Primitive accumulation & inter-capitalist struggles

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I found Melvin P.'s comments on primitive accumulation (AKA original 
expropriation) and accumulation process very adequate and insightful.

Were it not for the fact that primitive accumulation _generates 
something new where there was none_, there would be no reason to 
distinguish it from the normal process of capital accumulation and 
centralization.

Primitive accumulation diverges from the normal process of 
accumulation in that it _does not proceed_ through the blind 
operation of a general law but through conscious application of force 
over a fraction of the human species in order to favor another 
fraction. No commodity fetishism in primitive accumulation.

I also agree in that the application of this concept to "explain" 
events that take place once capital has become the basic social and 
economic relation is dangerous and misleading. 

Some state that primitive accumulation is still in motion in the 
Third World, as if it were a tidal wave which has been triggered by 
an advanced core some centuries ago, and is still reaching the 
furthest shores in a primitive planet. 

In fact, this is a sophisticated (and sophistic) defense of 
imperialism, because since the world market appeared together with 
manufacture and industry capital has become the dominant social and 
economic relation _the globe over_.

Anti-imperialist struggle is definitely _not_ a struggle of backward 
peripheric capitalists trying to dispute imperialists at the core the 
fraction of newly spawn producers deprived of their means of 
production (which is the implication of the idea that "primitive 
accumulation" is still going on). It is rather the frontline of the 
global struggle against capital, even though in the actual 
battlefield, from time to time, you can see local capitalists 
fighting together with workers and peasants against imperialism.

Such is the cunning of History.

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
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