480 + The Critique of Capitalism the lazaruslayer of the workingclas, and the industrial reserve faz, the greater is oficial paupetism, This i the absolute genera ley of capitalist accumulation. Like all other laws tis modibed in its working by many cicumstances, the analysis of which does not concer 18 here, ‘The folly is now patent ofthe economic wisdom that preaches to the labourers the accommodation of their number to the requite- ments of capital. The mechanism of capitalist prodtion and a ‘cumulation constantly effets this adjustment. The 6st word ofthis ‘aptation isthe creation of 2 relative surplus population, a indur tra ese army. ts last word i the misery of constantly extending strata of the active army of labour, and the dead weight of pauper “The lw by which a constantly increasing quantity of means of production, thanks to the advance in the productiveness of social boar, may be set in movernent by 2 progresively diminishing expenditure of human power, thi law, in 2 capitalist society— were the labourer does not employ the means of production, but the means of production employ the labourer—undergoes a om plete inversion and is expressed thus: the higher the productiveness Of labour, the greater isthe pressure ofthe labourers on the means of employment, the more precarious, therefore, becomes their com dition of existence, vz, the sale of ther own labour power for the increasing of another’ wealth, or forthe slfexpanson of capital, ‘The fact thatthe means of production, and the productiveness of Inbour, increase more rapidly. than the productive population, expresses itself therefore, captalistialy in the inverse form that the labouring population alvays increases more sapidly than the conditions under which capital ean employ this increase for its own ‘elfexpansion ‘We saw in Part IV., when analysing the production of relative surplusvalue: within the capitalist system all methods for raising the socal productiveness of abour are brought about atthe cost of the individual labourer all means forthe development of produc: tion transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers, they mutilate the labourer into 2 fragment of » man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of 3 machine, dst every remnant of charm in is work and tur it into a hated toi they strange from him the intelectual potential tes of the labourproces i the sme proportion as selene incor porated in it a am independent power; they dstot the conditions Under which ne works, subject him during the labour process to 2 Sespotiam the more hateful for ite meanness they taneform his lifetime into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggemaut of capital. But all methods for the ‘production of surplaevalve are at the same time methods of acct Capital, Volume One + 431 mulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a ‘means for the development of those method. Te follows therefore that in proportion 2s capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, Deis payment high of low, must grow wore. The lw, finaly, that always equilibrates the reltive surplus population, or indsistril reserve anny, to the extent and energy of accumlation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Valesn did Prometheus to the rock, Te establihes an accumulation of misery, coresponding with accumolation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one poe i, therefore, at the same time accumulation ‘of misery, agony of tol, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degre dation, a the opposite pole, ion the side of the ass that pro duces sown producti the for of capital. * = * Part VIII. The So-Called Primitive Accumulation (CHAPTER XVI. THE SECRET OF PRIMITIVE, ‘ACCUMULATION We have seen how money is changed into capital; how through capital sorplosvatve is made, and from surpluevalue more capital, But the accumulation of capital presupposes surplasvalue, surplusvalue presupposes expitalistic production, capitalistic pro- action presupposes the preexistence of considerable masses of cap tal and of labour power in the hands of producers of commodities. ‘The whole movement, therefore, seems to tum in a vicious cite, ‘out of which we can only get by supposing a primitive accumule tion (previous accumulation of Adam Smith) preceding capitalistic accumulation; an accumulation not the result of the capitalist ‘mode of production but ts starting point. ‘This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part a8 orginal sin in theology. Adam bit the apple, and ‘thereupon sin fell on the human race. Is ongin i supposed to be explained when iti told as an ancedote of the past. In times long tne by there were two sorts of people; one the diligent, inter ‘ent, and abow all, frugal lit; the other, lary rascals, spending theit substance, and mot, ia riotous ving. The legend of theology cal orginal sin tes us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of coo ‘nomi original sn reveals to us that there ate peope to wham this is by no means esential. Never mind! Thus it ame to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the later sort had at last nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite all ts labour, has up to now nothing to sell bat itself, and the wealth of the few82+ The Critique of Capitalism that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work Such insipid childishness is evry day preached tow in the defence ‘of property. M. Thiers, eg, had the assurance to repeat i with all the solemnity ofa statesman, to the French people, once so pink fuel. But as 300 asthe question of propety crops up it becomes 2 sacred duty to prochim the intellectual food of the infant a the fone thing 6t forall ages and for all stages of development. Tn actual history it 8 notorious that conquest, enslavement, robbery, ‘murder, billy force, pay the great part. In the tender samale of Politieal Economy, the idyllic segns from time immemorial. Right, and “Isbout” were from alltime the sole means of enichment, the present year of course alvays excepted. As @ mater of fat, the {nethods of primitive accumlation ave anything but ili In themsties money and commodities ae no more capital than ae the means of production and of subsistence. They want frame forming into capt. Bot this transformation itself ean only take place under certain cicumstances that centre inthis, vz, that to ‘ery diffrent kinds of commodity pesesors must come face to face and into contact; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who ae eager f0 increase the sam of values they possess, by buying other people's labour power on the other hand, free Ibouer, the sellers of theit ‘own labour power, and therefore the sellers of labour. Free labor cs, nthe double sense that neither they themselves form part and parcel of the means of production, atin the cae of slaves, bond’ ‘men, &, nor do the means of production belong to them, es inthe {ase of peasant proprietor; they are, therefor, fee from, tnencim- ‘ered by, any means of production of their own. With thi polar sation of the market for commoditcs, the fundamental conitons ‘of capitalist production ate_ given. ‘The capitalist sytem pre- supposes the complete separation ofthe labourers from all property inthe means by which they ean realise thei labour. A soon as cap italist production is once om is own legs, tot only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale, The proces, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can ‘beone other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production; a proces that tans forms, on the one hand, the socal means of tubsistence and of production into exptal, on the other, the immediate producers into wagelabourers. The socalled primitive accamulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historic proces of divorcing the producer from the means of production, It appears as primitive, because it forms the prehistode sige of pital and of the mode of produc: tion coresponding with i, “The economic structure of capitalistic society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal saciety. The dissolution of the Capital, Volume One + 433 later set fe the elements of the forme ‘The immediate producer, the Ibo, could only dispose of bis own peron after he had cere toe atachad (te al an {eased tobe the sve se, or bond of snothaTo becom fice seller of labour power, who canis his commodity wherever he fnds a maikt, he mont futher have cxaped from the regi of the ails, thir rls for apprentices and joumeymen, tad the Impediments of their labour replations Hence, te’ histori ‘movement which changes the producer into wagevorkes, apes, nthe ove hand a thei emanation om sete and fem the fetes ofthe guild, and thi side alone ents for out bourge hi torans: Ba, on the other hand, these new fecimen tact sel cf theses only ser they bad een bed of a thei ov teas of prodtion, and ofall the gunantees of cistenceafonded 1 the od feudal trngements And testy of Ty thot expropriation, 1 waten in the annals of mankind in lees of ‘too and “he nds capitalists, thee new potent, had on thee prt ot only to doplce the ghd masters of handitaftsy but alo he fells, the poses ofthe sources of wealth Ta this respect ther congucst of social power appears a the fru of etonosh struggle both against fetal lorthip ands svalting preegatv, nd sist the guilds and the fete they ladon the hee deep. iment of pouction and the fee explotaton of man By man, The Ghevalies indus, however, only seceded in supplanting the Sea of the vid by making se of rent oh By thenseles were wholly innocent They have ten by meats ase "the by whch he Roman sian ence ns ie de Sel the mace of his patton ‘The sartngpoint of the development that give se to the vagelabourer ay yell tothe capitalist, war the servitude of the Inbourer The aifance eased i a change of form of thi sen. te, in the, asformation of fea! expltation ito capt exploitation. To understind its march, we need not go Deck vey far Although we come scr0s the Ent beginnings of caplalot production a5 arly ashe sath or sth century spose), in cer tain towns of the Mediterean, the apa rw dats om the 26th century. Whereer it appt, the abolition of tefdom has Teen Tong fected, and the hgh dnclopment of the middle ages, the entence of sovereign flows, hasbeen long on the wane Ta the history of primitive sceumolatin all reoletons are eochinaking tht acts eves for te captelit css a couse of formation it, above al, those moments when et Mase of sen ae suddenly and foely tm fom ther means of subsist nce, end hated s fice and “unattached protaany onthe IMbourmarket. The exposition of the april proces, ofBt + The Critique of Capitalism the peasant, from the si, s the bass of the whole process. The his. tory ofthis expropiaton, in different counties, assumes diferent spect, and runs through its Various phases in diferent orders of fcestion, and at diferent periods. In England alone, which we take as ont example, has tthe clase form. CHAPTER XVI. EXPROPRIATION OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION FROM THE LAND In England, serfdom had practically disappeared in the lst part of the sath century, The immense majority of the population com sisted then, and toa stil larger extent, in the sth century, of fee peasant propretos, whatever was the fends tile under which their Fight of propety was hidden. * * * "The prelude of the revolution that nid the foundation of the capitalist mode of production, was played in the ast third of the 15th and the fst decade ofthe 16th century. A mass of fee role favians mas hurled on the laboursmarket by the Dreakingup of the ‘bands of fendal retainers, who, as Si James Steuart wel sys, “even ‘where uslely filled house and caste” Although the royal power, {self a product of bourgeois development, nits strife after absolute sovereignty forcibly hastened on the disiolution of these bands of retainers, it was by no means the sole cause of i. Tn insolent tonilct with king and parliament, the great feudal lords created an incomparably larger proletariat by the foreible diving of the peas ante from the land, to which the latter had the same feudal right 4 the lord bimelf, andy the usurpation of the common lands. ‘The rapid rise of the Flemish wool manufactures, and the eoere sponding rise in the price of wool in England, gave the direct impulse ta these evitions, The old nobility had been devoured by the great feudal wars ‘The new nobility was the child of its time, for which money was the power ofall powers. Transformation of able land into sheep-alls was, therefore, itsery. * * “With the development of capitalist production during the manu facturing peiod, the public opinion of Europe had lost the last remnant of shame and conscience. The nations bragged cynically of fevery infamy that served them as a means to capitalistic accumula tion, Read, eg. the naive Annals of Commerce of the worthy A. ‘Anderson, Here ite trumpeted forth asa teumph of English tate ‘aft that at the Peaoe of Unecht, England extorted trom the Spaniards by the Asiento Treaty the prislge of being allowed to ply the negiotade, until then only cated on between Aftia and the Englsk West Indies, between Africa and Spanish America a well England thereby acquired the right of supplying Spanish America ‘antl 2743 with 4,800 negroes yearly. This Crew, at the same time, tn ofcal cloak over British smuggling, Liverpool waxed fat on the Capital, Volume One + 435 stavetrade Tis was its method of primitive aecumation, And, ‘ven tothe present day, Liverpool “respectability” i te Panda of the savetrade which-compare the Werk of Alka [399s] aeady quoted —“has coincided with that spt of old adventre which Tas characterised the tdeof Liverpool and apy caved tt present state of prosperity; har occaoned vast mployment for Iipping snd salon, and greatly augmented the demand forthe ranufactres of the county” (p. 39). Liverpool employed in the slavetade, in 1730, 25 ship i 1y5ty 531 im 196 34 in 1779, 9; and ia 179 132. ‘Whit the cotton industry introduced childslavery in England, i grein the United Sate» stele tothe tansomation ofthe ‘athe, more oles patie slavery, into a system of commercial azpatiton, th le ine af the wagewoikes in "rope needed ors pede, slavery pure and sple inthe New Exp re P pein the “Tate mois ert, to establish the “ctemal laws of Nature” of the capitalist moe of production, to complete the proces of sept tion between abouren and conditions of labour, to transfor, at fone pol, the social means of production and subsistence into capt ta, at the opposite pole the mats of the population into wage Taboos, into "tee lsbouring poor” that atic product of modern society. If money, acerting to. Ages, “comes into the world with a congenital Bood-tain on one heck” expt comes Akipping from heed to foot, fom every pore, with Blood and dit. CHAPTER XXXI, GENESIS OF THE INDUSTRIAL CAPITALIST ‘The gene of he industri api idnot proce in sch a tzatal aya hat ofthe farmer Deas many small guide fn dt inept olan ort wager trarformed themselves into smal coat an (by Boda tending explo of wagettbour a conepening emulation) into fasblown capita: Inthe infancy of captit proton, things often happened an the fafa of megs tons, hee the gustion wih ofthe expel ser hoa be mater and which seu yin gest pr ely hector a of tt ‘The discovery of gold and siver in Americ, the extirpation, en- slavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the Fast Tocics, the turing of Africa into a warzen forthe commercial hunting of black shins, signaled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist produetion,436 + The Critique of Capitalism “These idyllic proceedings ate the chi momenta of primitive accu: mulation, On thes heel treads the commercial war ofthe European ‘ations, withthe globe fora theatre. It begins with the revolt ofthe [Netherlands from Spain, assumes gant dimensions in England’ Ant- Jacobin War, and i stil ging on in the opium was against Chin, te. "The diferent moment of primitive accumulation distsbute them selver now, more or les in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England in England at the fed of the 17th century, they arive ata systematics! combination, ‘bracing the colonies, the national deb, the medem mode of taxa tion, and th protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force eg the colonial system, But they all employ the power ofthe State, the concentrated and organised foree of society, to has ten, hothouse fashion, the proces of tansfomation of the feudal rode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Fore isthe midwife of every old society pregnant with 2 new one, It is iself an economic power (CHAPTER XXXII, HISTORICAL TENDENCY OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION ‘What docs the primitive accumulation of capital, i, its histor cal genes, resolve isl nto? In so far as it isnot immediate trans- formation of saves and serf into wagelabowers, and therefore 2 mere change of form, it only means the expropriation of the limmediate produces, Le, the discution of private property based ‘on the labour of its owner. Private property, as the antithess to focia, collective propety, exists only where the means of lbour tnd the extemal conditions of labour belong to private individuals, But according as theve private individuals are labours or not labourers, private property has a diferent character. The mumber- less shades, that it at fist sight presents, conespond to the intermediate stage Iying between these two extremes. The private property ofthe labour in his means of production isthe founds tion of petty industry, whether agricultoral, manufacturing, of ‘oth; petty industy, again i an esential condition forthe devel ‘opment of socal production and of the free individuality of the Ubouser hinslf. Of course, this petty mode of production exists also under sliver, serfdom, and other states of dependence. But it flourishes, it lets Toose its whole energy it attains its adequate clas. seal form, only where the labour isthe pivate owner of bis own ‘means of boar set inaction by himself: the peasant ofthe land Capital, Volume One + 437 which e elites, the atin of the tool which he handles as 2 tosn, This mode of production presupposes paring of the sol and satterng of theater meats of poduction, As iexlaes {he concentation of thse means of prodtion, so ale it excludes cooperation, division of Uboor within each separate proces of protection the control ovr, andthe proce spplcaton ofthe Forecs.of Nature by sce and the fe development ofthe scl productive powers Tis compatible ony with 2 tem of poe fon, and okey, moving within naw and oe ols pr tire bounds To perpetuate i woul be as Peoquer rly sys “to deoee univer medion.” Ata cetsin stage of develapment ‘tring forth the material agencies for fs own igotion, Prom that moment ne foress and ew psions sping up inthe bosom of society, but the old socal organisation fetes them and Kept ‘hom down, Tt mst be snnised sania. Tanah tion, the trnsfomation ofthe indvidaled and satered means of Paitin into sity concentatd oe ofthe iy Po ry of the many into the hage propery ofthe few expe: tion of the great mass ofthe people fm the sol, om the means of subsistence, and frm Ue eat of labor, thi fenfl and pal fa expoptaton of the mass ofthe people fons the pee to the try of expt. Tt compres sees of fre methods, of ‘hich we hse pen seview only thw tat Inve been epee taking as methods of he primive accomulaton of expt, The txpropttion ofthe immoliste prices ms compiled ih ‘mercies Vandalism, and under the stile of pasion the mort infamous, the most sordid, the pete, the most mean odious Selfeamed priate propery, tha tbe, oto sy, om the fing together of fhe ott independent boogie withthe conditions of his about, x supplanted by capac patate prop- ‘ety, which res on exploitation ofthe nominally ie abou then, i, on wage abou, ‘As soon at Wis proce of transformation bas sficiently decom pose the old society frm top to bottom, av son the borers ze turned into polaris, their mest of abou nto capita ‘oon asthe east mode of production stands on ts own fet, then the forte soclition of our and futher mansomaton of the lnd snd other means of production fnfo socially exploited {nd therefore, common means of production, a wel athe tet xropiaton of private propctom, takes» new form, That which is now to be expropdted sno Tonger the Inbourer working for hint but he eal explating many labore. Ths sxpop- ation fs accomplished by the action of the inmanent ws Of eape iste prodotion itl, by the centration of epital. One cape {ast aay hb many’ Hand in hand wth ths centration or this expropriation of many eaptlits by 2 few, develop, on tar 438 + The Critique of Capitalism cvesetending sale, the co-operative form ofthe labour proces the Conscious techni pplication of scene, the method alt: tion of the soil the transformation of the fnstruments of bout Ito instruments of labour only tsble in common, the economs ing ofall ean of production by thei use the means of produ tion of combined, sciaised labour, the entanglement of al peoples in the net of the wordmatkt, and with fh the ineoatonsl character of the exptalistic régime. Along with the constantly Aliminishing number of the magnates of capita, who asup and mop lavage of th prof tunsoraton, wt mass of mie, oppression, saver, degradation, exploaion bat with to etme the tool of the working, clan ays increasing in number, and disciplined, united, organised Sie vey metus ofthe joc of epistproecton ace The monopoly of capital Becomes fetter upon the mode of pro duction, whieh has sprung up and fouihed slong wit, and under it, Centaliation of the means of proton ad sealation of Tnboar at lst each a point where they become incompatible with their cepts integument. This integument Dust avant. The Incl of capitalist private popety sounds. The expoprates ate expropriated “The apitalist mode of appropriation, the ret ofthe capitalist. rode of predation, prodges xpitalst private property. ‘his i the fist negation of individual priate property at founced on the labour ofthe proprietor. But eapitait production begets, with the ‘ncsosabity ofa law of Nate, its ow negation, Te the nope tion of nepition, Ths does not retablh priate propery forthe produce, but gies hin individual propetybstedon the equ tions of the capitalist es: on coapeation and the passion in common ofthe land and o he meant of production. ‘The transfomation of seatered. priate propery, aking fom individ abou, into pias porate propery fy nately protes, incomparbly more protated, viet and ul, than the tansfomation of capitalise pete propty, aeay rat cally resting on soiled producto, into sacaloed propery. In the former ease, we ad the expropriation ofthe mas ofthe people bya few usupers inthe later, we have the expropriation of 3 ow srpers bythe mas of the people. Capital, Volume Three KARL MARX Volumes Two and Three of Capital, left in incomplete mansept by Mary, wee Tater edited and brought oat by Bagels "Two eaceps fat Volume Thre ae presented hee. “Theft (whose tte bas been gen by the eitor ofthis ede gies Map’ vision of tan in + flute condition of fhsdooy—cestive lee Imade pore by machine industry and the wodwide pletaan els tio tat rhe at dined tolerate man's productive atity from the fetes of capt aoqutveness. Bat tere wor emi, in thi term of fredom, 4 rest Teslm of nee: the Ibaur tine segue to produce needed good under even the mot advanced techno. “The scond sccton i the fess lat chapter of Volume see, nts ed “Clases” which the mart breaks of afer Marx hae shed: "What const das?" Taf, Shere fo mystery abou his answer A cls in Maes ew, a special fm of the dis of labor a soy” On the Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Freedom We have seen that the capitalist process of production isa hit tainly determined frm of the sal pee of rutin in general. The laters at much a production process of material con ‘ditions of human hfe ata proces taking place under specif histor. jeal and economic production relations, producing and reproducing ‘these production relations themselves, and thereby aso the bearers (of this process, their material conditions of existence and theit ‘mutual relations, ie, thei puticula socioeconomic form. For the Aggregate ofthese relations, in which the agents of this production stand with respect to Nature and to one another, and in which they produce, is precisely society, considered from the standpoint of, its economic strdctue, Like all ts predecessors, the capitalist proc ss of production proceeds under definite material conditions, ‘which aze, however, simoltaneously the bearer of defnite social relations entered into by individols in the process of reproducing pie iT: SPY AIT ie "set Wail "Sento #9