Capitalist wealth accumulation was built on the dispossession and impoverishment of the masses.

Evidence

But our economic system would be stillborn without the emergence of the first pillar of capitalism, wage labor—the novel social condition of the majority of the population. This class of dispossessed wage laborers was formed by the centuries-long process of enclosure of the common land. It’s no surprise that a transition from one socioeconomic system to another takes generations, is richly layered, and is marked by tumultuous social upheavals. But I want to emphasize one aspect of this transition that immediately imposed itself: the inseparable connection between the increase in wealth of a few on one hand, and the dizzying growth of poverty among the majority on the other. The wealth of nations (also the title of the famous book by Adam Smith published in 1776) generated through capital accumulation was only made possible through exploitation and impoverishment of the masses. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 70

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Capitalist wealth is built on the subjugation of weaker economies — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 337; Fascist austerity dismantled social reforms to rebuild capital accumulation. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1038; Capitalism’s birth required peasants to lose autonomous access to common lands.