ABSTRACT
Philosophers have interpreted capitalism. Historians have described capitalism. Philosophers have interpreted primitive accumulation as the origin moment of capitalism. Historians have chronicled primitive accumulation. The point, however, is to have aworld without primitive accumulation, without dislocation. The point is to have a world without capitalist development. Starting from a world of the third Marxian perspective, we develop, in this
chapter, the Grundrisse of another reading of primitive accumulation, which ‘renders unfamiliar’ the given rendition of primitive accumulation. This ‘unfamiliar reading’ of primitive accumulation is in turn facilitated by late Marx’s encounter with the non-Western world in general and the Russian Mir in particular (Marx 1970, 1975, 1983, 1989). Our description of this particular encounter and engagement rests principally on Marx’s correspondence with Vera Zasulich (Marx 1970). Why is this engagement of Marx (a German, coming from Western
Europe) with Zasulich (a Russian, coming from Eastern Europe and also from a landmass that spills largely into Asia) crucial to our work? For one, Marx ponders once again over the question of primitive accumulation; he ponders over it in a non-Western setting, having done it once before in the context of British rule in India. He asks afresh how primitive accumulation will take shape in a non-Western setting in general and how it would take shape in Russia in particular. More importantly for us, he grapples with the question of whether primitive accumulation is inevitable or not? Can we not bypass the process of primitive accumulation? This encounter of Marx with the non-Western world can be taken as a
precursor to a theorization of primitive accumulation in the (developmentalist) context of the South. We use this opportunity to fix points of departure that characterize our understanding of primitive accumulation. It also marks for us a turning away from the originalMarx, from aWesternizedMarx to an ab-original Marx, to a Marx that is at the same time ab-original – that is other than the
white Western original – and that is also tuned to questions of aboriginality. Our re-reading of primitive accumulation is an explication of why some of the ideas forwarded by Marx some 130 years ago matter in attending to problems of dislocation. It is an engagement that inaugurates an understanding of dislocation that is radically different from other engagements with dislocation. What does our intervention achieve in terms of debates on dislocation?
First, it shifts the terms of reference from third world-ism to world of the third; in the process, it questions development – development understood in terms of the transition of the pre-capitalist third world in the image of the modern capitalist West. By default, it also questions development-induced dislocation of the pre-capitalist third world; it questions that particular imagination of development – capitalist development – that definitionally originates through large-scale dislocation. It thus turns what was hitherto deemed necessary, what was deemed as developmental in the milieu of third world-ism into something that was in actuality extreme violence – violence of primitive accumulation on world of the third. What was dislocation in a third world-ist milieu thus emerges as primitive accumulation in the context and perspective of world of the third. De Angelis pointed to the importance of ‘social barriers’ not in the form of
‘pre-given’ structures to be dismantled, but those articulated through opposition to the process of primitive accumulation. The presence of resisting ‘social barriers’ shows that the issue of primitive accumulation cannot be located outside of the matrix ‘proposition-opposition’. This, however, demands that the proposition of primitive accumulation and the opposition to it must be telescoped within a theory of primitive accumulation. Which in turn means that one cannot produce a theory of primitive accumulation by staying within the category ‘third world’. Not only does third world-ism produce a one-sided view of primitive accumulation, it also implies that the moment of resistance from within third world-ism is turned to an exercise of the accommodation of opposition within the proposition (and this is exactly what has happened in compensation and resettlement). The disciplinary networks associated with the development paradigm professing third world-ism have served the purpose of institutionalizing resistance within the development logic. If incarcerated within this frame, resistance to primitive accumulation becomes paradoxically a losing battle. The ‘social barriers’ to primitive accumulation often tragically transpire into a losing battle for holding on to ‘backward’ states of existence as against ‘progress’. Given the strategy of the mainstream to reduce resistance to primitive accumulation to the play of two contradictory and opposing forces, one being against ‘progress’ and the other being for it, the whole issue thus gets reduced to positions for or against progress qua industrialization. To get away from this cycle of hopelessness and surrender that emanates
from a defensive position, we need to move towards the category of world of the third which stands in opposition to third world. Resulting from this changed perspective, rather than being seen as a measure of and step to progress, primitive accumulation is revealed for what it is: a process of overt violence
(involving dismantling of livelihood and/or forms of life) enacted over world of the third through the use of repressive development apparatuses (RDAs) and ideological development apparatuses (IDAs) in order to facilitate the expansion of the modern capitalist economy. In the process, what is emphasized in the moment of resistance is the possibility of questioning the logic of capitalist development. It is not enough to produce a non-teleological reading of primitive accumulation. Equally important is to produce a theory of dislocation that will also be reflective of the perspective of the dislocated (here world of the third) and show whether, and if so how, such a reading could possibly open routes to chart out alternative trails, lanes, alleyways and conduits of social transition.
