Sir James Steuart's Secret History of Primitive Accumulation

Perelman, Michael

doi:10.1215/9780822380696-008

Cited by 16 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…But in doing so he pursued goals that were not only technical, but also epistemological: overcoming a narrow focus on “the magnitude” problem that absorbed the efforts of many economists (Marx 2008: 483, note 1), Marx aimed to provide an integral, and historically situated, characterization of those laws so the search of what he envisaged as liberating alternatives to such laws could be enabled (Fernández Liria and Alegre Zahonero 2011 ). This effort included a reconsideration of the historical conditions that had facilitated the emergence of capitalism as a social form: through a revision of the question of “primitive accumulation,” the role of unequal social power and violence were brought to the fore (Perelman 2000 ; Angosto-Ferrández 2020 : 4–6).…”

Section: The Labor Theory Of Value Marxian Critique and Anthropological Enquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

The child everyone has inside: anthropology and the labor theory of value

Angosto-Ferrández

2022

Dialect Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper revisits the debate on the relevance of the labor theory of value for the anthropological task. It argues that the labor theory of value can creatively inform and reformulate in critical ways a variety of social issues addressed through anthropological lenses. The argument is sustained by two main exercises: first, a critical overview of the foundations of the labor theory of value outlines the reasons why it opened new grounds for anthropological and, more generally, for social-scientific enquiries. Second, a discussion of the key points of friction between scholarship that attempts to develop an “anthropological” theory of value as an end in itself and anthropological scholarship that resorts to the (labor) theory of value to critically inform research.

show abstract

Section: The Labor Theory Of Value Marxian Critique and Anthropological Enquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

The child everyone has inside: anthropology and the labor theory of value

Angosto-Ferrández

2022

Dialect Anthropol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, alongside the invocations of ‘bio-mimicry’ and ‘bio-inspiration’ in these projects, the models of biology and animality they mobilise are essentially mechanistic, inscribing biology, ecology and animality in functional economic terms, and situating pollinating insects as technologies of production disembedded from their complex co-evolved interrelationships within the web of life. Once nonhuman entities and their ecologies are viewed as machines performing functions for human agro-industrial economies, it becomes possible to imagine that actual machines might perform those functions more efficiently (Adam and Groves, 2007: 80–81; Plumwood, 2002).…”

Section: Reframing Pollination Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Replacing cheap nature? Sustainability, capitalist future-making and political ecologies of robotic pollination

Nimmo

2021

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article undertakes a critical examination of emergent technologies involving the use of robots to carry out crop pollination in the context of declining populations of bees and other insect pollinators. It grasps robotic pollination research and development as a future-making practice, which imagines and partially materialises one possible future by inscribing a specific ontology in the present which is geared to enact that future. Unpacking this, the article traces how artificial pollination reframes pollination ecology around a productivist ontology and inscribes a web of meanings around nature, technology and economy which point to a future where insect pollinators are largely absent or extinct. It argues that this effectively backgrounds alternative futures in which structural transformations of agriculture and the world food system are able to mitigate and avert pollinator decline and biodiversity loss, and also reveals the deep rationale of artificial pollination. While invoking notions of sustainability and food security, robotic pollination defines these in highly anthropocentric, economistic and self-referential terms, as a matter of enabling the reproduction of agro-industrial capital accumulation. Drawing upon the political ecology of Jason W Moore, the article situates robotic pollination as a future-making project in relation to capitalist strategies of accumulation through the appropriation of ‘Cheap Nature’, to show how the automation of pollination would enact a shift in the composition of agro-industrial capital, with systemic consequences inimical to both ecological sustainability and sustained accumulation. In this respect, robotic pollination is a case study in the propensity of capital to invest in the making of sustainable futures only insofar as sustainability equates to the reproduction of capital within the web of life.

show abstract

“…For instance, based on the way in which the ideas of Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron of Montesquieu, were received by figures from the Scottish Enlightenment, 4 Andrew Skinner (1993) highlights Steuart’s singularity in the way he dealt with the problems of moving between stages or the consequences of economic change, while Ronald Meek (1967) points out how his originality lay in linking the development of production with a historical and evolutionary approach. Furthermore, Noboru Kobayashi (1967), Michael Perelman (2000), and William McColloch (2011) present Steuart’s theory of development as the description of a primitive process of accumulating capital, which led Karl Marx to recognize his historical sensitivity. Ruhdan Doujon (1994), Rédouane Taouil (1995), and Aida Ramos (2011) separate Steuart from the Scottish Historical School when outlining his thought on economic development based on elements of civic humanism, such as the emphasis on frugality or luxury.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sir James Steuart on the Origins of Commercial Nations

Menudo

2018

J Hist Econ Thought

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines James Steuart’s explanation of the emergence of commercial nations. Unlike other Scottish thinkers of the time, Steuart argues that artifice is necessary for the rise of commercial societies. He uses the term “artificial” to refer to a devised process, one that is an alternative to the supposedly natural process arising from innate propensities. The system of trade and commerce is an “artifice” created by merchants to obtain benefits, and established by the sovereign for his ostentation and personal prestige, until it became generalized as a commercial nation. Steuart’s explanation of the emergence of commercial nations accounts for how individuals become dependent on and subordinate to the public market. This paper concludes that Steuart’s Political Œconomy promotes a science of the artificial that seeks to understand the functioning of non-natural mechanisms and to create instruments that the statesman adapts to the needs and objectives of individuals.

show abstract

Sir James Steuart's Secret History of Primitive Accumulation

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

The child everyone has inside: anthropology and the labor theory of value

The child everyone has inside: anthropology and the labor theory of value

Replacing cheap nature? Sustainability, capitalist future-making and political ecologies of robotic pollination

Sir James Steuart on the Origins of Commercial Nations

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About