Introduction
In 2007, Michael Perelman wrote an article entitled,
“Primitive Accumulation from Feudalism to
Neoliberalism,” in which he argued that Karl Marx’s
concept of primitive accumulation1
continues to be
important, but only in a partial way. Explaining that
primitive accumulation involves the direct expropriation
of people’s conditions of production, the
purposeful forcing of people into wage labour, and
the intentional manipulation of the social division
of labour, Perelman wrote that “it is not likely that
1 Karl Marx described the process of forced proletarization as “primitive
accumulation,” which can be translated as “previous” or “original”
accumulation from the original German, ursprunglich (Grandia 2007).
we will see all these conditions met very often in the
contemporary economy, one ominous exception is
expropriation” (Perelman 2007:59). Perelman’s view
is understandable, considering that his focus was on
the United States of America, where much of the
population has long been highly integrated into a
wage-labour economy. For Perelman, the example
of the USA is best suited for considering the role
of multinational corporations in taking control over
resources, including water, forests, and land for mining
in ways that he links to primitive accumulation.
His interest is thus on the ways that privatization has
facilitated expropriation of resources