By Jan Makandal In Bangladesh, Haiti, Brazil, China, the U.S. and everywhere, workers are demanding wages that allow them to feed, house, clothe, and educate themselves and their families. Some on the Left argue that wage struggles are inherently reformist. The reality is that they can be either reformist or democratic (the latter as an [...]
This part of the process consists of the expropriation of land and extraction of natural resources. This is also called original, primitive or primary accumulation. […]
Let’s start with what the capitalist starts with. M: money. Next, we have credit. A bank or a queen or anyone who already has surplus wealth extends a line of credit to some explorer to gather a group of armed thugs, go out into the world, locate wealth and steal it.
Here’s an extremely simplified, and necessarily incomplete representation of capitalism’s basic economic structure. It is the ultimate vicious cycle. I’m also going to explain each part in detail, because it’s more clear if we see it unfold, rather than all at once.