Peasants in primitive accumulation: Western Europe and Venezuela compared

Abstract

The basic point of this comparison has already been implied. I noted above that primitive accumulation consists of two processes: (1) capital accumulation, and (2) proletarianization. These are, in turn, part of a more general process: the creation of an “internal market” for capitalism, i. e., a market for means of production and a market for labor power. Yet what is “internal” and what is “external” depends on our levels of analysis. When we refer to the development of capitalism in a particular country, e.g. Venezuela or England or Russia, we must examine “internal” and “external” markets with reference to the economic formation. But when we are referring to a market for goods, the importance of the distinction between “internal” and “external” markets (i.e., intra-state or “national” market vs. foreign trade) is reduced. When, however, we refer to the development of a market for labor power, the problem takes on special significance. Whereas goods as commodities may flow easily across state boundaries, labor power as a commodity cannot be as free [59]. We must direct our analysis primarily to the market for capital and labor power. It has been argued that a capitalist mode of production developed in England and other countries of Western Europe because an internal market for capitalism emerged within particular economic formations. While these formations depended on foreign markets for goods, they developed an internal market for capital and labor power. Venezuela was part of the internal market of the capitalist system, but its position in that system prohibited the development of an internal market for capital and labor power within the economic formation of Venezuela. This difference can be explained with reference to the respective positions of the formations within the inter-state capitalist system: Western Europe at the center; Venezuela at the periphery. But this study implies another, cognate conclusion which I cannot pursue here, namely, that capitalism cannot be rationalized either as the relatively progressive fate of “under-developed” peoples, or as an inevitable forerunner of socialism in whatever place the struggle for socialism develops [60].