The barbarian is defined by domination and plunder, not exchange

Evidence

What is more, and unlike the savage, the barbarian is not a vector for exchange. The barbarian is essentially the vector for something very different from exchange: he is the vector for domination. Unlike the savage, the barbarian takes possession and seizes; his occupation is not the primitive cultivation of the land, but plunder. His relationship with property is, in other words, always secondary: he always seizes existing property; similarly, he makes other serve him. He makes others cultivate his land, tend his horses, prepare his weapons, and so on. His freedom 1s based solely upon the freedom others have lost. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 5677

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to contrasts of gift/exchange society (Mauss, the savage) vs. conquest society; later relevant to colonial extraction readings. — connects to: The true barbarians are the oil company’s primitive accumulators, not desert raiders — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 253