Andre Gunder Frank

ON SO-CALLED PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION
Author(s): Andre Gunder Frank

Source: Dialectical Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (MAY 1977), pp. 87-106
Published by: Springer
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87
ON SO-CALLED PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION
Andre Guilder Frank
I have not answered all the questions that my readers will

tion. Insofar as, per our thesis, one single and
pose themselves at the end of this excessively long trip that
continuous
process of capital accumulation has
I have imposed on them. But in history the perfect book,
the book that never again shall be written, does not exist. existed in this one world for several centuries,
On the contrary, history is an ever-changing interrogation this heuristic division of the problematique in?
of the past, inasmuch as it must adapt itself to the neces?
to unequal structure, uneven process, etc., is
sities and sometimes the anxieties of the present. History
necessarily arbitrary. The structural inequality
offers itself as a means for the knowledge of man and not
as an end in itself. I do not know what, in this context, the and temporal unevenness of capital accumula?
reader will be able to get out of a book like this one; every?
tion, on the other hand, are inherent to
one has his own way of dialoging with a book. As for me,
capitalism.
this Mediterranean, magnificent and charged with the ages
of the 16th century, today buried in the world of shadows,
has made me pass over many paths, pursuing many

problems of today, and not of yesterday or the day
before. ..
Fernand Braudel
La Mediterranee et le Monde mediterraneen
? VEpoque de Philippe II
INTRODUCTION
The process of capital accumulation is a, if
not the, principal motor of modern history and
constitutes the central problem examined in
my work on its pre-industrial history. Yet
capital accumulation ? and its treatment here ?
still pose a number of fundamental theoretical
and therefore also empirical questions that re?
main largely unresolved. This article examines
some of these questions under the following
four related titles: 1. On primitive, primary and
capitalist capital accumulation; 2. On the un?
equal structure and relations of production,
circulation and realization in capital accumula?
tion; 3. On uneven transformation of capital
accumulation through stages, cycles and crises;
and 4. On unending class struggle in capital ac?
cumulation: through the state, war and revolu
ON PRIMITIVE, PRIMARY AND CAPITALIST
ACCUMULATION
A major open question concerns the basis

and modalities of capitalist accumulation of
capital itself and particularly the transition to
this process through "so-called primitive ac?
cumulation" ? as well as the transition again
from capitalist to "socialist accumulation."
Insofar as I argue that, during the past few
centuries, the world has experienced a single,
all-embracing, albeit unequal and uneven,
process of capital accumulation that, for at
least two centuries past, has been capitalist, I
must also inquire how this process began, on
what bases it developed, and to what extent it
has undergone important changes.
Marx wrote: "employing surplus-value as
capital, reconverting it into capital, is called
accumulation of capital" [21. "The surplus
value reproduced by prolongation of the
working-day, I call absolute surplus-value. On
the other hand, the surplus-value arising from
the curtailment of the necessary labourtime,
and from the corresponding alteration in the
Andre Gunder Frank is Professor at the Max Planck Institute,
Starnberg, B.R.D.
88
respective lengths of the two components (neces?
sary and unnecessary for reproduction) of the
working-day, I call relative surplus-value" [3].
Though absolute surplus value has certainly
been important for accumulation, the most im?
portant recent capitalist accumulation, and
Marx's analysis of it, has been based on the in?
creasing production of relative surplus value.
However, though Marx mentions it "only
empirically" [4]. Marx also writes: "in the
chapters on the production of surplus-value it
was constantly pre-supposed that wages are at
least equal to the value of labor-power.
Forcible reduction of wages below this value
plays, however, in practice too important a
part, for us not to pause upon it for a moment.
It, in fact, transforms, within certain limits, the
labourer's necessary consumption fund into a

fund for the accumulation of capital" [5].
"The part played in our days by the direct rob?
bery from the labourer's necessary consump?
through technological innovation and increas?

ing organic composition of capital ? of relative
surplus value, the reproduction of this cycle
through the realization of surplus value and its
application in new production and innovation,
the concentration and centralization of capital,
etc., which define industrial capitalism and im?
perialism. But before this industrial capitalist
process of capital accumulation became, and
could become, self-sustaining, apparently
around 1800, there was a long period of "so
called primitive accumulation" prior to "capi?
talist" accumulation, and importantly based on
pre-capitalist relations of production and/or
their transformation into capitalist relations.
The meaning of this "so-called primitive ac?

cumulation" that occurred in the several
centuries examined (1492-1789) bears further

consideration below. During this period of
previous, prior, (in German) urspr?ngliche,

original, pre-capitalist accumulation of pre?
tion-fund in the formation of surplus-value, and,
capitalist times and based on pre-capitalist rela?
therefore, of the accumulation of the accumula? tions of production, these relations and the
tion-fund of capital, the so-called domestic [or mode of production they formed were, it fol?
putting-out] industry has served to show" [6].
lows, also ^oft-capitalist. Accumulation, then,
That is, capitalist accumulation of capital is al?
could not be said to have been directly based
so based on a super-exploitation of labor
on surplus value, insofar as production was not
power through excess-surplus-value, which
in the hands of free wage laborers. Nonetheless,
the value that the producers received was, in
often ? and not only in British domestic
industry ? denies the laborer even the mini?
some sense, less than that which they pro?
duced, or accumulation would not have been
mum necessary for subsistence by any defini?
tion and which, at some times and places, pro?
possible. The consumption that producers were
hibits even the reproduction of labor power.
allowed may or may not have been equal,
greater or lesser than their needs for subsistence
Moreover, this less-than-subsistence super
exploitation occurs both through wage labor
and the requirements for the reproduction of
the productive force.
and through other relations of production, as
well as through the connection between the
If "pre?capitalist means previous to
two.
capitalist, then, by definition it is also "non"
A related question refers to the kind of
capitalist. If "pre"-capitalist means the begin?
capital accumulation. In one sense, capital ac?
ning of capitalist, then it is part capitalist, part
non-capitalist. But in either event, "non"
cumulation is, by definition, "capitalist" and
has been defined and analyzed by Marx and
capitalist need not be "pre "-capitalist, since it
Marxists in terms of the creation of a free labor
can also be simultaneous with, or even post
force through the separation of previous
capitalist. Thus, insofar as "primitive" accumu?
lation refers to accumulation on the basis of
owners from their means of production, the
production of absolute surplus value and ?
production with non-capitalist relations of pro
89
duction, it need not be prior to, but can also be cumulation": "But the accumulation of capital
contemporary with capitalist production and pre-supposes surplus-value; surplus value pre?
accumulation. Such non-capitalist production, supposes capitalistic production; capitalistic
production pre-supposes the pre-existence of
and the accumulation based on it, may ? to
distinguish it from pre-capitalist "primitive" ac? considerable masses of capital and of labour
power in the hands of producers of com?
cumulation and production ? be called
"primary" accumulation. (Roger Barta calls it modities. The whole movement, therefore,
seems to turn in a vicious circle; we can break
permanent primitive accumulation [7].) Such
out
only by supposing a primitive accumula?
primary accumulation, based in part on produc?
tion through non-capitalist relations of produc? tion (previous accumulation of Adam Smith)
tion, has been a frequent, if not constant, com? preceding capitalist accumulation; an accumula?
panion of the capitalist process of capital accu? tion not the result of the capitalist mode of pro?
duction, but its starting point. . . The so-called
mulation in its developed stage of the domi?
nance of wage labor and even of relative surplusprimitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing
value. Indeed, such primary accumulation has else than the historical process of divorcing the
made a substantial, if not essential, contribu? producer from the means of production. It ap?
tion to capitalist accumulation of capital. Such pears as primitive, because it forms the pre?
primary accumulation of capital as well may historic stage of capital and of the mode of pro?
and may not imply super-exploitation of the
duction corresponding with it" [8].
non-wage labor producer beyond his needs for
But this formulation raises more questions
minimum subsistence and reproduction. It im? than it answers. Two of these questions, to be?
plies super-exploitation of wage labor insofar gin with, are: how does the amassing of con?
as its consumption fund and the reproduction siderable capital takes place, and how does di?
of its labor power draws directly on this non vorcing the producer from his means of produc?
tion affect the process? Marx argues that a con?
capitalist production.
Drawing on these conceptual distinctions, I siderable proportion of the capital amassed be?
shall pose a series of further questions that arisefore the industrial revolution was produced
out of my examination of the genesis bases andwithin relations of production that did not im?
modalities of capital accumulation and especial? ply, require or even permit the wage labor di?
ly of the "so-called primitive accumulation"
vorce of producers from their means of produc?
tion. A variety of non- and pre-capitalist
that Marx discusses in chapter 24 (26) of
"colonial," "slave," "second serf" but also
Capital. If this process of "so-called primitive
accumulation" occurred in the three or more
"first" serf and feudal relations of production
centuries prior to the capitalist process of
both inside and outside Europe, including
capital accumulation that began with the in?
Western Europe, contributed to this amassing
dustrial revolution, in what sense did it involve of capital before the industrial revolution.
any accumulation of capital? In what sense was Marx's rhetorical observation that "the
it "so-called primitive?" In what sense did it
lead and/or contribute to the later capitalist
process of accumulation? And in what way is
the earlier process (or processes?) similar to or
veiled slavery of the wage-workers in Europe

needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and
simple in the new world" and that "capital
comes (into the world) dripping from head to
foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt" [9]
different from the later process of capital
accumulation?
suggests not only that these "non-capitalist"
Marx makes the following argument about sources and relations of production were
"the secret of primitive accumulation" in the central to capitalist accumulation of capital,
section devoted to "the so-called primitive ac but that they implied the forcible robbery of
90
the producers' consumption fund for the accu?

accumulation of capital but also to the eleva?
mulation of capital. The seven "useful" yearstion of the wage rate in metropolitan countries
of a slave's life in many parts of the new world,
[10]. Thus, the process of divorcing owners
the decline in Amerindian population fromfrom their means of production and converting
25,000,000 to 1,500,000, and the rise in labor
them into wage laborers was not only primitive,
costs for mining ? in Mexico in little more original or previous to the capitalist stage. It
than a century after the Conquest, not to men?
also persists through the capitalist stage.
tion the total decimation of the indigenous Primary non-capitalist accumulation feeds into
population of the Caribbean in half-a-century,
the capitalist process of capital accumulation;
the increased incidence and depth of faminebut
in the latter continues not simply because
Bengal after its rape by the British and many
capitalist development of wage labor divorces
less massive failures of populations to repro?producers from their means; it also continues
duce themselves after their incorporation into
despite this divorce through the maintenance
the process of capital accumulation, all testify
and even re-creation of working relations that
to the super-exploitative character of these are
pre not strictly "wage-labor". The question of
industrial relations of production, social forma?
how and why this so-called primitive, non
tions and the process of accumulation in itsdivorcing,
pre
primary, non-capitalist accumulation
industrial stage.
has taken place since the industrial revolution
is still the subject of considerable debate. But
Many of these same relations of production,
the problem of the relation and contribution of
and the production derived from them, remain
important for the capitalist process of capital
primary accumulation to capitalist accumula?
accumulation. An important question, then tion
and of capital is similar to and brings us back
now, is exactly how production generated by
to the question of the relation and contribu?
non-capitalist relations of production contrib?
tion of primitive, pre-capitalist accumulation to
uted to or was transformed into capitalist accu?
capitalist accumulation itself. The major ques?
mulation. The insistence on the importance tion
of is: How do we escape from the vicious
these relations and the resultant surplus value
circle around the starting point of capitalist
both before and since the industrial revolution
capital accumulation by supposing a so-called
(during the period of classical imperialism) does
primitive accumulation (previous accumulation)
not, of course, scant the importance of di? preceeding capitalist accumulation? Where, and
vorcing the producer from the means of produc?
when, was the starting point of the capitalist
tion and his transformation into a wage earner.
mode of production; how did the pre- [and,
Indeed, this process not only underlays the therefore, non-] capitalist, so-called primitive
development of capitalist relations of produc?
original accumulation amass capital, if there
tion, but also part of the process of accumula?
was no capitalist expanded reproduction; and
tion; the producers' divorce from their instru?
how did this previous accumulation fulfill a
ments of production also contributed to the
necessary, if not a sufficient, condition for the
concentration of capital. Moreover, it may be
starting point of capitalist accumulation of
argued that the divorce of many producers capital? Indeed, when was the starting point,
from their means of production in the "third
not now of capitalist accumulation, but of pre-^
world" during the imperialist period and thecapitalist accumulation that materially and
denial of minimum means of subsistence to economically contributed to real capitalist
accumulation?
either the resulting wage laborers or the remain?
Marx seems to exclude the 14th and 15 th

ing non-wage producers (obliging one to subsist
with the support or at the expense of the other)
century "beginnings of capitalist production"
made a material contribution not only to the
from the "modern history of capital [which]
91
dates from the creation in the 16th century of
a world-embracing commerce and a world
embracing market. . . The colonies secured a
market for the budding manufacturers, and,
through the monopoly of the market, an in?
creasing accumulation. The treasures captured

outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslave?
ment and murder, floated back to the mother
country and were turned into capital" [11].
But the production and the concentration of
productively based merchant capital in the
Italian cities was essential to make the voyages
of discovery and the early creation of a world
embracing commerce desirable and possible.
How, then, were the treasures turned into
capital? How important in this process was the
unrequited loot, and how important the market
sale of manufactures? How, specifically, did the
digging-out of silver in the Americas and its
transport to Europe contribute to amassing

capital in Europe? One answer is that this silver
and gold financed the purchase of use and ex?
change value from the Orient and Eastern
Europe (who, in turn, did what with the
precious metals, other than partially sterilizing,
that is, neutralizing them?). Another is that the
resulting inflation, insofar as the precious
metals were not sterilized, led directly and in?
directly to the concentration of capital, the
divorce from means of production, and the in?
crease in exploitation of more and lower-paid
labor. How did the looted and slave-produced,
as well as European, wage labor and non-wage
labor-produced use values (and their conversion
into exchange values) contribute to amassing
and concentrating capital? How was the capital
that was amassed in the 16th, 17th and 18th
centuries then reproduced ? in the absence of
developed capitalist relations of production ?
and then finally converted into capital that was
able to reproduce itself at least partly through
wage labor industrial production and reproduc?
tion? The question of when and how original
pre-capitalist, so-called primitive accumulation
of capital became (the starting point of) the
capitalist process of capital accumulation re?
mains substantially open.
A further question of immediate political,

economic relevance to the contemporary
period may be posed about the persistence of
so-called primitive, or rather primary, accumu?
lation today. No doubt, the production of use

values through non- and pre-capitalist relations
of production continues, and is still directly
converted into exchange value for the process
of capitalist accumulation. Perhaps their im?
portance is no longer so great. But one may in?
quire how important non-capitalist relations of
production are for the capitalist process of
capital accumulation today in three other ways:
1. the sustenance and, in time of need, provi?
sion of a potential reserve army of labor and

pool of labor power, 2. the contribution to the
sustenance and the reproduction of wage labor
power for which capital pays a less-than
subsistence wage that is too low for the wage
laborer's sustenance and reproduction, and 3.
the use of "socialist" non-capitalist relations of
production to produce value that enters into
the world capitalist process of capital
accumulation.
The sustenance of a potential reserve army

of labor through partially non-capitalist rela?
tions of production, which can offer capital
new labor power and, at the same time, help to
depress the wage of existing labor, can be ob?
served today in the massive flow, of "guest
workers" from rural Southern to industrial
Northern Europe, and in the increasing transfer
to some underdeveloped countries of industrial
production, or assembly, for export. The quan?
titative importance of this set of relations for
the accumulation of capital is difficult to de?

fine and estimate, but these relations are
certainly significant.
The contribution of non-capitalist village pro?
duction to the sustenance of labor power, and
the retirement of wage laborers in African and
Asian mines, plantations and urban employ?
ments, who receive literally less than a living
wage, is substantial and has been analyzed by
Meillassoux, Rey and others. Though the ex?
tended family members of these migrant (and
92
other) wage laborers in Southern and Western post-/non-capitalist relations of production do
Africa may produce substantial use value that the same? That, of course, is the significance of
does not directly enter the process of circula? imperialist capital's current interest in cheap,
tion, part of this use value is consumed by wage
well-trained and disciplined labor in the socialist
working family members who do directly pro? economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern
duce exchange and surplus, often excess
Europe? Perhaps imperialist capital must direct?
surplus value, frequently for export: thus the ly or indirectly pay more than a subsistence in?
non-exchanged, non-capitalist production in? come to the socialist countries' producers, or
directly contributes to the capitalist process ofperhaps the socialist state subsidizes thelatter's
capital accumulation. Indeed, restricted to the social consumption; but, whether imperialist
share of their value production that capital re? firms proceed through "contract processing" of
turns in the form of wages, some of these
industrial production for re-export from the
workers would be unable to produce any
socialist countries, or simply buy their manu?
surplus value for capital at all. For the surplus factures and raw materials, part of the value
value that they do produce, capital is indebtedproduced by work in these economies is trans?
to "non-capitalist" family members. But of
ferred to the capitalist, whose profit realization
course the latter are maligned as a further "wel? and accumulation is enhanced either by the
goods he receives from the socialist countries or
fare" charge on capital. The same "migrant
worker" principle of "non-capitalist" primary by the capitalist-produced goods he exchanges
accumulation of capital is also partially at workfor them, or both. At a time when this East
in the relation of the European "guest workers",
West economic integration proceeds apace
insofar as they are sent out and again received under the political umbrella of detente, the
by communities in Southern Europe, or, with question arises to what extent these social for?
reference to England, in Asia or the Caribbean,mations with socialist, "non-capitalist" rela?
in which part of the production is through
tions of production are or are not isolated from
"non-capitalist" productive relations. But ?
the single, capitalist process of capital accumu?
extending this argument to its logical conclu? lation. And, after the debates ? between fol?
sion ? the most widespread and important in? lowers and opponents of Althusser in France,
cidence of capitalist accumulation of capital onbetween Communists and the "new" left in
the basis, in part, of primary accumulation
Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America ?
through "non-capitalist" relations of produc? about the ways and means of the transition
tion is the unrequited production and reproduc?
from feudalism to capitalism and from capital?
tion (literally) by the wife and mother within ism to socialism, the question remains: what is
the bourgeois, and working-class, family! For, meant by "transition" ? a transition between
if capital had to pay her for the total contribu? two transitions? And are transitions necessarily
cumulative and unidirectional? [12].
tion she ? like the family of the African
migrant worker ? makes to the ability of the
worker to produce surplus value, and if capital
2. ON UNEQUAL RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION,
did not have her as a further underpaid labor
CIRCULATION AND RESOLUTION IN
force and reserve army of labor to boot,
ACCUMULATION
capitalist accumulation of capital would be dif?
ficult, if not impossible.
The extent of the single worldwide process
Finally, if pre-/non-capitalist relations of pro? of capital accumulation and of the capitalist
duction generate value that directly or indirect?system it has formed for several centuries re?
ly contributes to capitalist realization and accu?

mains an important open question. Clarity in
mulation, then why can't production through the debate is rendered difficult by what may be
93
called the inherent structural inequality in the
pattern of capitalist development itself, which
admits of varying interpretation. The question
has had important theoretical and political
relevance for over a century. Marx distilled his
the nature, extent, and combination of capital?

ist and non-capitalist relations of production,
modes of production and social formations ?
and their relative ripeness for socialist
revolution.
If capitalist production is the production of

exchange value, then it also involves the circula?
tion or exchange of use value. Capitalist accu?
mulation involves (is) the expanded reproduc?
tion of exchange value through the cycle of
realization of exchange value through the ex?
change of use value. "Circulation is itself a
moment of production, since capital becomes
capital only through circulation" [13], and cir?
culation can continue to produce exchange
value only through continued production of
use value. Thus, however central production of
exchange value (but not simply of use value,
respective undeveloped areas as progressive, and since it is equally essential for any productive
held out the hope that Britain presented the
system) may be to capitalist accumulation of
mirror of their future to them. Rosa Luxemburg capital, the realization of capital through the
regarded the incorporation of seemingly
exchange of use and exchange values in the pro?
external non- and pre-capitalist economies into
cess of circulation is also an essential part of the
the process of capital accumulation as neces?
process of capitalist production and accumula?
sary for the resolution of the latter's im?
tion, and should be an essential part of the
definition or criterion of the same. Therefore,
mediate internal problems of realization. For
neither the relations of production of use value,
Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, ? Asia, Africa and
nor the production of exchange value through
Latin America, not to mention non-European
wage labor can, in and of themselves, be a suffi?
Russia, were objects of imperialist expansion
which generated national identity questions
cient criterion for the existence of capitalist
for the uninterrupted revolution. The Third
production and accumulation, since they leave
International subordinated both the theoretical
other relations that are essential to the realiza?
theory of Capital primarily from its most devel?
oped manifestation in England and, at the time

of his death, left unelaborated how far the
latter included the less-developed sectors of
Europe and the world, which he examined
more through historical description than
through theoretical categories such as primitive
accumulation, Asiatic mode of production, and
so on. Moreover, in his newspaper accounts of
Britain in India, the Mexican-American War,
and the American Civil War, Marx termed the
extension of the process of capital accumula?
tion and the attendant social formations to the
elaboration and the political solution of these

questions to the construction of socialism in
one country, a "resolution" which has its con?
temporary adherents also. In recent years, fol?
lowing the replacement of colonialism by neo?
colonialism, struggles for national liberation
and, in some countries, for the creation of
socialism, questions relating to the extent of
capital accumulation and the structure of the
capitalist system are being reformulated in the
following terms: the "primacy" or "deter
minance" of "internal" "productive" relations
rather than "external" "circulation" or com?
mercial relations, and, supposing the former,
tion and reproduction of capital, and therefore

to the accumulation of capital, out of account.
The reaches of the capitalist system or the
extent to which particular economic activities
or social formations are incorporated in the
capitalist process of capital accumulation must
then be examined in terms of the relations of
production, exchange and realization of capital

that contribute to this process of accumulation.
To identify the reaches of capitalist accumula?
tion and the capitalist system, the relevant
question, in principle, is not simply the existing
relations of production per se and still less the
existence of wage labor (since the latter can
94
exist in isolation without contributing to the Easier to resolve, at least in principle, is the
reproduction and accumulation of capital, question of the extent of the global system as
an alternative to the ideal, and often idealized,
while production with relations of production
other than wage labor can be exchanged and
units of analysis that are so widely used in
realized as capital, and therefore contributes social
im? and historical studies, such as the village,
tribe, nation (state), or (European) continent
portantly to the accumulation of capital
throughout its history). Insofar as relations and
of their supposed past or present defining
production ? but relevant to exchange and characteristics. It may readily be argued that
realization ? are the significant criterion, itmost
is of these do not exist in past or present,
and
cannot be understood in isolation from
the transformation of the relations of produc?
each other and from the process of world

tion, circulation, and realization through their
history as a whole [14].
incorporation into the process of capital accu?
mulation that is, in theory, the relevant criteri? However difficult it may be, in practice, to
demonstrate exactly what the mutual and deter?
on of the existence of capitalism (even though
minant relation of any of these in the process
far-reaching transformation of pre-existing rela?
of world history is, it can be argued that the
tions of production was not necessary in parts
present
of India and China to permit some of their pro? existence, essential characteristics, and
much of the recent development, of most of
duction to contribute to capital accumulation
elsewhere for a time ? until that transforma? these social "units" has been shaped by their
participation in the worldwide process of
tion became necessary after all). In historical
practice, however, participation in the worldcapital accumulation and in the world capitalist
process of capital accumulation and transforma?
system for some time past. It would appear, for
instance, that capital has not so much trans?
tion of the relations of production have gone
gressed
state boundaries to become interna?
together, each being necessary for the other
?
tional in recent times, as that the national state
although the transformation of pre-existing rela?
tions of production need not entail the estab?
itself was formed long ago as a by-product and
of capital, whose existence and accumu?
lishment of wage labor everywhere. Instead, servant
in?
corporation into the worldwide process of lation had already been - and, indeed, had be?
come ? "international" before the nation state
capital accumulation may entail transformation
of relations of production from one "non was born. Turning to the present, it is clear that
capitalist" form to another, or the utilization
of still exists no independent international
there
socialist economy, market or accumulation, as
pre-existing forms of production to contribute
to capital accumulation in combination withStalin, for one, had anticipated. What remains
different circuits of circulation.
open to question is to what extent the socialist
are in or out of capitalist accumula?
This theoretical approach to the diversity countries
of
forms in the process of capital accumulationtion and world capitalism.
More difficult is the question posed by those
and the inequality in the structure of the
capitalist system, as well as the considerations
who argue that relations of production are
"internal" and therefore determinant, while ex?
below about the uneven process of accumula?
tion ? and the use of this approach in the change relations or circulation are "external"
examination of the worldwide process of and superficial or virtually irrelevant to
accumulation and its definition: Is
capital accumulation up to 1970 - may help capitalist
to
resolve some controversies about the extent capitalism,
of
and still more the transition to
capitalism, in which the present writer has ?
capitalism and the determinants of its develop?
often against his will ? been involved in thement, confined to certain centers of economic
past.
activity, leaving most of the world for a long
95
(Thus, in his essay on Contradiction, Mao Tse
time, and much of the world today, outside the
capitalist system and with certain exchange rela? Tung illustrated this principle by recalling that
tions with the centers of capitalist production
with equal external heat applied to an egg and
a stone, a chicken emerges from the former
that are "external" to both the capitalist and
the non-capitalist relations of production? Not
and nothing from the latter ? because of their
in our opinion. Without necessarily implying
different "internal" composition [16].)
such a formulation, the question of production
The analysis of a single process of accumula?
vs. circulation emerges from Marx's priority in
tion and the development of a single world
the analysis of the determination of, and deter?
capitalist system renders the question of the
minant role of the relations of production (but
internality or externality of the determination,
irrelevant and unanswerable. The determina?
of exchange value) that underlie capitalist accu?
tion is, of course, internal to where this process
mulation as against the more superficially
visible relations of exchange. The issue of the
takes place, and it must scientifically be sought
internally in the human activities ? including
determinant priority of the relations of produc?
tion over the relations of exchange also arose in population changes ? and their relations which
give rise to and participate in this process, even
Lenin's critique of the populist Narodniks in
Czarist Russia. In the debate in the Transition
if climatic or other physical circumstances may
from Feudalism [15], Dobb subscribed to its
be contributory factors [17]. The pre?
determination by transformation of relations of dominance of "internal" relations of produc?
production that were supposedly "internal" to
tion over "external" relations of exchange is
rendered all the more questionable if we con?
declining feudalism and emerging capitalism,
and "internal" to some parts of Western Europe. sider, as suggested above, the necessary connec?
tion of both of these relations for the realiza?
On the other hand Sweezy was ascribed a
"circulationist" position that supposedly inter?
preted the transition as arising from exchange
relations that were "external" to both feudal
and capitalist productive relations, and thus
"external" to Europe in that they stressed the
importance of the commercial expansion of
Europe and the productive incorporation,
particularly of the mining economies of the
New World, into the process of accumulation.
The debate has often been regarded as simply a
"chicken-and-egg" one in which Dobb was said
to argue that the transformation of European
"internal" productive relations, in the "center",
caused its commercial expansion, while Sweezy
was supposed to have argued that Europe's
"external" commercial expansion ? along the
periphery ? caused the transformation of the
relations of production from feudalism to
capitalism in Europe. In the debate, Takahashi
is regarded to have attempted a resolution
which leaned towards Dobb's analysis, if only
because, in Marxism and in life, "internal"
contradictions determine "external" ones.
tion, and therefore for the expanded reproduc?

tion and accumulation of capital ? with differ?
ing relations and modes of production.
The debate about the capitalist and other
modes of production and their relations has re?
cently assumed new vigor in many parts of the
world [18]. The result is the agreement that
Stalin's formulation of universally progressive
transition from communalism to slavery, to
feudalism, to capitalism must be abandoned as
schematically un-Marxist and altogether out of
keeping with historical reality. There is increas?
ing, but not entire, agreement that the pre?
capitalist modes and relations of production
that remain, and many that existed until not
long ago, are neither "feudal" nor "Asiatic"
and certainly need not be so. There is a variety

of modes or, at least, relations of production
and of combinations of such relations among
them, and between them and the capitalist
mode of production. Many of them are pre?
served, or even created, by the incorporation in?
to the capitalist process of capital accumulation
96
tend that their analysis as part of a single world?
of the production that is organized through this
variety of "non-capitalist" relations or modeswide process of capital accumulation requires
of production. Though there is substantial more attention, than it has heretofore received.
Most economic histories of the "world" not
agreement that only one mode of production
can be dominant ? and dominates the others only
?
characteristically omit extra-European
at one time and place, there is some disagree? (indeed non-West European, and often most
ment as to whether here or there the dominant
non-Northwest European) production and ex?
change; they neglect the participation of their
mode of production is indeed the capitalist one.
There is more disagreement ? perhaps, because
productive and exchange activities in the
European, not to say world, process of accumu?
opinion on this question is immediately related
to political strategy for national liberation and
lation and development; and they disregard the
democratic or socialist revolution ? about
part that their productive and exchange rela?
which regions, productive and exchange activ?tions played in the developing world system.
The argument here is that, whatever the answer
ities, and relations of production or social for?
mations do or do not form part of the capitalist
to our questions, it must be sought where the
system and its process of capital accumulation,
world process of accumulation took place, in?
or, to put it the other way around, how far cluding the "colonial" "periphery" of the
capitalism extends today or extended at partic?
world system as well as in the "metropolitan"
ular times and places in the past. Arguing that"center." Moreover, particular peripheries and
capitalism can only be said to exist where pro?
changing areas of the metropolis have played
duction is entirely or predominantly under? different roles in this interlocking global pro?
cess. Therefore I agree with one of the main
taken by wage labor, and denying that category
to hundreds of millions of people employed in
theses of Wallerstein, the role and changing
participation of various "intermediate" mediat?
agriculture in India and Latin America, despite
the existence of nearly half the population in?ing "semi-peripheries" ? once the Iberian
volved without ownership, and often withoutpeninsula and Eastern Europe, later the United
tenancy, in land, some claim to lead us to theStates and perhaps Russia, now possibly the
conclusion that Indian agriculture (Utsa Patnaik)
emerging "sub-imperialist" centers and/or the
Soviet Union and the socialist economies of
or entire countries in Latin America (Fernandez
and Ocampo) are "feudal" and in no way
Eastern Europe - have received little attention

capitalist today. At the same time, they ascribe
and remain inadequately understood.
this circumstance to the predominance of im? The question persists, then, where and when
perialism. In terms of the criteria proposed is capitalism to be found? More precisely, what
above, this conclusion is unacceptable. The argu?
parts of the earth ? or which productive activ?
ment is an extreme version of a tendency to re?
ities and social formations ? participated in the
gard the past and present "relations of produc?
capitalist system, that is, the single worldwide
tion" of particular parts of the world in isola?capitalist process of capital accumulation?
tion from the worldwide capitalist process of
Marx can be read as identifying the existence of
capital accumulation, and to take account of capital (capitalism?) in "the creation of a world
only part of the capitalist process of re-produc?
embracing commerce and world-embracing
tion of capital.
market" dating from the 16th century, "al?
In other words, without denying or neglect? though we come across the beginnings of
ing the importance of the detailed analysis that
capitalist production as early as the 14th and
others make of the transformation of pro?
15th century, sporadically, in certain towns of
the
Mediterranean" [19] or in "the transition
ductive relations in Europe in the past, or in
other parts of the world more recently, I confrom feudal to capitalist mode of production"
97
in the 16th and 17th centuries [20], or in the
the process of their development on the others
development of industrial capital in England
and/or begin to generate a process of accumula?
and parts of Europe in the first half of the 18th tion that came to be partially autonomous, if
century. Some would read him to claim that
not independent, of that elsewhere in the world?
large parts and whole countries of Asia, Africa,
The expanding Ottoman Empire was instru?
and Latin America are still untouched by
mental in the long-distance Oriental and
African trade which, in the 15th century, led to
capitalism today. Slavery, for instance, is not
the discovery of America, and were intimately
wage labor. Does this justify imputing to Marx
related
to the transition from feudalism to
that the slave plantation South (of the United
States) and Caribbean was not capitalist, or
capitalism in Western Europe. In the 15th and
does it help us to read Marx to say that they
particularly 16th centuries, the regions border?
were? A criterion that ? unlike the expanded
ing the Mediterranean on the North also be?
reproduction/capital accumulation ? does not
came prominent in this trade and associated
lead us to recognize that the sugar slave planta?
activities. In the 17th century, the entire
tions of Brazil in the 16th century, of more and Mediterranean area and the peoples bordering
more Caribbean islands in the 17th and 18th
it in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and the
centuries, and of Southern U.S. cotton slave
Middle East or Western Asia again lost their
plantations in the 19th century were essential
prominent place and participation. If Southern
parts of a single system and historic process, in Europe's role in capitalist development was
which they contributed materially to the primi? then slowed down, was the Ottoman and Arab
tive, and then industrial accumulation of
people's position in the system eliminated
capital concentrated in particular times and
entirely? More likely, I would argue that they
places, that criterion must be rejected as in?
experienced an involution, differing according
to differences in their internal structure (as sug?
adequate. If the slave-using economies of the
Americas were integral parts of the system and gested by Amin), not unlike that of other areas
essential contributors to its development, then
in recent history. The same increase of produc?
were the "single export" slave-producing
tion and expansion of trade thus imposed upon
societies of Africa not equally implicated in the the productive activities and social formations
process of accumulation? But exactly how far
in the aforementioned regions nonetheless did
into the interior of Africa did the slave trade
and slave wars extend to incorporate pre?

capitalist societies into the world process of
accumulation? Irrespective of which "colonial"
mode of production was generated in or im?
posed on the mining activities of Mexico, Peru
and Minas Gerais, and through them on the sur?
rounding areas, peoples, and social formations,

they also participated materially in the same
system and process. Does this mean that all of
Mexico, Peru and other surrounding areas and
peoples were already, during colonial times,
integral parts of the worldwide, if not all
embracing, system? Were the mining and even
backward-linked agricultural and other supply
producing activities metropolitan overseas
enclaves? Then at what point did these impose
not result in far-reaching transformation of the
mode of production in South and Southeast

Asia until the second half of the 18th century,
despite the active participation in this same pro?
cess of far flung substantial productive activ?
ities in these sub-continents, or in China and

Japan, which remained predominantly isolated
from the system until the mid-19th century.
By above-mentioned criterion, these major

regions of the world remained unincorporated
(or were so only marginally) in the process of
capital accumulation, even though here and
there, particularly in certain regions of India,
some contribution to the universal, and

universalizing system was made before their in?
corporation. Beyond the Eurocentric question,
"why didn't they colonize us?", one may also
98
ness of the bourgeoisie; therefore, dis?
continuous process of primitive accumulation.
and Peru, or of black labor in the slave planta? In the West, the lower labor productivity in
tions of the Caribbean ? and the transforma? agriculture, with more limited population,
made possible fragmentation of political power,
tion and formation of productive relations
there ? for a time postponed, but ultimately thereby enabling the rise of a politically more
made all the more necessary, the transforma? powerful bourgeoisie, and a big reverse from
tion of "Asiatic" modes of production, and thediscontinuous to continuous accumulation of
sacrifice of Indian labor in India?
capital in the 15th century . . ." However that
ask to what extent, and how, the sacrifice of

"Indian" labor in the silver Mines of Mexico
may be ? and the question remains open

Beginning in the 16th century, Eastern
Europe experienced a "second serfdom" at the despite the answer of Mandel, Barrington
same time that Western Europe was busy freeing Moore, Amin and others ? after all, even Max
itself from its "first". Through the production Weber recognized, through his comparative
and export of cereals and raw materials, the
study of Oriental with Western society and
second serfs of Eastern Europe helped fill the their religions, that the answer lies not in the
gap between the supply and demand for the
realm of "ethics" or "spirit," but in the forces
same in Western Europe which paid the Easternand relations of production and exchange as
landlords for them partially with American
well as the associated political organization of
society. These same circumstances, which im?
silver and Oriental spices ? which was occa?
sioned by the sheep who ate (the grain of) men peded prior capitalist development and expan?
during the enclosures, the men who moved to sion in the East, also offered it the strength to
the towns to breathe "free" air in their transi?
resist substantial incursion from the West for a
tion from feudalism to capitalism in Western long time, and/or to render Western and
Europe. Russia did not seem to participate, un? capitalist geographic, economic and politico
military incursion beyond isolated spots of the
til Peter the Great opened a window in
Petrograd. Can we account for all of this, be it coast and, of course, structurally different parts
proto, capitalist development? And "why
of Southeast Asia too costly and unattractive
before the late 18th and the 19th centuries.
didn't 'they' colonize 'us'?," to quote an
ethnocentric challenge to ethnocentricity. Why
did the Chinese, who sent merchant fleets of
3. ON UNEVEN STAGES, CYCLES AND CRISES IN
200 ships, each larger than the Europeans
ACCUMULATION
would have until years to come, to the coast of
East Africa in the 15th century, not develop
Another set of questions concerns the
and dominate a long-distance trade? Instead,
temporal unevenness of the process of capital
they constricted the trade and bridled their
accumulation and capitalist development. One
merchants ? for "internal" reasons. Why did faces again the problem of distinguishing phases,
the Indians, whose cotton textile technology stages or epochs in this process and the problem
was the world's most advanced and whose ex? of the transition from one to another. In addi?
port of textile production was, by far, the
tion to, though not independent from these,
greatest until 1800, not carry through the in?
there remains the problem of observing and
dustrial revolution? Ernest Mandel [21] writes: analyzing the fluctuations or cycles in the pro?
"You know my answer: because the more ad? cess of accumulation. If, in the centuries prior
vanced agriculture in the East led to a bigger in?to the industrial revolution, there was a previ?
crease in population, which made irrigation
ous so-called primitive accumulation during the
works imperative; therefore, centralization of pre-history of capital, how were the starting
the agrarian surplus; therefore, political weak point of this pre-capitalist history, and its transi
99
tion to capitalist accumulation and develop?
ment related to fluctuations or cycles in this so
called primitive accumulation?
Along with some students of history, I sug?
gest that there may have existed a long "up
and-down-swing", which manifested itself in
the expansion associated with the crusades of
the 12th and part of the 13th centuries, fol?
cycles in the process of accumulation or primi?

tive accumulation of merchant capital? Did the
downswings, and especially the crises, bring
with them disadjustments that permitted and/or
obliged readjustments in economic, including
productive, relations so that one may argue,
that the economic crises, even during the pre?
lowed by a long downswing in the 14th and
history of industrial capital, already played an

essential cathartic role in the development of
part of the 15th centuries, which brought in its
the process of accumulation through transfor?
train the black death, among other socio?

economic and demographic convulsions.
Apparently, there was an economic recupera?
tion in parts of Europe, beginning at the end of
the 15th century and running through much of
mations in productive and exchange relations?

In a word, even though the reproduction cycle
of industrial capital was not yet developed, is it
legitimate to argue, as I am inclined to, that the
process of accumulation had begun prior to the
industrial revolution? In that case, how did the
the 16th century, of which the discovery, con?
quest and exploitation of America was but a
process of accumulation compare with or differ
part. Can these hypotheses be sustained, and if
from the cycle of industrial capital?
so, do they imply that so-called primitive accu?
The historical process of capital accumula?
mulation began, in some sense, already during
tion and capitalist development has occurred in
these centuries?
phases or stages. Of course, these phases do not
If there were such pre-capitalist and even pre have an existence independent from the process
pre-capitalist economic fluctuations, in what
itself, nor does the process exist without its
sense were they related to the process not to
phases. Similarly, the process of accumulation
say cycle, of accumulation ? at a time when
and its phases of development have been tempo?
there was no industrial capitalist cycle of
rally uneven, in that they have had expansive
capital accumulation? Were these ups and
upswings and contractive downswings, which
downs totally random fluctuations, or reflec?
are also integral parts of the process. It is ap?
tions only of climatically generated and/or
parently possible to distinguish, as I have
demographic fluctuations ? that should not be
sought to, so-called long economic up and
called "cycles" in that the germ of the down?
down swings; but the process of accumulation
swing was not already contained in the up?
is also marked by "medium" and short fluctua?
swing, and still less vice versa? Insofar as these
tions and cycles. Of course, these latter are also
long swings were reflected in prices, were they,
integral parts of the longer swings as well, as
as Braudel and Spooner seem to argue in the

Cambridge Economic History, only variations
in price (and below them of agricultural and
money supply); or were they, as is suggested
here, more than that? And what more? Can we
distinguish long swings in production or in
rates of growth of production? Can we, to go
daily and momentary events are also integral

aspects of these and of the whole historical
further, find fluctuations in investment and
even in profitability which could be termed

cycles, in that the downswing is caused by the
upswing itself? In that case, can it be sustained,
as I suggest, that these were up-and-down
process. That is, history does not have a reified

existence apart from the multiple events of
which it is composed; and the events and their
uneven occurrence do not take place outside of
history [22]. This obliges us to ask which
events, which regularities, which patterns of un
evenness, and which economic cycles one
wishes to select for observation and study.
That depends, of course, on the purpose. A
short term speculator may be most interested
100
in the minute to minute fluctuations of the
stockmarket. During the so-called inventory

cycles, inventories are built up and run down.
In the "classical" "Juglar" eight-to-ten-year
business cycles, investment is accelerated and
decelarated, but using essentially the same tech?
nology and productive relations. Construction
varies in the eighteen-to-twenty-year "Kuznets"
cycles. The major changes and transformations
in the process of capital accumulation, of course,
include all of these but seem to be particularly
related to the innovations in technology or
productive forces, and the transformations in
productive relations associated with the so
called fifty year long waves associated with the
name of Kondratieff (though this does not im?
ply acceptance of his theory of cycles) or with
sets of them and with the transformation of the
mode of production from one stage of develop?

ment to another. It is these latter, and within
them the periods of economic and political
crisis, which deserve preferential attention. But
this raises the question whether these long
waves exist at all, inasmuch as their very
existence has been challenged even for our
times; whether they existed ? and how they
could exist ? before the advent of industrial
capitalism; and how they can be identified to
be a century or more long during the pre?
history of capital?
More concretely, in what sense was there a
"17th century (of) depression"? It is clear that
beginning late in the century, the expansion of
the 16th century came to a halt. Compared to
the previous uneven expansion, much of the
17th century witnessed a decline in the pro?
duction of silver and in the growth of the
money supply, long periods of deflation, great?
ly reduced transatlantic trade, less expansion of
oriental trade, and, perhaps, depressed produc?
tion and rates of growth. Certainly, there were
respects, was catastrophic and, until today, per?

manent, relative to the Northwest of Europe [23].
Why then did the Mediterranean decline?
Did the Mediterranean regions become less com?
petitive? Were they, in response to a general de?
cline in demand, at least in internationally
traded goods, less able to reduce costs of pro?
duction and to undertake the social changes in
productive relations and/or technological
changes in productive forces necessary to re?
main competitive? It has been suggested, for in?
stance, that in the Italian cities, the effective op?
position of the guilds prevented such changes.

What prevented them in Spain and Portugal,
where the state was relatively strong? In
Portugal, perhaps, this relative strength was
cancelled out by the economic concessions
made to Britain in return for political protec?
tion against Spain. And in the latter? Some of
Spain's economic weakness and "anti-national"

economic policies may be traced ? already in
the 16th century ? to her Habsburg Emperors,

who were in permanent debt to foreign bankers
to finance their European wars.
Returning to the question of international
competitiveness, were costs of production, in
textiles for example, higher in the South than
in the North of Europe? The 16th century in?
flation had been more severe in the South
(which was closer to the source of money) than

in the North, raising prices more in the former
than in the latter, and encouraging exports
from the North to the South. But insofar as the
inflation was an important instrument in the de

cline of real wages, had they not declined more
and perhaps farther in the South of Europe
than in the North? What accounts for the in?
creasing differentiation of Northern Europe

during the 17th century as well? Germany was
effectively taken out of the running by the
30 Years' War [24]. But was this war a cause of
German decline; or, as one may suspect, was it
rather more a result of the decline? Holland en?
more, longer severer economic and political

crises. The Mediterranean area ? Portugal,
Spain, Italy and the Ottoman Empire ? which
joyed its "golden 17th century", but it was
had been in economic ascendency in the 16th
based on commerce, Dutch expansion in the
century, now suffered a decline, which, in many Orient was more at the expense of Portugal
101
rather than representing a net growth of
European trade, partially also at the expense of

Britain and Northern Germany and it did not
last beyond the century. But why was this com?
merce, as well as Dutch finishing of raw British

cloth, not translated into productive develop?
ment, taking advantage also of the textile pro?
ductive capacity and experience in the Flemish
regions (of present day Belgium)? Why, finally,
was Britain, which at the beginning of the cen?
tury was uncompetitive even with Holland, by
the end of the century able to challenge a much
more powerful France, and go on in the 18th
century effectively to win out over her French
rival? The development of the "new draperies"
through the putting out system was a factor, as
were the associated "bourgeois" revolutions of
1640 and 1688, and the intervening anti-Dutch
Navigation Acts. That is, British manufacturing
and overseas commerce could increasingly
count on the effective support of a growing,
strong state. But did not the France of Louis
XIV ("l'etat c'est moi") also have a strong state?
Was not Colbert the archetype of overseas state
supported mercantilism? One answer is that
Colbert only represented the relatively weak
merchant and manufacturing interests against
the stronger, landed, continent oriented inter?
ests defended by Louis XIV's Minister of War.
And if in England, the merchant and manu?
facturing interests (and what were the conflicts
of interest between them?) so effectively gained
the upper hand under Cromwell after 1640,
then why was the "glorious" "bourgeois" revo?
lution of 1688 necessary?
Returning to the question of long cyclical
swings in silver and gold production, prices, and
production, or even investment, in general, was
the decline in silver production, and in the
growth of the money supply the "cause" of
the "depression", or were they rather the con?
sequence of an already then existing cycle of
over and under accumulation that was deter?
mined otherwise, but still within the process of

accumulation itself? And why was there, also,
an uneven recovery in the 18th century? If
there was an "investment cycle", how so? And

in that case, how did the process of so-called
primitive accumulation differ from that of
capitalist accumulation?
Skipping over the first half of the 18th cen?
tury, I shall turn now to some major questions

raised by the treatment of the period 1761-63
to 1790?93 as a long crisis-ridden "downswing"
which brought with it not only the American
and the French, but also the "Industrial" revo?
lution. A first question, of course, is whether it
can be satisfactorily established that there was

an economic downturn (from what?) during
these three decades. Was there a slow-down in
production and also in productive or at least

commercial investment? There is evidence that
there was a decline, at least, in profitability in
the British connected world economy; and that
an attempt was made to counteract this decline
through measures such as paper increases in
the supply of money by the Bank of England,
and the establishment of country banks. The
production of gold fell off, and towards the end
of the century the production and supply of
silver began to rise sharply again. One of my
hypotheses is that in each major economic
crisis, the process of accumulation depends
critically on a sharp increase of super-exploita?
tion and so-called primitive accumulation. This
apparent tendency seems to have been reflected
after 1760 in the acceleration of the enclosure
movement in Britain (reflected in Oliver
Goldsmith's "Deserted Village") and by the

plunder of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey
(1757) in India. Both represent significant in?
creases of primitive accumulation, but the
former also generated wage labor and the latter
did not. Can we say that these and other
changes in the relations of production, and in
the amount of capital that was amassed rep?
resent the crisis generated adjustment in the
process of capital accumulation that followed
upon a previous over-accumulation through
other means? If the previous, mid-century and
earlier, accumulation had "run out of steam"
and led to declining rates of profitability, had
102
this been only in the realm of merchant capital?
Or was, as I suspect, productive capital, which
was invested, for instance, in overseas sugar
plantations and in domestic agriculture, and
certain lines of manufacturing in Europe also af?
fected by a crisis of profitability? (There is no
doubt that the British-owned sugar plantations
in the Caribbean began their decline after 1763,
but the French then only just began their
"golden age", only to be sunk into oblivion by
the revolution in Haiti, which probably fol?
lowed upon a period of over-exploitation in
Haiti by the French, after the latter had lost all
further opportunities in India, North America
and Africa following the Peace of Paris in 1763).
But, again, if these events already represent
cyclical fluctuations in productive investment,
how did this pre-history of capital differ from
its history, which began with the industrial
revolution? And what were "the causes of the
industrial revolution"? I suggest that the causes

of the Industrial Revolution must be sought, at
least partially, in this post-1761 economic crisis.
But it has been objected that, even if all the
other questions about this post 1760 period
could be satisfactorily answered, so momentous
a transformation in world history as the in?
dustrial revolution can hardly be ascribed to a

supposed thirty year economic crisis. Perhaps,
but we are only suggesting that the crisis ac?
celerated and made definitive a transformation
that was already underway earlier in the 18th

century, and even before. Moreover, no one has
yet been able to offer a whole or wholly satis?
factory explanation of the causes of the in?
dustrial revolution.
4. ON UNENDING CLASS STRUGGLE IN
ACCUMULATION
"The history of all hitherto existing society
is the history of class struggle", Marx and
Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto.
Nonetheless, notwithstanding numerous studies
of its various aspects, and despite the pre?
valence of Schoolbook "political" history, a
real history of the class struggle remains one of
the least developed of Marxist, social and

economic historiography. Particularly weak is
the analysis of class formation and struggle in
relation to the process of capital accumulation
as a whole. Here I shall confine myself to a few
isolated and superficial observations, or ques?
tions, about capital accumulation and class for?
mation and composition, and about class con?
flict and struggle as manifested through the
state, warfare, and ideological or religious and
political conflict or revolution.
The unequal and uneven process of accumu?
lation was both cause and consequence of in?
creasing differentiation of productive forces
and relations, and these of differences in class
composition and interests. For instance rela?
tively minor variations in productive and social
circumstances between Eastern and Western
Europe in the late Middle Ages nonetheless per?
mitted (or in the 16th century, economic expan?
sion resulted in) the decline of serfdom and the
development of certain manufactures in certain
areas of the West, while generating or re
enforcing a class of landowners in the East
whose interests were opposed to a parallel
development, and were tied instead to the pro?
duction of staples for export to the West, for
the production of which ? in the absence of
sufficient urban opposition ? they successfully
forced the peasantry into a "second serfdom".
In the New World also, and through the slave
trade in Africa, the place of the local organiza?
tion of production in the international division
of labor generated the development of powerful
classes of productive, commercial, political and
military entrepreneurs and officials (the distinc?
tion was often hard to make) whose immediate
economic interests were tied to production for
and trade with Europe at the expense of the
local population. Less clear is how and why
these metropolitan and local interests were so
successfully able to impose themselves and
their economic, social, and political order,
despite constant opposition of the oppressed
and exploited sectors of the population, whose
103
Opposition has, with little exception, gone
largely unrecorded by the ruling groups who
have written history. In Europe itself, this pro?
cess of differentiation, and generation of con?
flicting interests contributed to its agitated
history of domestic and foreign conflict.
As Marx observed, force and violence were,

throughout, the midwife of this process, and
much of this force and violence was organized
and institutionalized by the state, whose prin?
cipal raison d'etre has been, and remains, the
subsidy of one social class and sector at the ex?
pense of another. Though perhaps still insuffi?
ciently studied, the importance of the state in
the colonial system, both in the motherland
and the colony, and in the associated mercan?
tile system and the commercial wars is evident.
But, as Adam Smith himself ? albeit not all

those who recognize him as the father of their
discipline - emphasized, and Marx reiterated,

the emergence and behavior of the state played
an essential role in the development of
"domestic" or "national" capitalism, either by
enforcing the separation of producers from
their means of production, and the provision of
a labor force capable of producing surplus, not
to say extra, surplus value, and/or through the
provision of laws and measures that permit or
facilitate the realization of surplus value by
capital. The development of the state, and
particularly of the absolute state in the 17th
century, did not take place ? Wallerstein [25]
suggests ? until the attempts at empire building,
especially of the Habsburgs, had failed. But in?
sofar as this is the case ? it may also be sug?
gested (though Wallerstein says it was inherent?
ly impossible) ? that the failure of empire it?
self was in part immediately occasioned by the
end of economic expansion. Similarly, it may
be suggested that the rise of the strong state
with more limited "national" sovereignty was
the result of economic depression in the 17th,
and in France already in part of the 16th cen?
tury, which imposed economic retrenchment
and exacerbated economic, social and political
conflict within neighboring regions and socio
economic groups at the same time that it made

them rivals for more limited opportunities of
those in other "nations" in formation. Louis
XIV and Colbert on the one hand and Cromwell
and the Long Parliament on the other were re?
sults of the 17th century Depression, even if
they were not the only possible solutions. The
"nationalist" policies of their states were the
response, in periods of economic difficulty, of
compromise and arbitration between contend?
ing economic interest groups, and the conver?
sion of the winner's interests into state and
national policy. This was most clearly visible in

the ever more commercially motivated inter?
national alliances and Anglo-Dutch and Anglo

French and Hispanic wars of the 17th and 18th
centuries. Among these, we may distinguish
between "offensive" wars or military campaigns
and international diplomacy during or imme?
diately following periods of economic upswing,
and "defensive" ones during times of economic
downswing and depression. The place of
"religious" wars and those of dynastic succes?
sion", as well as of all war, in the worldwide
process of capital accumulation is, of course, in
need of much more study.
The relation of ideological and religious con?
flict to the process of capital accumulation ?
and to its unequal incidence and uneven tempo
? also requires more systematic study. Of
course, in the context of historical materialism,
Tawney's argument in Religion and the Rise of
Capitalism [26] ? that the conditions of the
latter provide the context of the former ? are
more persuasive than Weber's in The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [27] - to
the effect that the former generates the latter
and I would argue [28] how unsatisfactory this

Weber thesis is in contrast to the analysis of
relations of production and exchange in the
process of capital accumulation. Thus, if Jews
and Protestants were in Europe associated with
economic expansion ? albeit not for reason of
their "ethic" ? their expulsion here and there,
and the counter-reformation in one principality
or another, would seem to have been imme
104
diately related to economic contraction and/or
renewed dominance of landed interests [29].
That rebellion and revolution are related to
sociated with Watt, Arkwright, Ely et al., were,
in part, attempts, generated by economic crises,

at reducing costs of production and expanding
alterations in class composition arising out of
economic frontiers during periods of objective
changes in forces and relations of production,
economic constriction. Though there is some
and that they are often sparked by economic
evidence of state and other institutionally
crises, is amply documented but not system?
sponsored and financed technological research ?
atically enough analyzed in the context of the
along with the establishment of scientific
societies and institutes ? associated with the
process of accumulation as a whole. The
crisis of the 17th century, the fact that many
English, French and American Revolutions of
the 17th and 18th centuries not to mention
major scientific and technological advances
later and contemporary revolutions and counter? then, and since then, were invented by extra
revolutions, are related to such economic and
institutional outsiders or loners (Einzelg?nger,
autodidacta),
would seem to lend still more
political crises.
To observe and to argue that these political
plausibility to the hypothesis: It is they ? and
that is why they are outsiders ? who are
and ideological ? "superstructural" ? events
are not arbitrarily self-determined, but have for
particularly convulsed by the agitation of the
times.
centuries been determined parts of the unequal
incidence and uneven tempo of the process of
My hypothesis is that the economic crisis al?
capital accumulation, not only on a local or
so becomes indirectly effective through the
national but on a world scale, is not to deny, of political one that it engenders ? and this effect
is particularly strong on those individuals ? also
course, that they in turn also exercise qualita?
loners or rebels ? who suggest the revolutionarv
tively crucial and far reaching influences on
this process of accumulation and its "infra?
advances in philosophy and the arts, as well as
structure". On the contrary, though my analysis in the sciences. Most of the Renaissance was co?
incident with the 14th and 15th century crisis
is particularly inadequate in this regard, the
argument is that political and ideological, as
or crises, and many of its most important
well as cultural and scientific movements are
figures were politically moved thereby (though
decisive for the "economic" process.
the "High Renaissance" in Italy coincided with
One of my hypotheses in this regard is that
what was apparently already a period of
the incidence of major scientific and technical
economic upswing). But many of the leading
invention, as well as of philosophical and
figures of 17th century philosophical and
artistic "revolution" is coincident with
artistic renewal, and of the late 18th century
economic ? and therefore political ? crisis.
"Enlightment", worked and gained acceptance
Perhaps cumulative step-wise scientific and cul?
in periods of economic and political crisis.
tural advance is fed by and achieved during
Similarly, scientific, philosophical and cultural
"revolutions" in the 19th and 20th centuries
periods of economic expansion, to whose con?
tinuance they may also help to contribute.

But my hypothesis is that "Kuhnian revolu?
tions" in scientific, philosophical or cultural
paradigms arise directly or indirectly out of
economic crisis in which 'necessity is the
mother of invention'. I suggest that the 17th
century "scientific revolution" associated with
Galileo, Leibniz, Descartes and others, and the
late 18th century "technological revolution" as
may be said to have occurred during periods of

particular economic and political crises, and
through the mediation of minds that were
particularly agitated by these crises. Of course,
their work in turn had far-reaching influence on
the course of human history and on the process

of capital accumulation thereafter. To some
extent even the "revolutionary" interpretation
and writing of history thus has had and can
105
have some influence on the course of history
itself!
NOTES
1 This essay, here slightly edited, constitutes the "Introduc?
tion" to the author's book on the history of world capital
accumulation, tentatively entitled "World Accumulation
1492-1789."
2 Karl Marx, Capital (Moscow; Foreign Languages

Publishing House), Vol. I, ch. 12, p. 579.
3 Ibid, Vol. I, ch. 12, p. 315.
4 He mentions it in five lines "as one of the most important
factors checking the tendency of the rate of profit to fall"
in Vol. Ill, p. 230, and in four pages among the circum?
stances that. . . determine the amount of accumulation" in
Vol. I, pp. 599-602.

5 Ibid, p. 599.
6 Ibid, p. 602.
7 Roger Bartra, "Modos de producci?n y estructura agraria en
Mexico" in Historia y Sociedad. (Mexico: 2. epoca, N. 1.),
pp. 23-30.
8 Capital Vol. I, pp. 713-714.

9 Ibid, pp. 759-760.
10 For estimates of unequal exchange, see Samir Amin,
L 'accumulation a Vechelle mondiale, (Paris: Anthropos,
1970), and for estimates of the underdeveloped countries'
excess of merchandise exports over imports between 1880
and 1910 see Frank, 1973b.

11 Capital, Vol. I, pp. 146, 753-754.
12 Addressing the Congress of the Hungarian Communist

Party in Budapest on March 19, 1975 the head of the
Soviet Party, Leonid Brezhnev, said that because of
"broad economic links between capitalist and socialist
countries, the ill effects of the current crisis in the West
also had an impact on the socialist world." Nor, apparently

is this impact casual or unintentional: Already in its 1966
resolution the Central Committee of the Hungarian party
said "the new economic mechanism should establish a
close relationship between internal and external markets.
It should increase the impact of influences originating in
foreign markets on domestic . . ."
13 Karl Marx, Grundrisse, (London: Penguin Books, 1973),
p. 520.
14 I have previously argued as much under the titles "Sociology

of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology" and
"Functionalism and Dialectics" in Andre Gunder Frank,
Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution, (New

York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), and "On Theoretical
Issues in Economic Anthropology", Current Anthropology,
Vol. 11, N. 1, Feb. 1970, pp. 67-71.
15 Paul M. Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, H.K. Takahshi, Rodney

Hilten and Christopher Hill, The Transition from Feudalism
to Capitalism, (New York: Science and Society, 1963).
16 The present author has frequently been criticized as a
"Narodnik" "circulationist," who, in the tradition of such
less guilty parties as Baran and Sweezy, has supposedly con?
fused capitalism with exchange to the total or virtual exclu
sion of production and for mistakenly arguing that

''external" relations in or with the periphery are deter?
minant instead of "internal" ones in the center. A citation,
classification and partial answer to some fifty-odd critiques
was attempted in an answer to critics (Frank, 1972).
Though I admit having examined relations of exchange,
perhaps overly so, I already rejected the contention of
having entirely neglected relations of production in the pre?
faces to the revised edition of my Capitalism and Under
development in Latin America, (New York: Monthly

Review Press, 1969, 2nd. rev. ed., London: Penguin Books,
1971) and to Lumpenbourgeoisie: Lumpendevelopment,
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972).
17 This book is intended as a step toward the "internal"
explanation of this worldwide process. Another major step
is Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World System, Vol. I
(of four planned volumes): Capitalist Agriculture and the
Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth
Century, (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
18 In India, the Economic and Political Weekly has been carry?
ing an ongoing debate on modes of production in Indian
agriculture and colonial modes of production since 1971
(summarized in Frank, 1973) and the Journal for
Contemporary Asia has done so for other areas as well. In
France, Recherches Internationales ? la Lumiere du
Marxisme and the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches
Marxistes have published collective volumes on the second
serfdom in Eastern Europe and on feudalism, respectively,
while La Pensee carries occasional individual articles, and
Amin, Meillassoux, Rey and others have published major
books advancing our analysis, especially for Africa, of the
problem of modes of production. Ahlers et al. in West
Germany and Kossok in East Germany have prepared new
analyses of modes of production in Latin America. In
Latin America itself, Cuadernos del Pasado y Presente in
Buenos Aires, Cuadernos de la Realidad Nacional in Chile
before the coup, Estudios Centroamericanos in San Jose,
Costa Rica, Historia y Sociedad in its new series in Mexico
and Ciencias Economicas y Sociales in Caracas have, over
the past four or five years, devoted well over a thousand
pages of analysis by Laclau, Sempat, Cardoso, Cordova,
Semo, Cuevas, Barta and others to colonial and other
modes of production and social formations in Latin
America and the Caribbean. The more or less common de?
nominator of terminological use in this discussion, which
we shall adopt here, is that "relations of production" con?
cretely refer to these in the narrower sense, "mode of pro?
duction" is a more abstract concept referring to ideal type
combinations of one or more relations of production with
forces of production, and therefore sometimes also of
extraction of surplus and the related superstructure, and
"social (and economic) formation" refers to a particular
concrete combination of relations of modes of production
and superstructure in a particular time and place. Though
of these, "mode of production" has the most currency in
the discussion, we prefer whenever possible to refer to the
more concretely identifiable "relations of production."
19 Capital, Vol. I, pp. 715, 146.
20 Ibid, Vol. Ill, pp. 327-330.
106
21 Ernest Mandel, (personal communication, February 19,
1975).
22 Thus, Pierre and Huguette Chaunu observe in their classic

study of the area: "The economy of the Spanish-American
Atlantic ... is thus an economy of long phases, those long
phases so dear to the hearts of French historians. It is, how?
ever, possible to discern within these great movements first the rise, then the leveling-off or decline - a series. . .
of short term cyclical fluctuations in sixteenth and seven?
teenth century economies: fluctuations which in the ab?
sence of statistics can be guessed at rather than perceived.
Cyclical fluctuations ripple through .. . from 1504 to 1650.
From 1590 to 1650, a cycle of about 10 to 11 years may

be clearly distinguished, lagging slightly behind the decade the declining phase corresponding roughly to the first half
of the decade, the rising phase to the second half. It re?
mains to be seen what these short fluctuations imply ....
Nor is it impossible that between the 10-11 year fluctua?
tions and the centennial ones (rising phase 1508-1620,
declining phase 1620-1680) we may be able to discover

intermediate fluctuations of 15 or 20 years, or longer, ac?
cording to the period, fluctuations known to historians of
the French school as 'interdecennial fluctuation'.... To
sum up, there is no golden rule for determining short- and
medium-term fluctuations in the Spanish-Atlantic economy

from 1504 to 1650." Chaunu, Pierre and Huguette. "The
Atlantic Economy" in Essays in European Economic

History 1500-1800, Peter Earle (ed.), (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1974), p. 122-123.
23 On the other hand, the Chaunus also write: "Nor is there,
and on this point we wish to conclude, a single economic
cycle for the Spanish Atlantic . . . There are several
economic cycles, of which that of the Spanish Atlantic is
at most a resultant. The economic space of the sixteenth
century, and even more that of the seventeenth, was cer?
tainly much more partitioned than that of the twentieth,
and a fortiori the nineteenth" (Chaunu, p. 123). And the

student of the French Languedoc region, Le Roy, objects:
". . . is it correct, in connection with such a period, to
employ catch-all phrases like 'the crisis of the seventeenth
century'; or to speak of the 'reversal of the conjuncture' be?
ginning in the early decades of the century? Such expres?
sions are perfectly valid in regard to the Spanish-colonial
conjuncture, to Ibero America .... They are equally valid
in regard to Castille and Italy; and a few decades later could
be applied to Germany and neighboring Burgundy
devastated by the Thirty Years War. But outside these

geographical limits, vast as they are, simple extrapolation is
impossible. One cannot even assert that the 'Mediterranean
conjuncture', as a whole, supports the thesis of a change of
direction around 1620: some violent short-lived crises, yes;
a demographic slow-down (beginning in the last third of the
sixteenth century), without a doubt; a universal secular
depression, no - at least not yet; because Provence,
Languedoc, and Catalonia ? all of the considerable

Mediterranean Littoral of the Gulf of Lion, from Tarragona
to Toulon - escaped the radical reversal of the economic
conjuncture which assumed henceforth a southern,
peninsular, and from a European point of view, almost
marginal character. On the northernmost shores of the
Mediterranean, the conjuncture subsided; it changed pace;
it grew sluggish; it did not yet reverse itself (Le Roy,
p. 146). I would, on the contrary argue that Ladurie'sown
account suggests that the conjuncture was not so "marginal"
after all, and still less so if we observe that it appeared in
England, Portugal and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well
as parts of Eastern Europe, as well. It is inherent in this
process that crises affect different sectors and regions un?
equally and even unevenly, permitting some of them rela?
tive - and eventually some of them also absolute advantages over others.
24 Yet it has been claimed that the "Thirty Years War . . . did
not entail long lasting economic decline in the countries in
which it was waged. ... In Germany, too, industry re?
covered quite rapidly . . . but rather industry modified its
organization by returning to more primitive forms. . ."
Jerzy Topolski, "Polish Economic Decline" in Essays in
European Economic History.

25 The Modern World System: Vol. I, p. 136 ff.
26 R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism.
(New York: Mentor, 1947). Original edition, 1926.
27 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism. (New York: Scribners, 1958). Original edition
1904-5.
28 Andre Gunder Frank, "On the Roots of Development and

Underdevelopment in the New World: Smith and Marx vs.
The Weberians" in Theory and Society, 2 (1975) 431-466,
and Revue Internationale de Sociologie, II Series, 10 (1974)
2-3, Aug.-Dec.
29 For a related argument see The Modern World System:
Vol. I, p. 147 ff.
Dialectical Anthropology 2 (1977) 87-106

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ON SO-CALLED PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION

Author(s): Andre Gunder Frank

ON SO-CALLED PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION

Andre Guilder Frank

I have not answered all the questions that my readers will

has made me pass over many paths, pursuing many

ON PRIMITIVE, PRIMARY AND CAPITALIST

A major open question concerns the basis

Andre Gunder Frank is Professor at the Max Planck Institute,

labourer's necessary consumption fund into a

through technological innovation and increas?

The meaning of this "so-called primitive ac?

centuries examined (1492-1789) bears further

previous, prior, (in German) urspr?ngliche,

veiled slavery of the wage-workers in Europe

the producers' consumption fund for the accu?

Marx seems to exclude the 14th and 15 th

creasing accumulation. The treasures captured

transport to Europe contribute to amassing

A further question of immediate political,

lation today. No doubt, the production of use

sion of a potential reserve army of labor and

The sustenance of a potential reserve army

the accumulation of capital is difficult to de?

ly contributes to capitalist realization and accu?

the nature, extent, and combination of capital?

If capitalist production is the production of

oped manifestation in England and, at the time

elaboration and the political solution of these

tion and reproduction of capital, and therefore

production, exchange and realization of capital

each other and from the process of world

tion, and therefore for the expanded reproduc?

and certainly need not be so. There is a variety

to the capitalist process of capital accumulation

and Ocampo) are "feudal" and in no way

Eastern Europe - have received little attention

and slave wars extend to incorporate pre?

rounding areas, peoples, and social formations,

not result in far-reaching transformation of the

mode of production in South and Southeast

ities in these sub-continents, or in China and

By above-mentioned criterion, these major

some contribution to the universal, and

ask to what extent, and how, the sacrifice of

may be ? and the question remains open

resist substantial incursion from the West for a

cycles in the process of accumulation or primi?

lowed by a long downswing in the 14th and

history of industrial capital, already played an

part of the 15th centuries, which brought in its

the process of accumulation through transfor?

train the black death, among other socio?

mations in productive and exchange relations?

integral parts of the longer swings as well, as

as Braudel and Spooner seem to argue in the

daily and momentary events are also integral

further, find fluctuations in investment and

even in profitability which could be termed

process. That is, history does not have a reified

stockmarket. During the so-called inventory

mode of production from one stage of develop?

respects, was catastrophic and, until today, per?

position of the guilds prevented such changes.