The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Common fields and pastures kept alive a vigorous co-operative spirit in the community; enclosures starved it..." (more)
Key Phrases: primitive accumulationists, other classical political economists, silent compulsion, Game Laws, Adam Smith, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This study is to be admired for its comprehensiveness, scope, and the amount of unearthing and excavation Perelman provides The indictment of political economists who addressed themselves to the matter of primitive accumulation is masterful."--H. T. Wilson, York University

Product Description

The originators of classical political economy—Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and others—created a discourse that explained the logic, the origin, and, in many respects, the essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism’s creation: For it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this?
Clearly, they did not go willingly. As Michael Perelman shows, they were forced into the factories with the active support of the same economists who were making theoretical claims for capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrived without needing government intervention. Directly contradicting the laissez-faire principles they claimed to espouse, these men advocated government policies that deprived the peasantry of the means for self-provision in order to coerce these small farmers into wage labor. To show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labor and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines diaries, letters, and the more practical writings of the classical economists. He argues that these private and practical writings reveal the real intentions and goals of classical political economy—to separate a rural peasantry from their access to land.
This rereading of the history of classical political economy sheds important light on the rise of capitalism to its present state of world dominance. Historians of political economy and Marxist thought will find that this book broadens their understanding of how capitalism took hold in the industrial age.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press (May 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822324911
• ISBN-13: 978-0822324911
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #660,493 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Work Makes Free (!), May 23, 2000

By	Dr. Regino Diaz-Robainas (Stuart, FL USA) - See all my reviews

An impressive study of the significance of Primitive Accumulation in the development of the refined and reified slavery that we call Capitalism. Through Primitive Accumulation, in its pure, somewhat abstract "original sin" form, the ancestors of those who today control the wealth and power in the world robbed- by violence and brute coercion- the means of autonomous livelihood from the majority of peoples. It was the brutal process of "separating people from the means of providing for themselves" to turn them into instruments of production for profits, as in factories. This process evolved into more habitual and masked "market relations" to institutionalize and render more permanent the status of workers as wage quasi-slaves. In contrast to Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and other apologists and defenders of the system. Marx described this process with historical concreteness describing such historical events as the English Enclosure and Game laws. The conventional view has been that primitive accumulation was substituted by subtle and less exploitative reified market relations. But, as Perelman explains with resolute clarity,the two aspects of Capitalism are dialectically and continuously interlocked. After all, between Bentham's struggle to subdue the poor into military work prisons with lives rigidly controlled in the service of the Masters' profits- shades of Auschwitz- and Greenspan's concerns (!) about the "wealth effect" reducing the willingness of workers with some minimal invested savings to get back to the "labor force" for "flexible" wages and the new regulator of "markets" concern for "unacceptably low levels of unemployment"- is there, really, that much difference ? The brutal process continues with such slogans as "buy when there's blood in the streets", and Michael Perelman has done a great service in describing it.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flies in the Face of Received Wisdom, March 19, 2001

By	carlo harris (Taipei, Taiwan) - See all my reviews

Perelman's painstaking analysis of 'Primitive Acculumation' is an absolute masterpiece. I've never seen a more trenchant and well researched piece on the birth of capitalism. One does not have to possess of leftist orientation to appreciate this powerful critique of the origins of capitalist system. It vividly demonstrates the 'ahistoricalness' of so much of the classical free market theology, and exposes the real ideological underpinnings of capitalism's brutal rise to eminence. Perelman analyzes not only the familiar texts, but also the private writings of several well-known and not so well-known political economists and other figures (fans of Adam Smith may be a little let down!). The other review was quite excellent so I needn't continue with the accalaides; but I seriously recommend to all those interested the history of capitalism and political economy to take a look at Perelman's well written and balanced perspective.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classical Economists: Liberty lovers or Control Freaks?, February 2, 2002

By	Emily Dimov Gottshall (Altoona, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the first book I've read that goes into much detail about the subject of primitive accumulation, and I'm impressed. Having an American History perspective, when I think about the social engineering behind a capitalist economy, I think about protective tariffs, slavery, moving Indians off the land, subsidies to canals and railroads, etc. It's fascinating to see that coercion and government involvement goes back much farther than that. And it's good to learn about some of the more forgotten political economists like James Steuart.

One does not have to be particularly leftist appreciate this book. Whether means to capitalist economic development was wrong or a "necessary evil", it's still extremely useful to know that things just didn't evolve naturally out of free exchange. The system was consciously engineered so that the "right sort" of people would be successful, and there's nothing sinister when people, through democratic choice, re-engineer things to bring about a reduction in income inequality, environmental protection, etc.

While not all leaders and thinkers in the 18th century were economists, I have a slight problem with the portrayal of Adam Smith. Now perhaps I've been seduced by his charm, but it seems as though he has a more complex view of the common good. Of course he wasn't a modern leftist or a cultural relativist, but at the same time, he wasn't a William Graham Sumner-style Social Darwinist of the late 1800s either.

"Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. "

The author doesn't use quotes like this from Smith, perhaps he assumes the "pro-worker" statements are well-known enough not to repeat. But how many ways can we interpret this?

"The capricious ambition of kings and ministers has not, during the present and the preceding century, been more fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquility of any body but themselves."

Pretty strong language. The author would say that he's talking only about a certain class of merchants, perhaps.

Some leftists like Noam Chomsky will talk favorably about Adam Smith, as part, I think, of a larger argument to show that market fundamentalism and Social Darwinist "class warfare" are a departure from Classic Liberalism. Maybe I'm being naïve but I'm more sympathetic to this view. I feel it unwise to throw away so much of classic liberalism when it seems that most 18th century liberals wouldn't support modern corporate capitalism. From reading this book, I partly get the sense that you should either be a supporter of "invisible hand" market economics, or a Marxist. But that isn't the case.

Benjamin Franklin, a friend of Adam Smith, wrote a lot of contradictory statements, it is true. But this quote, I think, shows the concept of civic virtue that many of America's "founding fathers" had:

"Private property is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing, its contributors therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered a Benefit on the Public, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honor and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or as payment for a just Debt."

This is a superb refutation of the warmed-over 1890s Social Darwinist mentality. Wealthy people aren't being punished when they pay higher taxes. Nor are they doing an act of benevolence. They are paying a "just debt" because in the long run, large-scale private-property is socially engineered, and the rich man depends on government more than the poor man.

Overall I have few disagreements with this book, and I highly recommend it.