[lbo-talk] primitive accumulation

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Sun Dec 10 12:40:19 PST 2006


Abu Hartal writes:

"I don't see how quotes will settle this. At any rate, no one is saying that the principal source of capitalisation is primitive accumulation. But why write off as unimportant or marginal analysis of the whole public debt/private complex?"

I agree that quotes won't solve anything substantial. And nor would I say that the public debt/private capital is not interesting in its own right. But I would not rush to the judgement that just because individual capitalists are dependent on the state, that the working class was financing capitalism through the Inland Revenue. To my mind, the dependence of capitalism on the state is interesting in what it tells us about the shaky state of contemporary capitalism, but not what it tells us about the relation between capital and labour.

Absurdly overlimit, so shutting up,

James Heartfield



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