RE: Colonialism and the rise of capitalism

["Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>]

>From Hamza Alavi

>What is specific and central to the capitalist mode of
>production (in agricultural capitalism as well as industrial) is the
>separation of the producer from the means of production. As Marx
>himself put it, 'This separation of labour from the conditions of
>labour is the precondition of capitalist production.' (Marx, 1969:78)

	Alavi refers here to Volume One of Capital, where Marx laid out
what he called "The Secret of Capitalist Primitive Accumulation."
Capitalist accumulation must be preceded by some previous accumulation,
"an accumulation which is not the result of the capitalist mode of
production but its point of departure." (1990, p. 873).  Marx,
concentrating on European history, identified the 'double-freedom'
requirement necessary for capitalist production: workers must be 'free'
to sell their labor-power and they must be 'free' from the means of
production.  The existence of a working class ready to sell their
labor-power to capitalists requires that a mass of population have no
means of production with which to produce their own means of
subsistence.  If they could produce their own means of subsistence, they
would not be compelled to sell their labor-power to capitalists.  A
legal system is also required under which workers are freed from their
feudal obligations and by law may enter the market to sell their
labor-power.  As Marx wrote, "so-called primitive accumulation,
therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the
producer from the means of production" (1990, pp. 874-875).

	But Marx not only was focusing his remarks on Europe, he
actually states that the "classic" case is limited to England, while the
"history of this expropriation assumes different aspects in different
countries, and runs through its various phases in different successions,
and at different historical epochs" (p. 876).

	For Marx, "It is Otherwise in the Colonies" (Marx, p. 931).  In
the European colonies, land expropriation and forced labor were used,
but another important means of forcing indigenous populations to work as
wage-laborers or produce cash crops was taxation and the requirement
that taxes be paid in colonial currency.  Taxation also played an
important role in the monetization and commoditization of colonial
economies, and in the rise of a peripheral capitalism.

	If an individual, household, extended family or even village is
taxed, and that tax obligation can only be settled in currency created
or held by the colonial authority, then those obliged to pay taxes must
offer for sale whatever the colonial authority is willing to buy,
*regardless of whether they possess means of production sufficient to
produce the means of subsistence.*.  The two most important markets in
this regard were labor-power and cash crops, although there are other
important ones, such as raw materials not easily confiscated by the
colonial authority (e.g., ivory).  Over time, some required to pay taxes
may accumulate currency beyond that necessary to settle the tax
obligation, and so others who need the currency to pay taxes may sell
goods or services or labor-power to them rather than the colonial
authority or its agents.

	George Padmore was very clear on all this for the African case,
but it can be found in just about any work that deals with the colonial
economy.  Unless taxation is recognized as serving this function, those
who make arguments about colonial capitalism will be faced with the
question of significant means of production that remained in the hands
of indigenous populations.  Since indigenous populations in many areas
were not divorced entirely from the means of production, their entry
into the market will be viewed as voluntary, rather than coerced--unless
that coercion called taxation is taken into account.