Crisis, Rent and David Harvey

I tend to agree with john's view above. "Accumulation through dispossession" is an expansion of the concept of primitive accumulation. Harvey uses it to argue that processes of accumulation outside of the "normal" circuits of capitalist accumulation continue alongside "normal" capitalist processes and in fact greatly assist them.

That is, while events like the expropriation of peasants were vital to the birth of capitalism (primitive accumulation) similar and analogous events continue alongside capitalist development and interact with and assist "normal" capital accumulation. This seems to me to be a very useful concept.

As for Harvey being a "social democrat" because he is in favour of free education, I don't think that this is a remotely reasonable assessment.

I agree with John and IA. It is a useful concept to describe processes that are similar to the historical specific process that Marx referred to as primitive/original accumulation. Among other things what Harvey is referring to is stuff related to intellectual property (gene pool, seeds, information etc.). If I remember correctly I also think he argues that extending credit is also part of accumulation by disposession. Privatization of public services are also part of this process.

In any case if you read The New Imperialism you will understand that concept. It is a very easy read and the relevant part is not that long at all.

As for Harvey being a social democrat. I dunno. It is likely. I've read four of his books and while I enjoy them for their analyses I am not that sure of his political program. In Spaces of Hope he does come off as a reformist, albeit one with radical proposals.

I agree with Quint's assessment of Harvey and specifically of the concept of "accumulation by dispossession."

I explain below:

This is simply a definitional issue. For Marx, the definition of "primitive accumulation" is the historical accumulation that created the prerequisites of capitalist accumulation. Marx shows in Capital, Vol. 1 that capital presupposes a class of dispossessed laborers, on the one hand, and a class that owns the means of production, on the other. By combining those two factors of production (working class and means of production), surplus-value is produced, which in turn is accumulated as capital. So you have a "spiralling" process, as Marx calls it. The working class produces surplus-value which is accumulated as capital, which puts the working class to work and dispossesses more laborers (through the general reserve army of labor caused by the rising organic composition of capital), who then produce more surplus-value, which is then accumulated as more capital, and so forth. So capital presupposes wage-labor and wage-labor presupposes capital.

Since humanity did not come into existence with wage-laborers and capitalists, these two classes must be the product of some sort of history. One cannot invoke either wage-labor or capital to explain that initial separation, since the two classes presuppose each other, and if you invoke one then you invoke the other, which is to say you are back to the thing you are trying to explain (how the two classes of people originally became classes). So Marx attempts to describe the historical process of the dispossession of labor, on the one hand, and the concentration of the means of production into the hands of the capitalist class on the other. This must have occurred before capitalism, by definition. The fact that this process occurred with violence, brute force, etc., is, on the other hand, an empirical issue, and not a definitional one. In other words, "primitive accumulation" does not mean the same thing as "violence." That primitive accumulation occurred through a violent process is a fact, not a definition. (Like, "all bachelors are happy" is an empirical claim, whereas "all bachelors are unmarried men" is a definitional statement. The former can actually be true or false, whereas the latter states a definition.)

When Harvey says that "accumulation by dispossession" occurs both at the beginning of capitalism and as a part of capitalism's ongoing history, he is simply using the phrase differently. (You might be thinking,"Well, 'accumulation by dispossession' is a different phrase from 'primitive accumulation' " but Harvey has explicitly said that he thinks the terms are the same. So according to Harvey his "accumulation by dispossession" = Marx's "primitive accumulation". I am trying to show that this is not the case.)

For Marx, "primitive accumulation" is defined as the initial separation of labor from the means of production (and the corresponding separation of society into two classes). Hence it would make no sense to say, using Marx's definition, that the beginning of capitalism (i.e. primitive accumulation) occurs both at the beginning of capitalism and as a part of capitalism's ongoing history. That would be nonsensical. So when Harvey claims that "accumulation by definition" ("primitive accumulation," according to him) occurs both at the beginning of capitalism and as a part of capitalism's ongoing history, we have to conclude that he is using a different definition of "accumulation by dispossession" ("primitive accumulation") than Marx.

Using a different definition is okay. But Harvey makes it look as if he has made an argument. (John takes it that way, for example, as do most people who read Harvey. John says that Harvey is "arguing [my emphasis] that the process of dispossessing people of their means of a livelihood is ongoing and not just something that occurs at the beginining of capitalism".) Whereas he has really just redefined "accumulation by dispossesion" ("primitive accumulation") to mean, loosely, "the process of dispossessing people." And then once you have defined the phrase in this way, it is possible to say "Look, the separation of producers from the means of production is still occurring today!"

Obviously that cannot have been Marx's definition because if all Marx meant by "primitive accumulation" was the process of dispossessing people, then he wouldn't have distinguished between normal accumulation and primitive accumulation. Marx spent a lot of time discussing the economic means by which people are dispossessed by means of the normal functioning of the capitalist system. If Marx used the phrase how Harvey did, he would've said that all accumulation was primitive accumulation. (Not only this, but actually read the first page of the section on primitive accumulation. My summary of Marx's concept of primitive accumulation is confirmed very clearly and explicitly. http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch26.htm )

So Harvey's "argument" is similar to this sort of "argument". Marx says that chairs are used for people to sit on. Harvey says, "Aha! You are wrong! I was the chair at my weekly meeting last Sunday, and I was never sat on."

So why does Harvey perpetuate this sort of confusion? Because he's an academic and 90% of academia is the result of such confusion.

I already went into the bulk of this stuff in the old thread on Loren Goldner's understanding of "primitive accumulation", which is distinct from Harvey's but is the result of the same general sort of confusion.