Primitive Accumulation of Capital

Primitive Accumulation Of Capital

In Marxist economics and preceding theories, the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, original accumulation) of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore (in at least the Marxist view) of how class distinctions between possessors and non-possessors came to be.

Adam Smith's account of primitive-original accumulation depicted a peaceful process. David Harvey summarizes Smith's description of the process in the following terms: "There were some people that were hard working and some people who were not. Some people who could be bothered, and some people who could not be bothered. And the result of that was that, bit by bit, those who were hard working, and could be bothered, accumulated some wealth. And eventually, those who could not be bothered, could not accumulate wealth, and in the end, in order to survive, preferred, actually, to give up their labor power as a commodity, in return for a living wage."

It became very important in Adam Smith's account, not to bring in the state as an agent of primitive accumulation. The pillar of Smith's argument, like most classical political economists, was to let the state withdraw which would allow societies to flourish by letting laissez-faire markets allocate goods and services. James Denham-Steuart and other classical political economists, argued instead for a crucial role for the state in the origin of capitalism, holding that violence under the supervision of the state was needed in order for the original accumulation to occur.

David Harvey summarized Karl Marx's description of it: primitive accumulation "entailed taking land, say, enclosing it, and expelling a resident population to create a landless proletariat, and then releasing the land into the privatized mainstream of capital accumulation".