Primitive accumulation and surplus population: A critique of capitalocentrism in Marxian theory

Abstract

Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation has traditionally been understood as pre-history to the emergence and eventual universalization of capital in the social formation. I argue, to the contrary, that “primitive accumulation” can be a theoretical category only in the presence of a theorized notion of an “outside” to capital. This “outside” of capital in a social formation is populated by a “surpluspopulation”- another concept that needs to be delinked from the capitalocentric notion of “reserve army of labour”. Once we recognize an ever-present non-capitalist “outside” in a social formation, primitive accumulation becomes central to dominance of capital over a social formation.