| This question <647|660> overall <647|650> Harmon: <604|97>. |
| Term Paper 701: Essay about Chapter Thirty-Two: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation |
| [649] Harmon: Gravediggers! “What does the primitive accumulation of capital resolve itself into?” [Marx 927] I believe there is no resolution, but it is a continuous process which cycles through growth and negation. |
| To get an understanding of this chapter we need a place for our cycle to begin. The first stage of the cycle is private property because the owner is also the laborer of the land. He works freely and does not need to be concerned with division of labor, various stages of production, or fragmentation of holdings. Small industries are built and continue to flourish as long as “the worker is the free proprietor of the conditions of his labour, and sets them in motion himself” [Marx 927]. Thus, because the owner of the property is also doing all the work, he is also reaping all the benefits, which he can then put back into the property to make it grow; leading us to our next stage of the cycle. |
| The second stage is accumulation. As defined by Webster, accumulation is “to gather or pile up, especially little by little.” The small business or property now begins to accumulate and expand. Though this seems good for the owner, it means there is a loss of means of production for other owners who are forced into a social control. Now we have the beginning of capitalism. In addition, as this process of accumulation continues to progress, the properties and businesses grow until there are only a few owners and many workers. |
| Now we come to our third stage, negation. Here the workers sell their labor and in return are treated unfairly. As the number of workers increases and as they are continually placed in the same unfair working conditions the workers begin to feel that they should be working to further themselves and should be making more as the company grows. This leads to the workers realizing their potential power, uniting to form unions, and finally breaking down the barrier between proletariat and Capitalist to bring about a revolution. This revolution forces the capitalist to break up the land and means of production and distribute the pieces to the workers. Now the workers can start the vicious cycle over by trying to expand their own newly acquired properties. |
| To recap, the three stages of the capitalist cycle are private property, accumulation, and negation. These stages state simply the continuous and complicated process of building and rebuilding the commercial market. Marx states it best, “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” [Marx 930] |
| Hans: Your second step, the transition from private property to accumulation, is already a negation. Accumulation is only possible with the use of wage-labor, and wage-labor can be found on the market only if the immediate producers have been torn away from their means of production. I.e., Marx calls it a negation because it leads from a state in which the workers privately own their means of production to a state where there is still private property, but this time the means of production are owned by the capitalists. The expropriation of the capitalists and transition to a socialist society is then the negation of a negation. |
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