Primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession significantly strengthen our analyses of neo-liberalism, globalization, and capitalism in general. But processes that appear to be primitive accumulation are often better characterized as the subsumption of labor to capital. More than terminology is at stake in making this distinction: subsumption as opposed to primitive accumulation can highlight different sources of change, and different sites of possible contestation. It is time for a re-appraisal and broader conceptualization of subsumption and its relationship to primitive accumulation.
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