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Friday October 21, 2011 10:59 by Wayne Price drwdprice at aol dot com
Primitive Accumulation at the Origins of Capitalism This is the 4th chapter of a work in progress: Marx's Economics for Anarchists; An Anarchist's Introduction to Marx's Critique of Political Economy. This chapter discusses "primitive accumulation", the oppression of women at the beginning of capitalism, the destruction of the environment, and the nature of the three epochs of capitalist history. Primitive Accumulation at the Origins of CapitalismFor Marx, capitalism has a beginning, a middle, and an end. What was that beginning like? To the classical political economists, when they dealt with the question at all, capitalism began with small businesses in the nooks and crannies of feudalism. Gradually they made more money for their owners, until they could afford to hire some employees. The first workers were available to be hired because they had not been as industrious as the original businesspeople. As in the fable of Aesop, the workers had been lazy grasshoppers while the original capitalists had been hand-working ants. Eventually the capitalists became rich enough to displace the feudal lords. To begin with, this pretty story overlooks the violent upheavals of the Cromwellian British revolution, the US revolution, the French revolution, the South American and Caribbean revolutions, and the 1848 failed European revolution. But some of this story was true, no doubt. There were blacksmiths and artisans who did build up their original capital; there were merchants who carried goods between widely separated markets until they decided to directly invest in production here or there. However, this misses the main dynamic of the beginning of capitalism. “In actual history, it is notorious that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, briefly force, play the great part” (Capital I, 1906; p. 785). The earliest time (which I will call an “epoch” to leave room for several periods within it) was described by Marx, in Capital I, as a “pre-historic stage of capitalism.” Borrowing from Ricardo, Marx called it “primitive accumulation” (in German, “Ursprunglich”). This could just as well be translated as “primary,” “original,” “initial,” or “unspoiled” accumulation. For capitalism to begin on a large scale, even in only one country, it needed two things: the accumulation of masses of wealth in the hands of a few people who could invest it (capital), and secondly, free workers who were available for work in factories and fields under capitalist discipline. In Europe, these two things were achieved through violence, legally and illegally: driving peasants off the land, replacing them by sheep; taking away the common grazing lands which had been open to all peasants and giving them to the lords; forcing poor people to wander the highways; cutting the benefits to the poor and unemployed, and so on. On a world scale, the European rulers seized continents and subcontinents--in the Americas, India, other parts of Asia, Australia, and Africa. Black people were forced into slavery far from their homes while Native Americans faced genocide. European people were settled on land once owned by others. The Asian-Indian economy was destroyed by foreign imports, even as natural resources (from gold to cotton) were robbed from them. “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, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation.” (Capital I, 1906; p. 823). Marx was fully aware of the interaction of class, nationality, and race in the origins of capitalism. Sometimes Marxists, and even Marx himself, criticized anarchists for supposedly underemphasizing the role of economic forces and overemphasizing the power of the state. But when discussing primitive accumulation, Marx was quite clear about the key role played by the state and other forms of organized violence. While capitalism may be said to have created the modern state, the state may also be said to have created capitalism. In Capital I, Marx wrote of “… the power of the state, the concentrated and organized force of society, to hasten, hothouse fashon, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode…. Force is…itself an economic power” (Marx, 1906; pp. 823—824). The anarchist Kropotkin writes of the same period, “The role of the nascent state in the 16th and 17th centuries in relation to the urban centers was to destroy the independence of the cities; to pillage the rich guilds of merchants and artisans; to concentrate in its hands the… administration of the guilds ….The same tactic was applied to the villages and the peasants….The state…set about destroying the village commune, ruining the peasants in its clutches and plundering the common lands” (Kropotkin, 1987; p. 41). If not precisely the same as Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation, it describes the same process.
Women under Capitalism
Marx did not directly discuss the effects of primitive capitalist accumulation on gender. However, Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation is directly relevant to understanding the history of women—and the role of women is essential for understanding the origins of capitalism. |
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If primitive accumulation served the tasks of creating the material preconditions for capitalist dominance
If primitive accumulation took place in a time before the bourgeois revolutions put the capitalists in power
If it primitive accumulation centred upon the actions of the state power
Then
Which class was the author of primitive accumulation, and why?
This is noting that
For Marx, the state is the tool of the economically dominant class, which could not have been the bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie could not have been economically dominant before the preconditions of dominance existed
And
If primitive accumulation served the bourgeoisie, why did the pre-bourgeois ruling class undertake it?
The sequence seems illogical in Marxist terms.
An interesting question. It would involve a detailed discussion of the history of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, in England and elsewhere. However it is a mistake to draw too sharp lines between the degenerated feudal system and the rising capitalist system, both based on minority ruling classes owning private property. While it is true that " For Marx, the state is the tool of the economically dominant class," the *economically* dominant class is not necessarily directly *politically* dominant . Indeed, the British bourgeoisie effectively "hired" its aristocracy to manage its state well into the 20th century. In Germany, it was Bismark and his aristocratic state which served to build a capialist economy.
Capital accumulation is a dynamic process which, via the market, can absorb all sorts of class elements and fragments and sructures, overwhelming the stagnant remains of feudalism
Yes, interesting.
I think the problem though is that if you do identify black slavery in the Americas, and the colonisation of South America, as part of capitalist primitive acumulation, AND you want to keep a Marxist state theory, then you have to claim that the old Spanish empire was capitalist or run by capitalists, as opposed to feudal.
But Spain - and its overseas territories - it lacked pretty much any of the features of capitalism that Marx identified as intrinsic to the cpaitalist mode, let alone underwent a bourgeois revolution before the 1800s.
Even the England of the enclosures - which started in the 1400s - was far from a bourgeois society, and the main people doing the enclosing were artistocrats.
Lucien
The Spanish State, by the early XVth Century was completely run by both Dutch and German bankers (and was heavily indebted to them). The bulk of the accumulation of capital from the South American colonization, apart from that part which was squandered by emigre landlords, went almost straight into those bankers coffers. It is actually the Western European bourgeoisie who benefit the most from the Spanish conquest and colonization. In fact, the political structures of the Spanish State prevented capitalism to develop in that country (a class example was how the textile bourgeoisie of Castille was completely crushed by the local nobility) but that does not mean that a modern bourgeoisie did not emerge on the process -not in Spain, that's for sure, but that shows that the mobility of capital was as much of a feature of capitalism then as it is now.
The problem of enclosures respond to a new concept of property emerging, no doubt fostered by the dynamism acquired by the bourgeoisie, and though the active class that carried it may have been the aristocrats (in some, but surely not in all cases), it only shows how it permeated different layers of society. The fact that aristocrats carried it in the 1400s should not be understood in so simplistic terms, since, after all, they had more interests invested in the land at the time than the bourgeoisie. It is not unheard of that "bourgeois" reforms were implemented in that period of historic transition by other classes -the same is true for the monarchist reform on administration and land in the three decades preceding the French Revolution ("The Peasantry in the French Revolution" of PM Jones has a very good discussion of how monarchist reforms and its openness to physiocratic reformism paved the way to the bourgeois revolution of 1789). That's the whole case of being in a transition period, that there's a great flexibility and flux of interests among the actors.
Com
On Spain/ Latin America: that is interesting, but deep debt to bankers was a commonplace of feudalism, bankers may be powerful in non-capitalist modes, and the power of bankers does not prove the dominance of capitalism as such, unless there are corresponding capitalist relations in production itself.
If capital remains merely in the field of circulation, as banking or merchant capitalism, as opposed to in production itself, then can we really speak of a capitalist mode of production in a Marxist sense? Trade and banking are integral to capitalism, but not unique to it.
Conversely the relations of production in that old Spain and its colonies cannot be called capitalist. (The same can be said of XV century Germany).
That is integral to the questions I think Red and Black Action raises: if enclosures create the preconditions for capitalist production, then where derives the power of the capitalists whose mode of production is still in embryo? To put it another way, if capitalism is not dominant, why should other classes act in support of capitalists?
Luvcien
We are talking about primitive capitalist accumulation and that did happen but not within the confines of the Spanish State. It went to countries such as Germany and Holland that were, in fact, moving strongly and steadfastly to the dominance of capitalist relations in production itself from the early stage of merchant capitalism (the dominant form in the early centuries of the primitive capitalist accumulation).
Rarely capitalism, in historical terms, has existed as a pure "mode of production" and often it has existed as a dominant set of relations in a much more complicated network of modes of production. Its pre-eminence is a feature of the late XIXth and early XXth century and yet, agrarian reform remained an issue in most Latin American countries in the 1960s! (and in Colombia or Haiti even today). Needless to say, all of them cases are undisputedly capitalist economies with many a "feudal" feature. Colonialism has not lead, necessarily, to capitalist development in the colonies but elsewhere. And in the Latin American case, the Spanish crown served as an intermediary who did not develop capitalist relationships itself, either.
You ask a crucial question to understand the process that leads to the emergence of the bourgeoisie: "If enclosures create the preconditions for capitalist production, then where derives the power of the capitalists whose mode of production is still in embryo? To put it another way, if capitalism is not dominant, why should other classes act in support of capitalists?"
My answer would be (and I am no expert in the field) that it is because rarely actors are fully aware of the implications of their actions, particularly when it comes to the "development of the forces and relationships of production". The Chilean industrialists who supported Pinochet's neoliberal programme were not aware of the fact that many of them would eventually be broken by the forces of free market, to the same extent that the French aristocracy bent on modernizing the French State in the XVIIIth Century were not aware that they were, at the same time, digging their own grave. Or the same could have been said about the Russian aristocracy and development of so called "junker" capitalism. Remember that it is also Marx who says that capitalist development also creates the bourgeoisie, that is the class that by its very nature will eventually become the negation of the system itself.
Cases like the Spanish aristocracy in the XVII-XVIII century who actually boycotted the bourgeoisie and the textile industry to curb the power of the nascent bourgeoisie are an exception rather than the rule.
There is awholeliterature on this question,the transition from feudalism to capitalism, both Marxist and nonMarxist.. How and why did it happen? Why did it happen in Europe, and particularly in Britain, rather than in China, say? We cannot review the whole discussion here. (See the book on the topic by Ellen Meiksins Wod.)
The important thing to remember is that there is no sharp division between these systems. The diffference between late, decayed, feudalism and early capitalism is not as wide as that between late capitalism and early socialism. The difference between the feudal-aristocratic-bureaucratic monarchy and the emerging bourgeois-bureaucratic state is not as great as that between the bourgeois state and the federation of workers' councils. Late fuedalism and early capitalism *overlap* and factions of the population are in conflict, including factions of the ruling elite. Some parts are pulled by the magnetic attraction of capital accumulation (to speak metaphoricaly) and others are repelled.
There is a ruling class, but it is challenged and unstable, facing a rising new class (some of which comes from within itself). In such a situation, Marx says, the state tends to rise above society, balancing each class against the others (Ceasarism, Bonapartism). To a degree--but only to a degree--the state serves its own interests, which may include building up the preconditions for capital accumulation (primiteive accumulation).
I think where Jose says "Remember that it is also Marx who says that capitalist development also creates the bourgeoisie, that is the class that by its very nature will eventually become the negation of the system itself." he wanted to say "Remember that it is also Marx who says that capitalist development also creates the PROLETARIAT, that is the class that by its very nature will eventually become the negation of the system itself."
Hi
1. I think the point about unintended consequences is crucial. However, it does also suggest that if "primitive accumulation" helped lead to capitalism, this was not necessarily its intention . To put it another way, it does not provide an adequate explanation of the rise of capitalism.
2. The point remains that the power of merchants and bankers does not itself provide the existence of capitalism. The notion that capitalism emerges in the sphere of circulation (the Marxist Robert Brenner has argued) is not a class explanation, but a liberal explanation, inasmuch as it treats capitalism as equivalent to trade, and the rise of capitalism to the effects of trade. He stresses that class struggles led to capitalism, and in these, the merchants and bankers played no role, as they were then essentially tied to feudalism.
3. Certainly if those bankers were "German" this is valid, particularly when we note those German bankers were largely from marginal outgroups (mainly Jews) excluded from production in the feudal order. Germany did not have a capitalist revolution until the XIX, and this was driven by junkers and the state, which deliberately created capitalism for military reasons (the same is true of the Meiji Restoration in Japan at this time, and to a large degree in later NICs like South Korea). This so-called Prussian path cannot be explained by classical Marxist materialism, because it is a straight forward inversion of the materialist model. Indeed, Brenner himself is limited because he discounts the independent role of the state itself in these developments, as accounts by (for example) non-Marxists like Moore and Lachmann have demonstrated
4. The point I am trying to make is that Marxist explanations, which give no real credence to the irreducible and specific dynamics of the state machinery and of the competition in the world state system, are unable to explain the far more complicated trajectory of history. As Bakunin himself noted, “The supreme law of the State is self-preservation at any cost. And since all States, ever since they came to exist upon the earth, have been condemned to perpetual struggle – a struggle against their populations, whom they oppress and ruin, a struggle against all foreign States, every one of which can be strong only if others are weak – and since States cannot hold their own in this struggle unless they constantly keep on augmenting their power against their own subjects as well as against the neighbourhood States – it follows that the supreme law of the State is the augmentation of its power to the detriment of internal liberty and external justice” (n Maximoff, G (ed.) 1953. "The Political Philosophy of Bakunin". The Free Press: United States.). He goes on to stress that these state dynamics cannot be reduced to those of capitalism, although they are "parallel" and convergent
5. Therefore while I agree on the value of Marxist economics, I am raising - in line, I stress, with Bakunin and Kropotkin and Malatesta - basic problems with Marxist explanations of society more generally. The modern world is far more than a capitalist mode of production, and its rise is more complicated than contradictions between relations and forces of production. If we move from using Marxist economics, to embracing Marxist materialism, then I think we have taken a step too far.
6. This does not mean removing class analysis, but it suggests that class analysis must take into account state / bureaucratic as well as corporate power, rather than rest upon the economistic class analysis of Marxism.
7. I agree entirely that capitalism incorporates and uses other modes of production, and that capitalism is many areas is often imprinted with prior sets of relations. However, to speak of capitalism incorporating other modes, we must show of the primacy of capitalism, as for example, Laclau did in his rejection of the notion that twentieth-century Latin America was still basically feudal - an argument beloved of many mainstream Marxists - and as South African writers like Legassick showed for that country, when they demonstrated that colonial-type domination was functional to capitalist accumulation.
8. However, I doubt it can be seriously shown that capitalism dominated Latin American economies before the XIX, and in many cases, before the end of that XIX. In some way it must be shown (unless we reduce capitalism to trade and thus reject Marx's key theses), that the logic of commodity production, wage labour, expanded reproduction etc. dominates these economies. To follow Laclau, this requires either that there is only a capitalist mode (even if it retains some legacies of feudalism or slavery e.g. unfree labour), or that there are subordinate modes articulated to capitalism via trade or labour etc., in such a way that they are fundamentally subject to a capitalist logic e.g. they cannot survive / reproduce without serving the needs of the capitalist mode. A slave mode that will not survive without focussing on exports of commodities to capitalists is an example of such subordination; a feudal estate that is largely self-sufficient is not an example of such subordination.
I'll leave it there, and thanks for all the thoughtful comments.
Lucien
I will be very brief since I am up to my eyeballs with work today
1. "Primitive accumulation" did not only "help" the rise of capitalism -it was an absolutely necessary precondition which could have not lead anywhere else. If it was intended or not, remains irrelevant in my opinion. Most significant historical processes are unintentional (and more often than not, theory does not take you exactly where you want to go).
2. Capitalism did not emerge in the sphere of circulation but in the sphere of production. But it was only possible were previous capital accumulation took place and in sucking that capital from the colonies, banjers played a key role.
3. The junker path was analyzed in materialistic terms by Lenin in Capitalist Development in Russia and there is a whole school of neo-Marxists who have placed great emphasis in analysing State Capitalism. Even Charles Bettelhem in his analysis of the Class Struggle in the Soviet State emhpasizes the role of the State apparatus as a space that allowed the re-creation of a new bourgeoisie. But I do agree with you that the State is more often seen as a mere tool in the Marxist tradition when it was crucial (even Dutch companies could become worlwide corporations because they were granted state powers by the crown -including the right to declare war!). This I don't think derive from the method alone, but because of the political strategy devised by Marx and Engels which remained practically unaltered throughout most of their lives (save for the short period after the Paris Commune). This only proves that Marx was, not only a theoretician, but also a politician. And this was far from an incidential element in his analysis. That is, to embrace the method as a general guideline or a framework for analysis (something Bakunin himself did when he declared a socialist of the materialistic school) does not necessarily mean to embrace all of his conclusions.
4. Agree with you on the dominance of capitalism -that was my point indeed and that's why I emphasized that while agrarian reform remains an issue in Latin American countries with strong feudal components, such as Peru or Colombia, none of this countries could be defined as fedual today. Yet, I also insisted, and you agree that the pre-eminence of capitalism is a feature of the late XIXth and early XXth century (save exceptions such as Chile, Uruguay, Brazil or Argentina where by mid-XIXth century you had dominant capitalist relations).
This is an argument relevant to colonial and neocolonial studies because it proves that capitalism can profit from non capitalist modes of production (as French industrialists accumulating capital thanks to the slave colonies in the Caribbean in the XVIIth Century, so dear to them) This only proves that capital accumulation do not necessarily produce capitalist relationships apart from the centres (again, the point on Spanish colonialism remains relevant).
Thanks and see you.
Hello
Thanks for the feedback and dialogue. There are many issues here requiring careful thought - and some time for careful consideration.
With best wishes
Lucien