Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

Preprint

Publication Date

12-2017

Abstract

This paper attempts to elaborate a political theory of capital’s violence. Recent analyses haveadopted Karl Marx’s notion of the “primitive accumulation of capital” for investigating theforcible methods by which the conditions of capital accumulation are reproduced in the present.I argue that the analytic function accorded to primitive accumulation can be better performedby a pair of new concepts: “capital-positing violence” and “capital-preserving violence.” Irefine the conceptual core primitive accumulation (coercive capitalization of social relations ofproduction) by focusing on the role of colonial violence in the history of capitalism, which Ithen elucidate with reference to Carl Schmitt’s account of European colonial expansion andWalter Benjamin’s reflections on law-making and law-preserving violence. The resultantconcepts of capital-positing and capital-preserving violence, I conclude, can illuminate boththe historical and the quotidian operations of the politico-juridical force that has beenconstitutive of capital down to our present moment.

Keywords

capitalism, violence, colonialism, Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt

Discipline

Political History | Political Science | Political Theory

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Political Theory

First Page

1

Last Page

30

ISSN

0090-5917

Identifier

10.1177/0090591717748420

Publisher

SAGE

City or Country

Philadelphia, PA

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591717748420

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