> I think "primitive accumulation" specifies more than this when account
> is taken of the role Marx, following Hegel, assigns to "internal
> relations" and to "passions" in historical development. These concepts
> are linked. The nature of the self-consciousness characteristic of a
> stage is the product of the internal social relations that define the
> stage. This makes the self-consciousness characteristic of ancient
> Greece different from the self-consciousness characteristic of
> capitalism in general and the self-consciousness associated with
> "primitive accumulation" different from the self-consciousness
> associated with mature industrial capitalism.
>
> Thus, according to Marx, "the ancients ... denounced money as
> subversive of the economic and moral order of things." This
> distinguishes ancient from "modern society."
As others have rightly pointed out, the ancient denouncers were generally from the classes doing the accumulating.
> Similarly, the "passions" characteristic of "primitive accumulation"
> differ from those of mature industrial capitalism. Primitive
> accumulation, which Marx associates with the coming into dominance of
> "new passions," " was accomplished with merciless Vandalism, and under
> the stimulus of passions the most infamous, the most sordid, the
> pettiest, the most meanly odious."
But were these "new passions" related to surplus extraction and accumulation in general, or the means by which these were achieved and by which social classes? The latter, IMO.
Note also that in _Capital_, Marx often refers to "the primitive accumulation of capital", implying that he is distinguishing this from _primitive_accumulation_ in_general_.
regards,
Grant.