Understanding the Primitive Accumulation of Capital

[ComradeAllende]

I've always wondered about the transition from feudalism to capitalism, which was (partly) caused by the destruction of the guilds and the rise in wages following the Black Death. There's also the imperialist aspect of the primitive accumulation, namely the subjugation of the New World, the extraction of gold bullion and North American cash crops, the enslavement of the Africans, as well as the colonization of the East Indies.

My main question is whether or not European imperialism was a necessary prerequisite of capitalism, or if it was only a correlational relationship and the capitalist mode of production would expand with or without the colonization of the New World and the subjugation of the indigenous populations.

[ckaihatsu]

I've always wondered about the transition from feudalism to capitalism, which was (partly) caused by the destruction of the guilds and the rise in wages following the Black Death. There's also the imperialist aspect of the primitive accumulation, namely the subjugation of the New World, the extraction of gold bullion and North American cash crops, the enslavement of the Africans, as well as the colonization of the East Indies.

My main question is whether or not European imperialism was a necessary prerequisite of capitalism, or if it was only a correlational relationship and the capitalist mode of production would expand with or without the colonization of the New World and the subjugation of the indigenous populations.

My understanding is that the primitive accumulation of capital *is* a prerequisite for capitalism, since it's synonymous with 'market capitalization' of the entire economic system, by nation -- the historical context was also about competing, but limited, European empires, particularly on the seas, which called for monetary resources:

Spain became the richest country in Europe by the end of the 16th century,.[11] Much of the wealth from this trade was used by the Spanish Habsburgs to finance armies to protect its European territories in the 16th and 17th centuries against the Ottoman Empire and with most of the major European powers.

The flow of precious metals also made many traders wealthy both in Spain and abroad. The increase in gold and silver on the Iberian market sometimes caused high inflation in the 17th century, affecting the Spanish economy.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_treasure_fleet

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I highly recommend Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch on this topic. It's up for free on libcom, here.