{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","uuid":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","normalized_title":"marxandtheconceptofhistoricaltime","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":216,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Marx%20and%20the%20Concept%20of%20Historical%20Time","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/search"},"page":{"printed_page":171,"pdf_page":175,"physical_index":175,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"9ed87f57bf236cfb3f6dd3713f00316b75f29552c6e8a36927084de4bcf74868"},"chapter":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","content":"4.1.4 So-called Originary Accumulation\n\nAutomation and alienation form the two axes around which the production-process of capital can be established as the condition of thinking the materialist concept of history. Nevertheless, this chapter would be incomplete without an examination of so-called originary accumulation [die sogenannte ursprüngliche Akkumulation]<sup>112</sup>, the final part of the first volume of Capital. Marx’s concept of originary accumulation is a direct, critical response to the place of ‘previous accumulation’ in political economy – above all Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations<sup>113</sup> – but it is also, and more fundamentally, a confrontation with the seemingly circular logic that structures the production-process of capital; namely: ‘the accumulation of capital presupposes surplusvalue; surplus-value presupposes capitalist production; capitalist production presupposes the availability of considerable masses of capital and labour-power in the hands of commodity producers’<sup>114</sup>, which is to say the accumulation of capital. At the basis of this presuppositional circle – that which enables this apparently seamless circularity to exist and which, and as we will see, is erased from it – is the originary accumulation of capital. In mocking opposition to the ‘insipid childishness’<sup>115</sup> of the morality tale which political economy tells itself – e.g. that capitalism sprung from the difference between, on the one hand, the ‘frugal elite’ and, on the other, the ‘lazy rascals’ who squandered their money in ‘riotous living’– Marx presents his readers with a systematic account of originary accumulation, one which registers the fact that, ‘in actual history, …conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, violence [Gewalt], play the greatest part.’<sup>116</sup> He summarises this accumulation in the following terms:\n\n<sup>112</sup> ‘Primitive accumulation’ is of course the predominant English language translation of ursprüngliche Akkumulation. In contrast to this, this thesis argues that ‘originary’ is a better rendition of ursprüngliche than ‘primitive’, first and foremost because ‘primitive accumulation’ conjures up, as Osborne suggests, ‘a nineteenth-century anthropological imagery, which would consign the process to a past time; or at least, identifies its methods with those of pre-history.’ How to Read Marx, 104-5. As Osborne notes, ‘primitive accumulation’ obscures the contribution that Marx’s ursprüngliche Akkumulation makes to the concept of the origin – the Ursprung – in the German philosophical tradition more generally. Ibid. 105. Thus originary accumulation might be grasped as constitutive of a kind of ‘originary temporality’, in ways that converge with and radically depart from Heidegger’s use of the term. Finally, ‘originary is preferable to ‘original’, because the former registers the ongoing constitutive function of originary accumulation, and hence the sense in which, as we will see, capital cannot exist without it.\n\n<sup>113</sup> Without doubt, Michael Perelman’s The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000) is the preeminent investigation of political economy’s simultaneous support and dismissal of originary accumulation. The ‘so-called’ within ‘so-called originary accumulation’ registers Marx’s direct response to political economy, but it also, this thesis suggests, can be extended to the permanence of originary accumulation within capitalism.\n\n<sup>114</sup> Marx, Capital 1, 873.\n\n<sup>115</sup> Ibid. After Jason Read, this tale is ‘the idealized memory of an individual capitalist’s accumulation.’ Jason Read, ‘Primitive Accumulation: the Aleatory Foundation of Capitalism’, Rethinking Marxism 14:2 (Summer 2002), 27. As Read points out, this is the context of Balibar’s comment that ‘the analysis of primitive accumulation thus brings us into the presence of the radical absence of memory which characterises history (memory being only the reflection of history in certain pre-determined sites – ideology or even law – and as such, anything but a faithful reflection).’ Balibar, ‘Elements for a Theory of Transition’, 283.\n\n171","previous_page":170,"next_page":172}