Key Arguments

• Marx states that money, commodities, means of production and subsistence ‘are no more capital’ in themselves; ‘They need to be transformed into capital’, and this can happen only under ‘particular circumstances’.
• Those circumstances consist in ‘the confrontation of, and the contact between, two very different kinds of commodity owners’: on one side, owners of money, means of production, and subsistence ‘who are eager to valorize the sum of values they have appropriated by buying the labour-power of others’; on the other side, ‘free workers, the sellers of their own labour-power’.
• He defines ‘free workers’ in a ‘double sense’: they are not themselves part of the means of production (as slaves or serfs are), and they also do not own means of production (as independent peasants or petty proprietors do), being ‘free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own.’
• With this ‘polarization of the commodity-market into these two classes, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are present’, since ‘The capital-relation presupposes a complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions for the realization of their labour.’
• He insists that once capitalist production ‘stands on its own feet, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a constantly extending scale’, making the initial separation self-perpetuating and expansive.
• Thus ‘the process, therefore, which creates the capital-relation can be nothing other than the process which divorces the worker from the ownership of the conditions of his own labour’, effecting ‘two transformations’: social means of subsistence and production are turned into capital, and immediate producers are turned into wage-labourers.
• He summarizes: ‘So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production’, and notes it is called ‘primitive’ because it is the ‘pre-history of capital’ and its mode of production.

Source Quotes

As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic. In themselves, money and commodities are no more capital than the means of production and subsistence are. They need to be transformed into capital. But this transformation can itself only take place under particular circumstances, which meet together at this point: the confrontation of, and the contact between, two very different kinds of commodity owners; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to valorize the sum of values they have appropriated by buying the labour-power of others; on the other hand, free workers, the sellers of their own labour-power, and therefore the sellers of labour.

They need to be transformed into capital. But this transformation can itself only take place under particular circumstances, which meet together at this point: the confrontation of, and the contact between, two very different kinds of commodity owners; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to valorize the sum of values they have appropriated by buying the labour-power of others; on the other hand, free workers, the sellers of their own labour-power, and therefore the sellers of labour. Free workers, in the double sense that they neither form part of the means of production themselves, as would be the case with slaves, serfs, etc., nor do they own the means of production, as would be the case with self-employed peasant proprietors.

Free workers, in the double sense that they neither form part of the means of production themselves, as would be the case with slaves, serfs, etc., nor do they own the means of production, as would be the case with self-employed peasant proprietors. The free workers are therefore free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own. With the polarization of the commodity-market into these two classes, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are present.

The free workers are therefore free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own. With the polarization of the commodity-market into these two classes, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are present. The capital-relation presupposes a complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions for the realization of their labour.

With the polarization of the commodity-market into these two classes, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are present. The capital-relation presupposes a complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions for the realization of their labour. As soon as capitalist production stands on its own feet, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a constantly extending scale.

The capital-relation presupposes a complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions for the realization of their labour. As soon as capitalist production stands on its own feet, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a constantly extending scale. The process, therefore, which creates the capital-relation can be nothing other than the process which divorces the worker from the ownership of the conditions of his own labour; it is a process which operates two transformations, whereby the social means of subsistence and production are turned into capital, and the immediate producers are turned into wage-labourers.

The process, therefore, which creates the capital-relation can be nothing other than the process which divorces the worker from the ownership of the conditions of his own labour; it is a process which operates two transformations, whereby the social means of subsistence and production are turned into capital, and the immediate producers are turned into wage-labourers. So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as ‘primitive’ because it forms the pre-history of capital, and of the mode of production corresponding to capital.

So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as ‘primitive’ because it forms the pre-history of capital, and of the mode of production corresponding to capital. The economic structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society.

Key Concepts

• In themselves, money and commodities are no more capital than the means of production and subsistence are. They need to be transformed into capital.
• this transformation can itself only take place under particular circumstances, which meet together at this point: the confrontation of, and the contact between, two very different kinds of commodity owners;
• on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to valorize the sum of values they have appropriated by buying the labour-power of others; on the other hand, free workers, the sellers of their own labour-power, and therefore the sellers of labour.
• The free workers are therefore free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own.
• With the polarization of the commodity-market into these two classes, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are present.
• The capital-relation presupposes a complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions for the realization of their labour.
• it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a constantly extending scale.
• So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.
• It appears as ‘primitive’ because it forms the pre-history of capital, and of the mode of production corresponding to capital.

Context

Core theoretical definition of primitive accumulation within Chapter 26, specifying the social relations and class polarization required for capital to exist and how these are historically produced.