Expropriation of the expropriators

Abstract

The ‘expropriation of the expropriators’ is a delicious turn of phrase, one that Marx even compares to Hegel’s infamous ‘negation of the negation’. But what does it mean, and is it still relevant today? Before I analyse the content of Marx’s expression, I briefly consider contemporary legal understandings of expropriation, as well as some examples of it. In the remainder of the essay, I spell out different kinds of expropriation in Marx and focus on an ambiguity at the core of the notion of ‘expropriating the expropriators’, namely, whether it describes an immanent and objective tendency within the development of the capitalist mode of production or else actively prescribes a form of revolutionary political praxis for the working class. My answer is that it does both, though not without tension. Finally, I develop some implications of these reflections by showing how the concept of expropriation can be put to use today, in struggles around housing, climate and work.

Climate barbarism: Adapting to a wrong world

“…These companies and politicians will never vote themselves out of power—they need to be forced out. To do so requires massive interventions into the market of distribution and production—including expropriation, decommodification, socialization, regulation, capital controls, and more (Blumenfeld, forthcoming). Anything less is capitulation.…”

Whither hydrocarbons? The rescaling of global oil and gas markets amidst COVID-19 and a contested transition

“… 12. For a fascinating and much deeper dive into Marx's ideas on expropriation see Blumenfeld (2022) . …”

Modeling the Influence of Expropriated Farmers' Determinants on Compensation Payments Using Multiple Regression

“…Elsewhere, some residents may be forced to move from their ancestral land (property) following armed conflicts prevailing in their areas. In normal processes, expropriation denotes a public authority taking property from its owner against his wishes for land conversion in the public interest in exchange for compensation [1].…”

“…The process of expropriation involves two parties (expropriating agency and property owners) who based on a mutual agreement accept to give up his/her property for compensation which can be paid in monetary form or in any other form [2]. Yet globally, during the last century, both expropriations and nationalizations happened, particularly in relation to energy companies, telecommunication companies, railways, infrastructures, financial institutions, coal mines, wartime manufacturing, and many more [1].…”

“…In fact, according to geographers and other investigators in various disciplines, the fact of expropriation has raised many concerns about residential relocation [1]. Based on personal knowledge of the area, this particular expropriated group (farmers in Eastern Rwanda) was chosen for study because project undertakings in this area and the association between sociodemographic attributes and compensation have been little studied in Rwanda.…”