Colonial capitalism arises from conquest and unfree labor, not free markets.

Evidence

Rex bases his own approach on a significant historical fact of difference. Whereas, “classically,” capitalism has been installed through the expansion of market relations, production for which is based on “free labour,” capitalism in South Africa arose on the basis of conquest (of the Bantu peoples) and their incorporation into the economic relations on the basis of “unfree labour,” “as part of an efficient capitalist system of production.” This inaugurates the capitalist mode on very different historic “presuppositions” from those derived from the general account said to be offered by Marx—presuppositions, however, more typical of “colonial” formations, where conquest and colonization have been central features, and thus pertinent to the appearance, in such societies, of “not simply the class struggle engendered by capitalist development, but the “race war” engendered by colonial conquest” (Rex 1973: 262). — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 589

Rex bases his own approach on a significant historical fact of difference. Whereas, “classically,” capitalism has been installed through the expansion of market relations, production for which is based on “free labour,” capitalism in South Africa arose on the basis of conquest (of the Bantu peoples) and their incorporation into the economic relations on the basis of “unfree labour,” “as part of an efficient capitalist system of production.” This inaugurates the capitalist mode on very different historic “presuppositions” from those derived from the general account said to be offered by Marx—presuppositions, however, more typical of “colonial” formations, where conquest and colonization have been central features, and thus pertinent to the appearance, in such societies, of “not simply the class struggle engendered by capitalist development, but the “race war” engendered by colonial conquest” (Rex 1973: 262). — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 589

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the historical fact of difference that distinguishes colonial capitalism’s presuppositions from the classical Marxian account.
• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of capitalism’s non-classical origins, echoing debates on primitive accumulation and the plantation economy in other historical-economic readings. — connects to: The commodity is not the origin from which capitalism truly unfolds back. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1163; Capitalism operated simultaneously through multiple modes of production, not a single wage-labor system. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 252; Colonialism and capitalism form two sides of one continuous dispossession process. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 280
• SEED: An essay on how colonial capitalism’s reliance on conquest and unfree labor challenges standard economic explanations of development.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 589