Yann Moulier Boutang

is a French economist. He is the author of De l'esclavage au salariat: Économie historique du salariat bridé and Cognitive Capitalism. He is on the editorial board of the journal Multitudes.

Forms of Unfree Labor: Primitive Accumulation, History or Prehistory of Capitalism?

Forms of Unfree Labor: Primitive Accumulation, History or Prehistory of Capitalism?

We propose to show two things: on the one hand, it shall be argued that so-called “primitive” accumulation of capital takes place in a continuous, or ongoing manner; on the other hand, in order to accurately identify the contemporary role of forms of unfree labor, it is necessary to take the same approach as found in my previous work on the constitution of historical wage-labor.