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Accumulation by dispossession

Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the marxistacademicDavid Harvey, which define the neoliberalchanges in many western nations from the 1970sand to the present day, as being guided by mainly four practices. These are privatization, financialization, management and manipulation of crises, and state redistributions.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 Practices
- 1.1 Privatization
- 1.2 Financialization
- 1.3 The Management and Manipulation of Crises
- 1.4 State Redistributions
2 Examples
3 Summary
4 See also

Practices

Privatization

Privatizationand commodificationof public assets have been among the the most criticised and disputed aspects of neoliberalism. Summed up, they could be characterized by the process of transferring property, from public ownership to private ownership. According to Marxist Theory, this serve the interests of the capitalist class, or Bourgeoisie, as it moves power from the nation's governments to private parties. At the same time privatization generates a means for profit for the capitalist class, because after a transaction, they can then sell or rent to the public, what used to be commons.

Financialization

The wave of financialization which set in the 1980sis allowed by governmental derulation which has made the financial system one of the main centers of redistributive activity. Stock promotions, Ponzi schemes, structured assetdestruction through inflation, asset strippingthrough mergers and acquisitions, dispossession of assets (raiding of pension funds and their decimation by stock and corporate collapses) by credit and stock manipulations, are, according to Harvey, central features of the post-1970s capitalist financial system.

The Management and Manipulation of Crises

By creating and manipulating crisis through e.g. suddenly raising of interests rates, poor nations can be forced into bankruptcy, and into agreeing to structural adjustment programs. According to Harvey, this is administered by parties such as the U.S. Treasury, Wall Streetand the IMF. Debt Crisis like these where uncommon in the 1960s, but became very frequent in the 1980sand 1990s.

State Redistributions

The neoliberalnation state is according to Harvey one of the prime agents of such redistributive policies. Even when privatization appears as beneficial to the lower classes, the long-term effects can be negative. The state seeks redistributions through a variety of means, like revisions in the tax code to benefit returns on investment rather than incomes and wages, promotion of regressive elements in the tax code, displacement of state expenditures and free access to all by user fees and the provision of a vast array of subsidies and tax breaks to corporations.

Examples

Margaret Thatcher's program for the privatization of social housing in Britain appeared in the first blush as a gift to the lower classes which could now convert from rental ownership at a relatively low cost, gain control over a valuable asset and augment their wealth. But once the transfer was accomplished, housing speculation took over (particularly in the prime central locations), eventually bribing or forcing low income populations out to the periphery.

Privatization is the process of transferring productive public assets from the state to the private companies. Productive assets include natural resources, such as earth, forest, water, air. These are assets that states have used to hold in trust for the people it represents. To privatize these away and sell them as stock to private companies is what Harvey calls accumulation by dispossession. This is done in many countries all over the world, including Boliviaand South Africa.

Summary

Harvey link these practices to what Karl Marxcalled private or primitive accumulation, and ties these to examples from the real world. The neoliberal modernityis thus, according to Harvey, a modernity in which dispossession plays a large role, and where the capital class is gaining power on behalf of the labour class.