Daniel Bin

ABSTRACT

The dawn of capitalism was marked by what Marx referred to as primitive accumulation. Nevertheless, similar processes of dispossession of the means of subsistence and production continue until today. Capitalism cannot be sustained if additional means of production and growing availability of labor-power are not integrated into its accumulation processes. If on one hand, we have recently seen an expansion of the processes of dispossession, on the other, there is growing evidence that the capitalist system is immersed in a structural crisis. Thus, it is plausible to imagine that the potential shift of emphasis from the generation to the redistribution of surpluses is a sign of the very limits of the system. This is because capitalism cannot be sustained by redistribution processes alone. These may be effective for individual capitalists, but the system requires expansion. This article discusses the hypothesis that the processes of dispossession of the means of subsistence and production that we see in late capitalism are signs of exhaustion of the system. These signs are revealed by both the limits of spaces and possibilities for expansion—as the system reaches full capitalization and full proletarianization—and by the resistance of the dispossessed.

KEYWORDS

Accumulation limits, crisis, dispossessions, historical capitalism, primitive accumulation, world-system

From: International Critical Thought 2019 9 (2)

Editor: Wang Yi