Accumulation by Dispossession and Anti-Capitalist Struggles: A Long Historical Perspective

Abstract

David Harvey has suggested the term accumulation by dispossession to capture the necessarily enduring role of primitive accumulation in the development of mature capitalism, particularly within “the new imperialism.” But this terminological change should be clearly limited, which is not always the case, to an attempt at better qualifying the functioning of primitive accumulation in the history of capitalism as a dependent variable of expanded capital accumulation. The dialectic between accumulation by dispossession and expanded accumulation, both being increasingly deeply intertwined, follows cycles that are best understood historically using the Marxist theory of long waves. Last but not least, in socio-political terms, there is a close relationship of strategic importance between the relative weight of accumulation by dispossession in a given period, and the need for exploited wage earners to build alliances with other dispossessed layers of the population.