Chapter 26: The Secret Of Primitive Accumulation
Possibly the smallest chapter in the book, this essentially just says that capital emerged through breaking the sacred laws of private property by allowing it to accumulate. It was started by splitting people from their means of subsistence, such as land, productive forces, skills, culture, trades, and so forth. This somewhat goes back to the aspect of dehumanizing people by isolating them from their labor, extracting what we hold dear as a mode of private profit; everything eventually becomes commodified as the process advances forward.
Chapter 27: The Expropriation Of The Agricultural Population From The Land
As we discussed before, the biggest difference between capitalism and feudalism is that production is no longer tied to the land with the latter. The theft of land accumulation forced peasants to wage labor as soon as feudal lords were replaced with the conquering and privatization of land. The peasantry previously had the same right to the land as the lord, it's just that a portion of the labor done there went to the lord, as we previously discussed. Now, capital is no longer interested in land, but is interested in money to turn commodities into more money, which relates back to the first section.
Enter legislations role in this; money accumulates in the earliest stages, then acts as the power to lobby and command the state through capital. This also sees the reformation of church, dividing the church and state, which the latter then divided up land for extremely low cost to create the capitalist class. But what of the commons, or in other words, public places that the state couldn't control? The 15th and 16th centuries saw subjected these through acts of violence until they became managed by the state in the 17th century. By now, these lands were granted to landlords as a means of private property, which allowed for evictions of peasants and massive acts of violence to lay the foundations of private capital. Even today, we see this on smaller scales in order to maintain capitalist control. The dissolution of the USSR even saw this process happen again from capitalists reclaiming power, showing serious regression from the public property getting sold and concentrated into private hands. Housing and needs are now in the hands of oligarchs in Russia, and violence was used against those who tried to resist this.
Chapter 28: Bloody Legislation Against The Expropriated Since The End Of The Fifteenth Century; The Forcing Down Of Wages By Acts Of Parliament
What a mouthful! This chapter focuses more on the states new involvement as capitalist society arose. While some tried to argue that the peasant classes were now "freed persons," they were actually forced into becoming wage laborers in the industrial centers. They would be punished for not doing so, or would end up homeless (or both). In other words, peasants were called "voluntary criminals" in order to bring more of them into the new working class. Think again to what we talked about in an earlier section about anti-homeless laws, and the "reserve army of laborers," as if this is simply a choice every person can have. Whipping, branding, and torture were all used as punishment, much like how it was under slavery.
Over time, this will all get worked into the culture of a certain land, which we see in America a lot today. Think about how much propaganda is pumped into your entertainment, news, and general status quo. This takes its origins hundreds of years ago. Capitalism's conditions in education and culture help justify it by showing only how it built itself up from feudalism, while dodging slave society and violence used to prop this up, and the violence it takes in keeping it in place rather than moving to socialism. How many times has someone made the tired "human nature" argument to you, as if that hasn't changed over time? How often do you hear words like "freedom" and "democracy," as if they're exclusive only to the capitalist mode of production and nothing else? The littlest bit of research can disprove this nonsense. And finally, you'll end up with people actually believing that the poor are poor because of bad choices, while the rich are only rich from "saving." Do I really need to go further with this?
Finally, parliament extended working days to create these "reserve army" of workers, and give it a normal degree of dependents. Wages were driven down to create a wage ceiling, once more allowing for higher profit and more power with capital's command via the state. Trade unions were outlawed, said to be an attack on "liberty" (read: private capital), and the only way concessions against this were won in history was through massive resistance by the working class and left movements.
Chapter 29: The Genesis Of The Capitalist Farmer
This was mentioned briefly in chapter 27 and this chapter essentially expands on that just a little bit. As we know, land privatization is what created the capitalist class of farmers, and even some serfs began exploiting other serfs. All they had to do was split capital investment between themselves and the landlord (or larger capitalist) before eventually starting their own stream of capital accumulation. All this is to show the role capitalist farmers played in creating the owning class in the early stages.
Chapter 30: Impact Of The Agricultural Revolution On Industry; The Creation Of The Home Market For Industrial Capital
Another mouthful title nearly as large as the point it makes. This serves to point out how formerly, peasants consumed raw materials and created commodities for themselves and the lord (which we should note is still exploitative in its own way), but those commodities now go to the large, private farmer to sell. Since he has a market of manufacture, it allowed labor power to create the market itself.
Chapter 31: The Genesis Of The Industrial Capitalist
The next step in this forward movement deals in history more recent to Marx's time, as larger industry begins, advancing closer to the next stage of capitalism. The M-C-M step takes high fruition here, lending out money for commodities used to get more money, which is the key reason for labor power and surplus value extraction. Revolution does not work within the law, and this is where breaking sacred laws of private property really ramp up; so think to the industrial revolution, colonialism, or events that lead to the American Revolution. All it took was for Europeans to discover that there was gold in the Americas to aim for conquering foreign land. They could then exploit resources for the growth of capital, enslave others, genocide indigenous populations, and form national debts to force capital to keep flowing from colonies. This is then downplayed as "nature," something that conveniently doesn't fit when advancements to socialism are described, but somehow does for capitalism.
Brute force is now employed by the state power that we discussed growing in chapter 27, but on a far larger scale. National debts are publicized, and people will continue to get worked into the finance capital started by the state without getting any share or say in the production processes; electing a different ruling class president every four years is not democracy, and does not count as "having a voice." Think about even recently (2008, 2020), as the state gave money to banks and what that caused for the working class. Think of the Great Depression. Think about how empires kept colonies in debt with things like the IMF and National Bank. Debt credit and taxation are needed for the capitalist mode to remain in its later stages. Economists will argue that they are what cause poverty with no mention of how they're needed in order to keep our current system. And most importantly, this leads to imperialist wars meant to seize common property and privatize it.
Chapter 32: The Historical Tendency Of Capitalist Accumulation
Everything we've read until this point is meant to show why capitalism leads to revolutionary tendencies; while Marx never saw any huge revolutions in his time, he saw enough blowback to reflect the amount of socialist revolutions that arose in the 20th century. Productive forces were always built on prior arrangements (I.E. slavery, feudalism) that turned to handicraftsman falling into the hands of private owners. Then, these fall into the hands of larger capitalists, which was the main point of part 7 on capital reproduction. The more this centralizes, the more the proletariat class grows and gives way to this type of revolt that we've seen in the past century.
The point is that capitalism digs its own grave because of its conditions to function. Socialism so far has happened heaviest where capitalist chains were the weakest, something Josef Stalin addressed in The Foundations Of Leninism. Think of how weak capitalism was in Russia, China, or colonies dominated by bigger capitalist powers in the 20th century. And worst of all, the competition drive between large corporations causes the protection of research and development that could be for the public. Health, science, engineering, and inventions are privatized for profit, rather than need, and this is why capitalism must go.
Chapter 33: The Modern Theory Of Colonization
Really, chapter 32 could work as a summary of this entire section, but Marx threw in one last small chapter that I think works something like an afterword. This is where he mentions that the contradictions of capitalism get pushed the most by colonialism (and eventually imperialism), which Lenin somewhat takes the horns and drives with from here. It's the basic principle of how nobody can be free if there is slave labor in another colony, as that threat of "it could be worse" will always loom. National chauvinism is a strong weapon of the bourgeoisie, and we see that everywhere today. The way Americans look at those in Africa, Asia, and other nations that were mutilated from colonialism and imperialism should tell you all you need to know.
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