What was primitive accumulation? Reconstructing the origin of a critical concept

Abstract

The ongoing critical redeployment of primitive accumulation proceeds under two premises. First, it is argued that Marx, erroneously, confined primitive accumulation to the earliest history of capitalism. Second, Marx is supposed to have teleologically justified primitive accumulation as a necessary precondition for socialist development. This article argues that reading Marx’s account of primitive accumulation in the context of contemporaneous debates about working class and socialist strategy rebuts both of these criticisms. Marx’s definition of primitive accumulation as the ‘prehistory of capital’ does not deny its contemporaneity, but marks the distinction between the operations of capital and those of other agencies – especially the state – which are necessary, but also external, to capital itself. This same distinction between capital, which accumulates via the exploitation of labour-power, and the state, which becomes dependent upon capitalist accumulation for its own existence, recasts the historical necessity of primitive accumulation. Marx characterizes the modern state as the armed and servile agent of capital, willing to carry out primitive accumulation wherever the conditions of capitalist accumulation are threatened. Hence, the recent reconstructions risk obliterating Marx’s key insights into the specificity of a) capital as a form of wealth and b) capital’s relationship to the state.

From primitive accumulation to entangled accumulation: Decentring Marxist Theory of capitalist expansion

“…For some authors, colonialism can be treated as part of the process of accumulation of capital, but not as capitalist accumulation itself, given the fact that the aspect that is most distinctive in capitalism (namely, the extraction of surplus value) does not take place in the context of colonialism. For other authors, capitalist accumulation could have indeed taken place in the extraction of surplus value in the colonies as well (Roberts, 2017).…”

“…Hence, Harvey, Dörre and Frank all follow in Luxemburg’s footsteps, though each in their own way. However, some recent contributions, such as Roberts (2017) and Pradella (2014), have pointed towards a different semantic precursor for the concept of primitive accumulation. They defend Marx in the face of possible insufficiencies suggested by the tradition that takes up Luxemburg’s line of thought.…”

“…That is, it was and is due to the force and violence of regulatory interventions that external, non-commodified spaces could and can be incorporated into the dynamic of capitalist accumulation (Gonçalves, 2018). Of course, this aspect is not new to the discussion about primitive accumulation and was already widely developed in the work of Marx (1906 [1867]: 786), who emphasized the state’s role in promoting expropriation during colonialism, when ‘the states of Europe plundered the rest of the world, stealing means of production and labour power on a massive scale’ (Roberts, 2017: 12). However, some dimensions of the nexus between states and legal violence and primitive accumulation have been not yet sufficiently explored.…”

“… 4 The role of the state in colonial exploitation was not limited to regulation. It also was the co-founder and financer of the colonial enterprise, as Roberts (2017: 12) argues: ‘Colonial expeditions and commercial wars were financed by the selling of public bonds.’ …”

Primitive accumulation and Chinese mirrors

“…Marxists typically regard it as merely descriptive of the prehistory and early history of capitalism (Dobb, 1963: 178; Harvey, 2010: 293, 305, 313; Luxemburg, 2003: 345; Mehring, 1962: 362). In addition, they are perplexed that the final part of Capital I, where primitive accumulation is discussed, concludes with Wakefield’s theory of systematic colonization rather than with the revolutionary ‘expropriation of the expropriators’, which occupies the penultimate chapter (Brewer, 1984: 83–84; Harvey, 2010: 301; Roberts, 2017: 14–15, 19 note 18). Certain non-Marxists show more respect for the concept by at least discussing it seriously (Gerschenkron, 1965: 33–36, 97–100).…”