Key Arguments

• Mr. Peel took money and machines to Swan River but failed because he didn't bring the 'social relation' (wage laborers)
• Means of production are not capital if they are owned by the immediate producer
• They only become capital when used to exploit and dominate a worker

Source Quotes

First of all, Wakefield discovered that, in the colonies, property in money, means of subsistence, machines and other means of production does not as yet stamp a man as a capitalist if the essential complement to these things is missing: the wage-labourer, the other man, who is compelled to sell himself of his own free will. He discovered that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons which is mediated through things. A Mr Peel, he complains, took with him from England to the Swan River district of Western Australia means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000.

Once he arrived at his destination, ‘Mr Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river.’ Unhappy Mr Peel, who provided for everything except the export of English relations of production to Swan River! For the understanding of the following discoveries of Wakefield, let us make two preliminary remarks: We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital.

This Mr Peel even had the foresight to bring besides, 3,000 persons of the working class, men, women and children. Once he arrived at his destination, ‘Mr Peel was left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river.’ Unhappy Mr Peel, who provided for everything except the export of English relations of production to Swan River!

Key Concepts

• capital is not a thing, but a social relation between persons which is mediated through things
• Unhappy Mr Peel, who provided for everything except the export of English relations of production to Swan River!
• left without a servant to make his bed or fetch him water

Context

Marx using the anecdote of Mr. Peel's failure in Western Australia to define the true nature of capital