Every living being is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of the environment into itself and its seed. Bertrand Russell

This primitive accumulation plays in political economy about the same part as original sin in theology. Adam bit the apple, and there-upon sin fell on the human race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote of the past. In times long gone by there were two sorts of people: one, the diligent, intelligent, and above all, frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of economic original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means essential. Never mind! Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter sort had at last nothing to sell except their skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite its labor, has up to now nothing to sell but itself, and the wealth of the few that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work. Such insipid childishness is everyday preached to us in the defense of property … In actual history it is notorious that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, briefly force, play the great part. In the tender annals of political economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial … As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.