Fillorkill: unter wilden extra: primitive accumulation
#44232
29.03.21 12:52
""Nature," says Marx, "does not produce on the one hand owners of money or commodities, and on the other hand men possessing nothing but their own labour-power." How does Capital explain this inequality? Some people are thrifty, says Adam Smith, some indulge in riotous living: the latter turn into the poor; the former, the virtuous rich. Skewering this fantasy of the "thrifty proto-capitalist" Marx tells a more compelling (and bloodier) story about the origins of Capitalism, about the foundational violence that created a population separated from its means of subsistence (the future reserve army of labor); the story includes slavery, the conquest of the Americas, enclosures, vagabond laws, and the branding of human flesh. But is this "so-called Primitive Accumulation" a moment that precedes Capitalism or is it a continually-renewed moment within Capitalism? Marx's own story has some crucial gaps. Nikhil Singh fills them in.
