Primitive accumulation continues alongside capitalism rather than merely preceding it

Evidence

Appropriation and exploitation are the reasons we believe it is still relevant to talk about colonialism in the age of data. They are not outdated features of an old system but relations that newly define our present age. Marx, in an attempt to identify the characteristics of industrial capitalism, differentiated what he was trying to describe from previous modes of production, including those forms of primitive accumulation that can be said to include historical colonialism. But as David Harvey points out, the problem with this approach is that it relegates “accumulation based upon predation, fraud, and violence to an ‘original stage’ that is considered no longer relevant or … as being somehow ‘outside of’ the capitalist system.” Our thesis is that primitive accumulation does not precede capitalism but goes hand in hand with it. We follow authors such as Shoshana Zuboff, Julie Cohen, and Saskia Sassen25 in recognizing an emergent phase of primitive accumulation so unique and historically significant that it deserves treatment as a new stage of history that we call data colonialism. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 178

Categorization

• DEFINE: The core definitional move of the book: ‘data colonialism’ is defined as a continuing, present-era primitive accumulation warranting treatment as a new historical stage.
• XREF: Connects to the rival-school reading — contrast data colonialism with attention/surveillance frames (Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism cited here as a cognate, Sassen and Cohen as allies). — connects to: Marx’s primitive accumulation is actually capitalist accumulation itself.; Capitalism’s form was determined by preexisting feudal civilization; Capitalism was expanding before Marx as colonial extraction — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 41 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how does this framing of ‘appropriation and exploitation’ differ operationally from Zuboff’s surveillance-capitalism mechanism, given they cite her as an ally?
• DEEPTHINKING: The Harvey repair of Marx — showing primitive accumulation is not a pre-capitalist original stage but coextensive with capitalism — is the load-bearing theoretical innovation separating this school from orthodox-Marxist objections that data extraction is just ordinary exploitation.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 178

Broader Connections

• Marx’s primitive accumulation is actually capitalist accumulation itself. #corroborates (0.95)
• Capitalism was expanding before Marx as colonial extraction #corroborates (0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 41
• Capitalism’s form was determined by preexisting feudal civilization #corroborates (0.72)