Let me mention four … non-economic conditions for the possibility of a capitalist economy.
The first is a sizeable fund of unwaged labour devoted to ‘social reproduction’. This labour includes housework; the birthing and rearing of children; the care of adults, including wage workers, the elderly, and the unemployed – all aimed at the making and sustaining of human beings. These activities of ‘people-making’ constitute an indispensable precondition for ‘profit-making’. Without them there could be no ‘workers’, no ‘labour power’, no necessary or surplus labour time, no exploitation, no surplus value, no accumulation of capital, no profit. Yet capital accords them no value, is unconcerned to replenish them, and seeks to avoid paying for them insofar as it can.
The second ‘non-economic’ precondition for a capitalist economy is a large fund of wealth expropriated from subjugated peoples, especially from racialized peoples. This wealth includes dependent, unfree, and unwaged or under-waged labour, but also expropriated land, looted mineral and energy deposits, human bodies and bodily organs, children and reproductive capacities – all serving as inputs to capitalist production for which capital pays little or nothing. Expropriated wealth was an indispensable source of capital stockpiling at the start of capitalism’s history, as Marx maintained; but it did not cease with the system’s ‘maturation’. On the contrary, the capitalist economy relies even now on a continuing stream of free or cheap inputs as a major source of accumulation, alongside and inter-imbricated with exploitation. Absent such expropriation of subject peoples, the exploitation of ‘free workers’ would not be profitable. Yet capital disavows its reliance on such wealth and refuses to pay for its replenishment.
A third ‘non-economic’ precondition for a capitalist economy is a large fund of ‘free gifts’ and/or cheap inputs from non-human nature. These supply the indispensable material substratum of capitalist production: the raw materials that labour transforms; the energy that powers machines and the foodstuffs that power bodies; hence, arable land, breathable air, potable water, and the carbon-carrying capacities of the earth’s atmosphere. Absent these natural-ecological conditions, there could be no economic producers or social reproducers; no wealth to expropriate or free labour to exploit; no capital or capitalists. Yet capital treats nature as a source of free or very cheap gifts to which it helps itself but fails to replenish or repair.
A fourth and final ‘non-economic’ precondition for a capitalist economy is a large fund of public goods supplied by states and other public powers. These include legal orders that guarantee property rights, contracts, and free exchange; repressive forces that ensure order, put down rebellions, manage dissent, and enable expropriation both within and beyond state territory; a money supply that stores value and enables transactions across broad swaths of time and space; transport and communications infrastructure; and a variety of mechanisms for managing system crises. Absent these public goods, there could be no social order, no trust, no exchange – hence no sustained accumulation. Yet capital tends to resent public power and seeks to evade the taxes that are necessary sustain it.
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