Le « Nouvel Impérialisme » : accumulation par expropriation

Abstract

The « New’imperialism » : Accumulation by Dispossession. It is possible to distinguish throughout the long history of capitalism at a world scale two principal forms of capital accumulation : that based on expanded reproduction, the extraction of surplus-value by means of purely economic constraint, and that based on forms of extra-economic coercion, on violence, predation, expropriation, which illustrates the moment of « primitive accumulation ». This moment, which is characterised as « accumulation by dispossession » is not simply a passing phase of early capitalism, but is rather a permanent modality by which it seeks to resolve its contradictions and to extend its ascendancy over new terrain on a world scale. The current period, marked by neoliberal hegemony, is precisely one in which accumulation by dispossession once again has the upper hand over expanded reproduction, thereby outlining the contours of a « new imperialism », dominated by US power.