Primitive Sins Of Latin America

Primitive Accumulation In the Uruguayan scholar, Eduardo Galeano’s influential work, Open Veins of Latin America, he expounds the concept of primitive accumulation. Primitive accumulation is the process where pre capitalist modes of production, such feudalism and chattel slavery, are transformed into the capitalist mode of production. Galeano said in his work that primitive accumulation “made possible a new historical age in world economic evolution.” It was very significant in changing things for capitalism. Marx once wrote, “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.” Of course, it became more popular and “as the money economy extended, more and more social strata and regions of the world became …show more content…
Europe conquered plenty of markets and got plenty of gold and silver. Thanks to the European market, the value of the valuable metals from Latin America was very costly and ended up being “four times greater than the value of slaves, salt, and luxury goods it imported” (29). Latin America’s downfall according to a French economist in The Open Veins of Latin America, was their lack of capital. History shows that they did make bountiful wealth, there was labor there for nothing or practically nothing, but unemployment did increase. The capital that was left of Latin America went into primitive accumulation process of European capitalism. However, the process was not very similar to Europe’s who had laid the foundations of industrial