>Capitalism in its essence is free labor in the metropolitan centers and forced >labor in the periphery.<
Marx was describing "capitalism in its essence"[*] -- i.e., the pure capitalist mode of production -- in CAPITAL. He didn't seem to think of capitalism _requiring_ forced labor in the periphery; at least, I can't find anything in Marx that says so. Once the initial stage of the so-called Primitive Accumulation is through, exploitation of "free" labor provides the basis for accumulation, the reproduction of capitalist social relations on a larger scale. This involves constantly "revolutionizing" technology, so as to raise the rate of exploitation, and also the normality of the reserve army of labor, among other things. That presumes that the working class is poorly organized, unable to block the normal workings of capitalism; if well organized, then unions, labor parties, etc. must be smashed or co-opted. On the other hand, he clearly saw the super-exploitation of labor in the periphery as _helping_ to cause faster accumulation of capital on a world scale (though of course that accumulation is uneven) as part of the less abstract, more empirical, phenomenon of the "capitalist social formation." Of course, we can always _define_ capitalism as requiring forced labor in the periphery, since definitions are very arbitrary. Does that definition say that capitalism _cannot exist_ without forced labor? How _is_ capitalism defined? -- Jim Devine / "An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." -- John Buchan [*] My impression is that Marx viewed the concept of "essence" as idealist. However, I guess we can talk about a "material essence," which I would see as the shared empirical characteristics of the phenomenon (e.g., capitalism) being studied. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
