Post on 30-Dec-2015
Enclosures, the creation of markets and the precondition
for “development”
AI2201-lect4
Capital’s boundlessness
M-C-M’
Planetary M-C-M’:
a classical illustration
capital accumulation is possible if...(see Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi for an answer)
M-C-M’
C-M-C
M C LP MP P C M { ; }..... ...... ' '
*....*.... LPPCMLP
MCPMPLPCM '.....}.....;{
the Capital relation and “Enclosures” as separation
“The capital-relation presupposes a complete separation between the workers and the ownership of the conditions for the realisation of their labour.”
From this it follows that:
“the process . . . which creates the capital-relation can be nothing other than the process which divorces the worker from the ownership of the conditions of his own labour; it is a process which operates two transformations, whereby the social means of subsistence and production are turned into capital, and the immediate producers are turned into wage-labourers.”
Thus, the
“so-called primitive accumulation . . . is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.” Marx 1976a, pp. 874-75 (my emphasis)
The bottom line
• “Enclosures” as “separation” between people and their means of existence =>commodification of spheres of life and social production.
• Enclosures must be seen as strategies: i.e. communities are not simply victims, they also struggle (and often it is their past successful struggles that give them autonomy vis-a’-vis that gives capital reason to “enclose”.– See English classical enclosures in the XVII C– See Neoliberal “enclosures” fter the crisis of
Keynesianism
• Historical case, see XVIIC England. See my notes in http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/M.DeAngelis/ln3-origins&enclosures.pdf– Enclosures of the commons, – Struggles (the diggers => hear the digger’s song
http://www.commoner.org.uk/blog/?p=58)– migration, – “bloody legislation” (Marx) – Time, discipline and the working day
• The Slave trade as the transcontinental articulation of enclosures– See http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/M.DeAngelis/ln4-slavetrade&indrev.pdf– See also http://www.commoner.org.uk/blog/?p=80 for a curious short
dramatisation
• The enclosures of women body (Silvia Federici in the Caliban and The Witch, 2004).
Enclosures or primitive “accumulation” (“PA”) and the development of English Capitalism
A chronology of struggles and enclosure in Europe
A Taxonomy of modern enclosuresTypes Modes
Land and resources land policies: through direct expropriation (e.g. Mexico’s ejido) or indirect means (e.g. use of cash-tax);
externality: land pollution (e.g. Ogoni land in Nigeria; intense shrimp production in India);
against re-appropriation (e.g. against MST in Brazil);
water privatisation (e.g. Bolivia);
neoliberal war.
Urban spaces urban design;
Public fountains
road building;
Social commons cuts in social spending;
cuts in entitlements.
Knowledge & life intellectual property rights;
marketisation of education.
The economist’s justification for enclosures of the commons (as
condition for “development”)• The so called “tragedy of the commons”
• Argument put forward by Garret Hardin in 1968 in the Journal Science
• For a review of the argument and critique see my blog entry at http://www.commoner.org.uk/blog/?p=79
Some examples of modern enclosures in modern
“development” contexts
Aquacultureshrimp farming
• Main reason for shrimp farming => Global economic system’s pressure to promote export– Ex debt
• Main effects of shrimp farming– Spring water salinisation– Pollution of soil for agriculture (v. Shiva)
• Btw 1971 and 1986 Bangladesh rice production dropped from 40000 to 36000 metric tons.
• In Thailand and India farmers report similar losses (halved rice production due to water salinisation)
– Wells have become of social tensions within communities– Communities’ struggles
Shrimp pond effluent, Ecuador© Alfredo Quarto, Mangrove Action Project
monoculture
• Main reason for monocultures => Global economic system’s pressure to produce cash crops– Ex. Debt
• Cash crops (generally very water intensive):– Ex. Eucalyptus
• mass production relocated into water deficient regions such
– Ex. Sugar Cane– Ex. Water guzzling High Yields seeds versus drought resistant local
crop varieties
• => WB funded water mining in water-scarce areas– Tube wells, electrical wells, etc.
• In Maharashtra Sugar cane for export uses 80% of water and 3% of irrigated land
Mining
• Main reason for growth in mining => Global economic system’s pressure to export
• Ex. limestone quarrying– Cement
• Ex. Bauxite – Aluminium
• Northern countries are closing aluminium smelting for environmental reasons
• Japan imports 90% of its alluminium
Dams
• Official reasons for large dams construction– Irrigation (for cash crops)– Power production– flood-control – These purposes often conflict with each other.
• Irrigation => uses up the water to produce power.• Flood control => requires keeping reservoir empty during the monsoon
months => hence no irrigation• Actual power production often much lower than planned.
• Communities loss of livelihoods– Expropriation of land and water resources– Proletarisation– Irrigation and power for nodes of the global economy not the local
subsistence economy• Large cash crops producers• Urban areas • manufacturing
Dam’s displacement
• 40 to 80 million people have been displaced by dam by dam projects (world commission of dams)– Conservative estimate. – Only in India, about 50 million displaced.
• 45000 large dams in the world ($2 trillion worth)– 22000 in China– India and USA about 6400– 4000 Japan– 1000 Spain
• Big projects now mainly in third world countries due to popular opposition.
• Tales of displacement, police and army repression in Africa, China, India, Latin America
Plan Puebla Panama
Narmada Valley• 1300 km across 3 states• Plan is 3200 dams, of which 30 major
damns (50 meters or higher)• Plan started in 1961 and proceeded
with various interruptions– Backed by WB which withdrew in mid
1990s after a damning international report
– “Iron triangle” and revolving door (collusion global dam industry, politicians and bureaucracy)
• 25 million people live in the valley linked.
• Their livelihoods depends on their link to the ecosystem and intricate web of interdependency
• Promised relocation and cash compensation implies proletarisation and widespread poverty
Submerged house in Jalsindhi, 2002; photo: NBA
Alternatives:Alwar District, Rajasthan
Enclosures, Oil and the Junta
See http://www.commoner.org.uk/blog/?p=145
For more examples of modern enclosures
Co-existence of enclosures and “development”
• Mumbai airport expansion resisted by nearby slums residents.
Co-existence of “enclosures”and “development” : Soweto, SA, water
privatization
Co-existence of enclosures and “development”
• Olympic games and community allotments
(and dispossession of travellers, small businesses, playgrounds. . . )
Commons: Democracy in the streets and
assemblies of Oaxaca
Reclaiming water commons: Orange Farm and Soweto, SA
. . and electricity . . .
Knowledge, arts, communication
The Paradox of Capitalist Production
• Even in presence of “separation” production can only be social production, i.e. production in common => hence in capitalism money is the nexus and markets are the organizational means to recreate capitalist forms of commons
• Capitalist “commons” (say, the corporation or other competitive entities) are pit one against another (competition)
the end