smuggling. Liverpool waxed fat on the slave-trade. This was its method of primitive accumulation.”

Example of how colonialism in the Americas contributed to “primitive accumulation”Example of farmers in the 15th centuryLong leases (sometimes 99 years)Influx of colonial bullion Farmers paid leases denominated in pre-

inflation terms, and sold goods at prices after influx of colonial metals, thus contributing to concentration of wealth, farmers grew rich “at the expense” of their workers and the landowners

The usurpation of the common lands allowed him to augment greatly his stock of cattle, almost without cost, whilst they yielded him a richer supply of manure for the tillage of the soil. To this was added in the 16th century a very important element. At that time the contracts for farms ran for a long time, often for 99 years. The progressive fall in the value of the precious metals, and therefore of money, brought the farmers golden fruit. Apart from all the other circumstances discussed above, it lowered wages. A portion of the latter was now added to the profits of the farm. The continuous rise in the price of corn, wool, meat, in a word of all agricultural produce, swelled the money capital of the farm without any action on his part, whilst the rent he paid (being calculated on the old value of money) diminished in reality. [2] Thus they grew rich at the expense both of their laborers and their landlords. No wonder, therefore, that England, at the end of the 16th century, had a class of capitalist farmers, rich, considering the circumstances of the time. [3]

Violence of the process of primitive accumulation“If money, According to Augier, [14] ‘comes

into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,’ capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”

[14] Marie Angier: "Du Crédit Public." Paris, 1842.

Accpording to Marx, the origin of capitalism is characterized byA) a peaceful liberation of man’s innate

tendency to barter and trade.B) Force and violence.C) The use of state power to dispossess the

direct producers.D) B and C.E) A and B.