Colonial Plunder Didn’t Create Capitalism
Despite what you may have heard, colonial plunder didn’t give rise to capitalism. In an interview with Jacobin, Vivek Chibber discusses why the “colonialism-created-capitalism” argument fails, and why Marxism provides a better account of its emergence.
Resources brutally extracted from the New World did not bring capitalism to Spain or Portugal, while England had a rapidly growing capitalist economy well before it had an empire. Why, then, does the “colonialism-created-capitalism” argument persist? (Bettman Archive via Getty Images)
It’s well understood that capitalist economies are a recent development in human history. But there is persistent disagreement on the Left over exactly how and where the transition to capitalism occurred, as well as what role colonial plunder played in enriching the West.
On this episode of the Jacobin Radio podcast Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber explains the origins of capitalism, what primitive accumulation means, and how colonialism actually affected European development.
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. You can listen to the full episode here. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
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