The question of Primitive Accumulation is central to how
capitalism developed out of feudalism. What is at stake in Primitive
Accumulation are the dynamics of how the world has a majority of the population forced
to sell their labor to a minority—the forced integration of billions into the
city, factory, or urban job. To grasp this
process there are 2 points to keep in mind;
1)
Feudalism didn’t have free laborers; they had
peasants who directly farmed subsistence crops on the land they occupied. Just as rural societies lived directly off the land.
2)
Capitalism necessities a mass of dispossessed free
laborers who must sell their labor to survive.
What this transformation entailed was nothing less than what
is still happening across the third world; the uprooting of individuals and
their communities from the land and their resulting status as a “free laborer.”
The free laborer only
becomes a free laborer after he has been robbed of his original guarantees of
subsistence provided by Feudalism or the traditional community—only after the liquidation of his food and
security can Capitalism truly begin. Imagine you are a peasant
who knows nothing outside of what you and your family have been doing on the
land for generations. Now imagine that you have been kicked off the land by colonists,
capitalist, industrialists, or the government and are faced with the problem of
feeding yourself and getting shelter; the only option left is to enter the
factory, city, urban center. There is no escape, yet some tried and were then faced with the Law.
If you refused this process and resisted then you were
labeled a vagabond and persecuted by the state. For example, in
England in 1824 the Vagrancy Act was passed that stated
“every person wandering abroad and lodging in any barn or
outhouse, or in any deserted or unoccupied building, or in the open air, or
under a tent, or in any cart or waggon, [...] and not giving a good account of
himself or herself [...] shall be deemed a rogue and vagabond.”[1]
Capitalisms growing power and infusion with the state made
any escape into a hiding spot impossible. Thus through the combined process of
expropriation, punishment, and hunger, the birth of the free laborer occurred.
This process was radically more dark and violent than Adam Smith’s description
of it. Adam Smith said that the free laborer became that because of his
laziness and unmotivation while the wealthy worked hard and were smart and
therefore deserving the position of employers instead of employees.
Adam Smith’s idea has now become a staple of the capitalist mindset; how many times does one hear “the poor are poor because they cant strap up their boots, do good work and get out of poverty!” What is missing in this view is that the radical bi-frication of society is a structural necessity for capitalism—it cannot function without a dispossessed majority constantly selling their labor. Indeed, for Capitalism to function the majority may never rise out of their poor condition. Capitalism does not continue despite these antagonisms but by virtue of them.
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