Perelman on Primitive
Accumulation & the Game Laws
From Michael Perelman's important The Invention
of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive
Accumulation (2000). It re-reads the classical
liberal economic theorists (Smith, Ricardo, Steuart, et al),
who are generally associated with the "laissez-faire" idea that "markets
provide the most efficient method for organizing production", & that
therefore the state should butt out of the economy & let it organize
itself. Perelman is interested in the fact that, since "most people in
Britain did not enthusiastically engage in wage labor -- at least so long
as they had an alternative", the classical political economists "championed
time and again policies that flew in the face of their laissez-faire principles...."
Such policies were actions by the state which used "nonmarket forces...
to speed up the process of capitalist accumulation in the countryside":
think for example of enclosure laws & vagrancy laws. (Policies of this
sort are now called "extra-economic" --which means: achieved through the
use of political intervention, power & violence.) Simply: these
thinkers "actively advocated measures to deprive people of their traditional
means of support." As Ellen Wood (among others) argues, British capitalist
development relied importantly on the wrenching reorganization of property
rights & production in the countryside. This selection is not representative
of the book, but points at a very clear & interesting example of the
extra-economic means used in Britain to undermine subsistence on the land:
the Game Laws. "Primitive accumulation" is the Marxist term referring to
the first instance of piling up the capital required to kick-start the
market into dominance over the economy. [Consider this: the means used
to destroy subsistence production during the British transition to capitalism
could be replicated on the frontiers of Empire for the same purpose: to
create a numerous & dependent wage labour pool.] The
numerous references omitted. Ellipses may omit several pages.
...[T]he
Game Laws began as an element of feudalism... [and] were one of [its] most
hated institutions.. most remembered today for leading Robin Hood into
a life of crime....
The modern English Game Laws began in 1671.... Although
it may have sounded capitalistic, this legislation actually reflected a
spirit that was inimical to capitalism. The intent of this legislation
was to promote a hierarchy of class relationships, not necessarily capitalist
in nature. According to one of the few works devoted to the study of this
subject, "The Game Laws were born out of a desire to enhance the status
of country gentlemen in the bitter aftermath of the Civil War. Their message
was that land was superior to money."
While an antibourgeois sentiment may have motivated
the Game Laws, these acts represented a direct response to the refusal
of the rural poor to accept the landlords' assertion of unprecedented property
rights following the Civil War. After all, these new property rights came
at the expense of the traditional rights of the poor in the countryside.
These traditional rights were far from inconsequential
for the rural poor. For them, hunting was an important means of providing
for oneself and one's family, rather than simply pleasant recreation. The
Game Laws, in this sense, became part of the larger movement to cut off
large masses of the rural people from their traditional means of production.
Once English leaders recognized the unexpected benefits
of the Game Laws, the people in power went well beyond merely embracing
the acts as they found them; they passed increasingly restrictive Game
Laws with even more inhumane penalties. In the process, the British Game
Laws became the harshest in the world....
...[D]espite the feudal execution and intent of
the modern Game Laws, their effect was decidedly capitalistic insofar as
they succeeded in accelerating the process of primitive accumulation.
Changing social relations in the countryside influenced
the development of the Game Laws. Although the feudal Game Laws were harsh
and repressive, the paternalistic obligations that society still expected
of the gentry tempered the severity of these restrictions. Generally, those
most in need could count on some generosity from the superior orders; however,
the social mores were changing.
With the decline of feudal relations, land ownership
was becoming more of a business and less a way of life. The economic value
of land rose, and the gentry became more bourgeoisified. Landlords' relations
with their tenants became both more distant and more exploitative. Long-term
leases became less common. Rental income was on the rise. Cottagers were
being eliminated. Casual labor was replacing full-time workers and servants.
Any goodwill was fast disappearing from the countryside.
Within this context, the Game Laws became ever more
brutal. The Waltham Black Acts of 1722 were among the earliest of the severe
measures to punish poachers. This legislation was devised at a time when
venison had become a prized delicacy, perhaps because of the great expanse
of land required for raising deer. More and more, poachers began to see
the quarry as a commodity rather than an object of direct consumption.
A century later, in 1826, a journalist lamented that it was "difficult
to make an uneducated man appreciate the sanctity of private property in
game [when]... the produce of a single night's poach was often more than
the wages for several weeks' work."
The penalties for taking game were initially less
severe than for poaching deer until landowners began to take measures to
increase their population of deer on their land. In response, the scope
of the Game Laws expanded rapidly. During the first six decades of the
eighteenth century, for example, only six acts were directed against poachers
of small game. The next fifty-six years saw the enactment of thirty-three
such laws.. As a result, "meat virtually disappeared from the tables of
the rural poor."
Poaching was taken so seriously that it was, on
occasion, even equated with treason. The British courts enforced these
laws with shocking ferocity. Several poachers were actually executed under
the famous Black Acts....
Why would the feudal Game Laws become so much harsher
under capitalism? The answer lies in the fact that the Game Laws reflected
a situation where the interests of capital and the gentry coincided. The
gentry could enjoy the prestige of hunting, while the capitalists could
enjoy the labor of many of the people who were forbidden to hunt as a means
of subsistence.
The Game Laws were bound up with the rise of classical
political economy in the sense that both revealed the emerging hegemony
of property relations. Political economy offered a justification of a regime
dominated by the logic of property relations; the Game Laws defined new
forms of property. In this sense, the Game Laws represented an essential
bulwark for the social order. Since the taking of game was tantamount to
challenging property rights, such acts had to be punished severely. The
lesson was not lost on either the gentry or bourgeoisie.
We can see the resentment against the Game Laws
in France, where one of the earliest acts of the French Revolution was
their repeal....
These modern [British] Game Laws became an effective
policy instrument in the process of primitive accumulation because they
prohibited the rural poor from keeping weapons, thereby diminishing people's
ability to resist the onslaught. As William Blackstone [1775] noted, "The
prevention of popular insurrection and resistance to the government, by
disarming the bulk of the people; which last is a reason oftener meant,
than avowed, by makers of forest or Game Laws." Later research has confirmed
Blackstone's contention, finding that access to weapons was a major factor
in determining the level of exploitation.
The Game Laws were a useful disciplinary device
in another respect. Many observers recognized that people would resist
drudgery so long as they could hunt instead. As an early writer from the
United States warned his readers, "once hunters, farewell to the plough."
Similarly, John Bellers, the famed Quaker philanthropist of the time, remarked,
"Our forests and great Commons [make the Poor that are upon them too much
like the Indians] being a hindrance to Industry, and are Nurseries of Idleness
and Insolence."
Blackstone agreed that we should view the Game Laws
in terms of maintaining discipline within the labor force: "The only rational
footing, upon which we can consider it a crime [to violate the Game Laws],
is, that in low and indigent persons it promotes idleness and takes them
away from their proper employments and callings." William Pitt concurred.
The Game Laws went beyond directly promoting primitive
accumulation; they became an important tool in maintaining labor discipline.
We cannot know how well they succeeded in this respect, since we have little
opportunity to hear from both sides in the struggle....
back to the
list of readings