The “New Imperialism”: Accumulation by Dispossession

It is possible to distinguish throughout the long history of capitalism at a world scale two principal forms of capital accumulation: that based on expanded reproduction, the extraction of surplus-value by means of purely economic constraint; and that based on forms of extra-economic coercion, on violence, predation, and expropriation, which illustrates the moment of “primitive accumulation.” This moment, which is characterized as “accumulation by dispossession” is not simply a passing phase of early capitalism, but is rather a permanent modality by which it seeks to resolve its contradictions and to extend its ascendancy over new terrain on a world scale. The current period, marked by neoliberal hegemony, is…