This essay, through the historical experience of Calabria, argues for a critical revision of the concept of primitive accumulation, through which dispossession of peasantry from the land is seen as a necessary condition of capitalist development. It focuses on the relationship between proletarianization and capitalist development and it shows that systems of production that are often construed as successive stages in the development of capitalism (subsistence-oriented production, small-scale commodity production, large-scale commodity production) developed in Calabria next to each other and at about the same time. Moreover, it shows that in a peripheral context subsistence-oriented production based on accumulation without dispossession has better chances of survival than small-scale commodity production, and far better chances than large-scale commodity production based on full proletarianization.
