The “primitive” in primitive accumulation means “prior,” in two senses. It can mean historically prior, in the sense of simply being temporally prior. It can also mean logically prior, in the sense of being necessary (but not sufficient) condition.
The heart of capitalism consists in the sale of labor power resulting from the encounter in the marketplace between the owners of money and the owners of the commodity labor power, followed by the capitalist use of the commodity when purchased. Primitive accumulation is the production of the conditions of this encounter, in the same sense in which Althusser writes of the production of the conditions for a swerve and thus an encounter (POE 171). Viewed - as Althusser entreats us to try to view everything (page ref?) - from the perspective of reproduction, primitive accumulation in the second sense continually occurs or recurs. Capitalism must continually produce the vogelfreie - free and rightless - proletarians (see Fowkes’ note on ‘vogelfrei,’ referenced here), which means continually stripping them of what they have accumulated and produced (new commons and forms of commons), including forms of organization and knowledges of the production process which allow workers more control. The production of vogelfreie proletarians is never secured in advance but rather is aleatory, and the condition of proletarians as vogelfreie is itself continually interrupted - the world that is the market wherein the encounter of capitalists and workers occurred is continually subject both to potential dissolution as it ceases to take and is historically subject to repeated near dissolution as a result of working class organization.
In the chapters on primitive accumulation Marx details some of the story of the formation of the vogelfreie proletarians in England, a process which took much time and much violence and the outcome of which was not a foregone conclusion. These chapters, particularly chapters 26-28 are the best in v1 of Capital and also earn high praise from Althusser. There is a similar remark in the chapter on the working day, chapter 10 section 5 (p271 in the Moore and Aveling translation), “It takes centuries ere the “free” labourer (…) agrees, i.e., is compelled by social conditions, to sell the whole of his active life, his birthright for a mess of pottage.” There are also, I believe, discussions in the Grundrisse on vagabondage.
In the primitive accumulation chapters the role of the state, law, and violence is also foregrounded, something worth discussing in light of our discussions on the term ‘dictatorship’ and the state/capital relation.
I think these chapters also could offer a potential point of contact between Althusser and Benjamin, by reading these passages as Marx doing the type of history writing that Benjamin called for on occasion. This would offer a way to complicate a potentially too neat schematization of Hegelian/dialectical = nonaleatory/teleological.
(Note to self, look up the relevant terms in the German and French.)
Primitive also means outside of history or non- or a-historical. Primitive society, for instance, is not historical society. With no details provided, I’ve been thinking of primitive accumulation in conjunction with Schmitt’s concept of ‘land-appropriation.’ He doesn’t cite Marx, but could have.
Comment by Craig — September 26, 2006 @ 8:22 pm
hi Craig,
Thanks for that. A friend of mine is an English professor, he wrote his dissertation on the primitive and the savage in … 18th (I think) century literature, I’ll have to ask him about this time stuff. That’s interesting. I’m told that some marxist economist, Paul Sweezy maybe, has argued that the term in German is better translated as ‘originary’, I’ll have to chase up the reference. Where’s the Schmitt passage(s) you’re talking about? That too is really interesting.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — September 27, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
Nomos of the Earth. It has a good index, so you don’t have to read the entire thing, which can be long and obscure at times. A chapter in my dissertation will be on the figure of the barbarian in opposition to, among other things, the rational, noble savage of social contract philosophy. I’m looking forward to that one.
Comment by Craig — September 27, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Thanks much Craig. I’ve had a photocopy of that book sitting near my desk since May. Other things keep cropping up and jumping the queue to be read first. I’m going to be working on something soon-ish on primitive accumulation and Agamben (and thus a bit of Schmitt) so this land acquisition this is very helpful. My basic argument is rather tiredly Marxist (”Marx said it better!”), arguing that Marx’s vogelfreie proletarians are a better term than Agamben’s bare life, though I do think the proletariat should be read in a way colored by some of the themes Agamben takes up.
That chapter you describe sounds really interesting (on that, I do plan to read the prospectus at your blog, I’ve just been swamped with reading lately and out of town a lot for different things). This is only tangentially related, but have you read the Many Headed Hydra? The authors spend just a bit of time comparing the images of Hercules and the Hydra as symbols for ruling class and dangerous classes, respectively. Great stuff, and a gripping book.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — September 27, 2006 @ 10:21 pm
I haven’t read that book yet, but plan to - one day. The proposal isn’t that interesting and, as Angela notes, it is written in occasionally coded language in reference to conversations between myself and my committee. The bibliography is decent, at least. Part of the important difference, I think, between Marx and Agamben is that “vogelfreie” are a historical concept whereas “bare life” is a metaphysical or ontological concept for Agamben. Isn’t it more likely the case that the “vogelfreie” are a type of bare life? The proletarians, afterall, didn’t exist until there was capitalism - the whole point of Marx’s discussion.
Comment by Craig — September 27, 2006 @ 10:28 pm
hi Craig,
I just downloaded the PDF and will read it soon-ish. Re: Agamben I’ve always thought Agamben to equivocate as to whether the category is legal and historical or ontological. As an ontological category it’s simply bad, but then I’m not much on ontology generally, and it makes his remarks on Schmitt much weirder.
You’re right on the vogelfreie as a type of bare life. The argument I want to make actually aims against the concept of bare life as such, in its bareness. Bare life is not really bare, for itself. It’s bare life for the sovereign. In the same way, the proletariat is not free of all qualities and differentiations, being simply a bearer of abtract power to work. Rather, the buyers of labor power are indifferent to most of the other determinations of the proletariat and they seek to eliminate many of the determinations they are aware of (such as any involving self-organization against capital). Agamben gives a pretty good critical account of some operations of some examples of power, but because he doesn’t acknowledge that his work is one-sided in terms of perspective (essentially it’s a top down or *ahem* bird’s eye view) that doesn’t allow much room in his work for discussing the non-bareness of those who fall under the reference of the term bare life. It also means that phenomena like the Warsaw ghetto uprising etc are totally inexplicable in Agambenian categories (hence the relative vacuousness [sp?] of his remarks on Tiananmen Square, despite that incident serving as an example in an otherwise interesting piece).
The reason I like vogelfreie as an avenue into this, other than that it comes from Marx and I just kinda like Marx, is that the bird metaphor implies a power despite the condition of being destitute, a power of flight. Fowkes’ translation as ‘free and rightless’ loses this resonance in a way which is common throughout much of marxism, taking the proletariat as primarily an object. Which reminds me, I have to check what the translation is in the Moore and Aveling.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — September 27, 2006 @ 11:27 pm
Whether he understands it as legal/juridical or ontological, is, you’re right, not entirely clear. I think it, like biopolitics, is ontological for him because he seems to locate homo sacer in all possible legal orders. Insofar as your argument is concerned, you might consider browsing the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx tends to speak in a theological language referring to sacrality and sacrifice. I’m not much of a marxologist, so I’m not sure if anyone has written on this.
Comment by Craig — September 28, 2006 @ 9:28 pm
hey Craig,
That’s really helpful, thanks much. I missed this comment somehow so sorry for not replying sooner. I’m in a rush just now but I’ll respond more later.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — October 1, 2006 @ 12:50 am
Hello Nate,
The question of how to interpret “primitive” in primitive accumulation is a very important issue, both in terms of translation and theory. One important thing to note is that Marx’ German text does not read “primitive Ackumulation”, even though it could have. Instead Marx speaks of “die [i]sogennante[/i] ursprunglische Ackumulation”. Rendering “ursprunglische” in English is a problem (in general, there seems to be lots of problems translating German into English), and it seems to me that originary is a better option than primitive. Since my native language is not English (its Swedish) I’m obviously on thin ice here, but I have the feeling that the etymological root of primitive (which stems from the greek [i]proton[/i]) has become considerably obscured by its more upfront present day meaning of “unevolved” or “uncultured” (correct me if I’m wrong!). Maybe it is because these kinds of characteristics are attributed to Ackumulation the very first part of Marx’ phrase often is forgotten or at least not paid very much attention to? What I’m thinking about here is of course the [i]sogennante[/i], or [i]so-called[/i], part of die [i]sogennante[/i] ursprunglische Ackumulation. When Marx speaks about this, he doesn’t speak of the violent exproriations of land etc., at least not in an immediate way. Die sogennante ursprunglische Ackumulation rather denotes the myth of the industrious Ur-bourgeois (homo oeconomicus) who by saving and maximizing the utilization of his scarce means one day had gathered enough to have another man work for him and so forth. Obviously Marx’ point is that capitalism as social system did not emerge this way, but in lots of blood and gore. I’m not entirely sure what I wanted to say with all of this, but it seems like rendering ursprunglische as primitive blocks out the ideology-critical dimension of the sogennante when primitive accumulation is used to denote the immediate expropriation of land, enclosure of commons etc. Does this make any sense?
/Henrik
Comment by husk — October 1, 2006 @ 9:35 pm
heya Henrik,
Thanks for that. I’ll have to think more about this. Jason Read has a good discussion of this in his book. I haven’t looked at that in a while, I should do that again. Werner Bonefeld argues (it’s in the title of his paper actually) that primitive accumulation is not primite but something else, in his contribution to the Commoner debate on primitive accumulation, here
http://www.commoner.org.uk/#dEbAtE:%20on%20primitive%20accumulation.
That’s another one I need to look over again. So much to do… I think the point that capitalism was not born of virtuous savings by the (proto)capitalists is really important, as is the point that the blood and fire did not have a fore-ordained outcome. I have to run, more later…
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — October 1, 2006 @ 9:53 pm
Nietzsche is, of course, the theorist of the ursprung. Foucault comments extensively on the concept in “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” Likely a paper there.
Comment by Craig — October 2, 2006 @ 9:04 pm
Thanks Craig. Maybe we could co-write it. I think I’ve got that Foucault piece somewhere and have read it, but I’m not 100%. Any recommendations on stuff to read on this by Nietzche? I don’t know him at all.
Comment by Nate — October 2, 2006 @ 10:32 pm
Foucault gives most of the necessary references, but, generally, Genealogy of Morality and Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life. It’s an idea; the paper, that is. I’m certainly interested in the idea of the primitive.
Comment by Craig — October 2, 2006 @ 10:47 pm
Thanks Craig. I’ve read chunks of the history-for-life one but not closely. I’ll give those look when I can.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — October 3, 2006 @ 2:10 pm