A Savage Sorting of Winners and Losers: Contemporary Versions of Primitive Accumulation
TL;DR: This paper explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx's notion of primitive accumulation, only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism.
Abstract: Here I explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx's notion of primitive accumulation, only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism. I focus on two diverse instances which share a common systemic logic: expulsing people from more traditional capitalist encasements. One instance is that of countries devastated by an imposed debt and debt-servicing regime which took priority over all other state expenditures; at its most extreme, the ensuing devastation of traditional economies and traditional states has made the land more valuable to the global market than the people on it. The other instance, which I see as a systemic equivalent to the first, is the potential for global replication of the financial innovation that destroyed 15 million plus households in the US in two years, with many more to come; household destruction at this scale devastates whole areas of cities, and leaves vacant lan...
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the tools of agrarian political economy to explore the rapid growth and complex dynamics of large-scale land deals in recent years, with a special focus on the implications of big land deals for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation.
Abstract: The contributions to this collection use the tools of agrarian political economy to explore the rapid growth and complex dynamics of large-scale land deals in recent years, with a special focus on the implications of big land deals for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation. The first part of this introductory essay examines the implications of this agrarian political economy perspective. First we explore the continuities and contrasts between historical and contemporary land grabs, before examining the core underlying debate around large- versus small-scale farming futures. Next, we unpack the diverse contexts and causes of land grabbing today, highlighting six overlapping mechanisms. The following section turns to assessing the crisis narratives that frame the justifications for land deals, and the flaws in the argument around there being excess, empty or idle land available. Next the paper turns to an examination of the impacts of land deals, and the processes of inclusion and exclusion at play, before looking at patterns of resistance and constructions of alternatives. The final section introduces the papers in the collection.
753 citations
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: In this paper, anthropological research on the micro-credit program of the Grameen Bank shows that bank workers are expected to increase disbursement of loans among their members and press for high recovery rates to earn profit necessary for economic viability of the institution.
Abstract: Abstract There is a growing acknowledgement that micro-credit programs have potential for equitable and sustainable development. However, my anthropological research on the micro-credit program of the Grameen Bank shows that bank workers are expected to increase disbursement of loans among their members and press for high recovery rates to earn profit necessary for economic viability of the institution. To ensure timely repayment in the loan centers bank workers and borrowing peers inflict an intense pressure on women clients. In the study community many borrowers maintain their regular payment schedules through a process of loan recycling that considerably increases the debt-liability on the individual households, increases tension and frustration among household members, produces new forms of dominance over women and increases violence in society.
740 citations
TL;DR: Land grabbing has gained momentum in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past decade The phenomenon has taken different forms and character as compared to processes that occur in other regions of the world, especially Africa as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Land grabbing has gained momentum in Latin America and the Caribbean during the past decade The phenomenon has taken different forms and character as compared to processes that occur in other regions of the world, especially Africa It puts into question some of the assumptions in the emerging literature on land grabbing, suggesting these are too food-centered/too food crisis-centered, too land-centred, too centred on new global food regime players – China, South Korea, Gulf States and India – and too centred on Africa There are four key mechanisms through which land grabbing in Latin American and the Caribbean has been carried out: food security initiatives, energy/fuel security ventures, other climate change mitigation strategies, and recent demands for resources from newer hubs of global capital The hallmark of land grabbing in the region is its intra-regional character: the key investors are (Trans-)Latin American companies, often in alliance with international capital and the central state Initia
492 citations
Cites background from "A Savage Sorting of Winners and Los..."
...The emerging common thread is that there is a need to embed land grabs within our analysis of contemporary global capitalist development (Harvey 2003), in the specific context of the convergence of multiple crises: food, energy, climate change and finance capital (McMichael 2012, Sassen 2010)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the turning of financiers to conservation parameters as a new frontier for investment and rewriting of conservation practice and nonhuman worlds in terms of banking and financial categories is discussed.
Abstract: In this paper I emphasise the financialisation of environmental conservation as 1. the turning of financiers to conservation parameters as a new frontier for investment, and 2. the rewriting of conservation practice and nonhuman worlds in terms of banking and financial categories. I introduce financialisation as a broadly controlling impetus with relevance for environmental conservation. I then note ways in which a spectacular investment frontier in conservation is being opened. I highlight the draw of assertions of lucrative gains, combined with notions of geographical substitutability, in creating tradable indicators of environmental health and harm. I disaggregate financialisation strategies into four categories—nature finance, nature work, nature banking and nature derivatives—and assess their implications. The concluding section embraces Marx and Foucault as complementary thinkers in understanding the transforming intensifications of late capitalism in environmental conservation, and diagnosing their associated effects and costs.
375 citations
Cites background from "A Savage Sorting of Winners and Los..."
...…spaces (cf J Ferguson 2010; Larner 2000), these reorganisations pose severe challenges for equity in the distribution of wealth and resources (cf Sassen 2010), and for the sustenance and resistances of other ecological knowledges, value practices and “biocultural diversities” (Berkes 1999;…...
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...As such, they can be regarded as variously productive power effects, which permit the repositioning and territorialisation of vast regions of the world as sites for capitalised global ecosystem services conservation and supply (Sassen 2010:30)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that existing theories of land grabs do not adequately explain why dispossession becomes necessary to accumulation at particular times and places, and seek to reconstruct Harvey's theory of accumulation by dispossession to adequately account for it.
Abstract: Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have become the epicenters of ‘land wars’ across India, with farmers resisting the state's forcible transfer of their land to capitalists. Based on 18 months of research focused on an SEZ in Rajasthan, this paper illuminates the role of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ (ABD) in Indian capitalism today and its consequences for rural India. It argues that the existing theories of land grabs do not adequately explain why dispossession becomes necessary to accumulation at particular times and places, and seeks to reconstruct Harvey's theory of ABD to adequately account for it. It then shows the specific kind of rentier- and IT-driven accumulation that dispossession is making possible in SEZs and the non–labor-absorbing, real-estate–driven agrarian transformation this generates in the surrounding countryside. Land speculation amplifies class and caste inequalities in novel ways, marginalizes women and creates an involutionary dynamic of agrarian change that is ultimately impoverish...
286 citations
References
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TL;DR: Sassen's seminal work as discussed by the authors chronicles how New York, London, and Tokyo became command centers for the global economy and in the process underwent a series of massive and parallel changes.
Abstract: This classic work chronicles how New York, London, and Tokyo became command centers for the global economy and in the process underwent a series of massive and parallel changes. What distinguishes Sassen's theoretical framework is the emphasis on the formation of cross-border dynamics through which these cities and the growing number of other global cities begin to form strategic transnational networks. All the core data in this new edition have been updated, while the preface and epilogue discuss the relevant trends in globalization since the book originally came out in 1991.
4,685 citations
Book•
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01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how America's power grew and how capital bondage was used for accumulation by dispossession and consent to coercion by consenting to coercion.
Abstract: 1 All about Oil 2 How America's Power Grew 3 Capital Bondage 4 Accumulation by Dispossession 5 Consent to Coercion AFTERWORD Further Reading Bibliography Notes Index
3,822 citations
"A Savage Sorting of Winners and Los..." refers background in this paper
...(Harvey, 2003, p. 139) Harvey (2003, p. 145) opens up the concept to a wide range of processes....
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...Here I explore the possibility that capitalism is today undergoing the systemic equivalent to Marx’s notion of primitive accumulation (PA), only now as a deepening of advanced capitalism predicated on the destruction of more traditional forms of capitalism (Amin, 2010; Harvey, 2003)....
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01 Jan 2004
2,257 citations
"A Savage Sorting of Winners and Los..." refers background in this paper
...In The Global City (Sassen, 1991, see generally ch. 4) I examined how this generated a series of innovations—new types of mortgage instruments, of which the current generation of so-called structured-investment instruments is but the latest....
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...4 In my earlier research (e.g. Sassen, 1988, 1991, 2006) I conceptualized these types of operations in the global North—a mix of organizational complexity and destitution/disempowerment—as ‘peripheralization at the core’....
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Book•
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: The New Urban Economy: The Intersection of Global Processes and Place as mentioned in this paper is an example of a new urban economy that is based on economic globalization and place and production in the global economy.
Abstract: Chapter 1. Place and Production in the Global Economy Chapter 2. The Urban Impact of Economic Globalization Chapter 3. National and Transnational Urban Systems Chapter 4. The New Urban Economy: The Intersection of Global Processes and Place Chapter 5. Issues and Case Studies in the New Urban Economy Chapter 6. The New Inequalities Within Cities Chapter 7. Global Cities and Global Survival Circuits Chapter 8. The Urbanizing of Global Governance Challenges Chapter 9. A New Geography of Centers and Margins
2,031 citations