Abstract

　　Primitive accumulation is the historical foundation and logical premise of the capitalist social relations. Accumulation by exploitation presupposes the existence and expanded reproduction of the doubly free labourer as a propertyless surplus value producer. Contrary to the conventional view of primitive accumulation as a period of transition to capitalism, its concept is constitutive of capital as a real economic abstraction. It is the foundation of the economic categories of value, commodity, money, accumulation by exploitation and crisis. For the critique of political economy the conceptuality of capital entails the separation of living labour from its means. As such, primitive accumulation brings to the fore the secret history of the capitalist social relations, which is the everyday struggle for access to basic material things, by which the free labourer reproduces herself as society’s surplus value producer.

　　Keywords

　　Class struggle; Capital; value; money; accumulation by exploitation; primitive accumulation; real abstraction; history

　　From: Critique 2023 51 (1)

　　Editor: Wang Yi