From the British to the Chinese Periphery: Capital Accumulation Through Primary-Commodity Production in Australia and Argentina

Abstract

This paper compares the economic development of Australia and Argentina. Drawing on key insights of Marx?s critique of political economy, it argues that both national portions of global capital accumulation have been structured under the same specific form; namely: to produce primary commodities under favourable natural conditions. Consequently, they have both been sources of large amounts of ground-rent which rent-paying international capital could appropriate/recover through nation-state mediation. Differences in the economic development of Australia and Argentina are explained in terms of the concrete historical and natural conditions under which this national modality of capital accumulation came about in the two national economies. This analysis serves to highlight the specificities of national processes of economic development structured to produce raw materials for world markets as well as the conditions leading to differentiation.