John Kraniauskas

Studies on primitive accumulation in Latin America

Abstract

John Kraniauskas has written a series of deep and luminous studies on capitalism in Latin America. Some of his central theses are: a) the real history of capitalism unfolds in Latin America; b) in this history, trade has developed in an atrophied way, which entails permanent, repressive and authoritarian State intervention; c) contemporary capitalism, which is radically economic, coexists, tensely, with forms of resistance by original peoples and cultures d) the greatest contribution of American criticism to Marxism is the deployment of American Indian forms that tend to establish social norms and practices without reference to commerce. In this context, the article focuses on one of the facts that generates and gives power to all these theses: the analysis of original capital formation in Latin America. This analysis gives way to a critical view of European studies of the New World focussed in the work of Walter Benjamin; a detailed study of wealth accumulation through the narrative of José María Arguedas; and, finally, a reflection on the tension between mercantile form and state form in the American space.