This paper shows how accumulation by dispossession is modernly executed through a neoliberal agenda. The resurgence of economic liberalization policies in the late 1970s resulted in an increased role of the private sector through deregulation, privatization and free trade. These resulted in the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations, conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights, suppression of rights to the commons, commodification of labor power and the suppression of alternative and indigenous forms of production and consumption. This paper analyzes how these policies manifest in three case studies, two in Morocco and one in Bolivia. In Morocco I seek to explore how neoliberalization, namely privatization, has led to accumulation by dispossession in Imider through the privatization of a silver mine, and in Ouarzazate through the creation of NOOR solar power project. In Bolivia, I analyze water privatization and how pressure from the World Bank and IMF led the country to privatizing one of their most precious and sacred resources for “management,” which was just a veil for accumulating profit for the powerful actors involved. Not only are these projects stealing the livelihoods of those living there and forcing assimilation into these communities, deregulation allows for these powerful actors to further pollute and destroy the surrounding earth. Additionally, the communities these projects are displacing have a better understanding of how to cultivate and work with their land. For centuries, they have been producing local adaptation measures stemmed in ancestral knowledge, which is often more effective than state regulations that result in destruction of this knowledge. In sum, this paper aims to prove how neoliberalism acts as a legally condoned and encouraged form of theft and often results in harm to the environment.
Introduction:
The state of the current climate crisis cannot be solely attributed to fossil fuels and their growing infrastructure, but also to an unsustainable and destructive power system rooted in the accumulation of wealth. In this paper I will explain how the concept of accumulation by dispossession is implemented through a neoliberal agenda and economic development policies. I will be analyzing case studies in both Morocco and Bolivia through the analytical lens of accumulation by dispossession. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate the relationship between climate change, economic development and neoliberalism, and to explain how these features manifest to further existing inequalities. As global climate change continues to unfold, existing struggles will worsen over the use, control and management of land and other natural resources. States that implement neoliberal policies allow for powerful actors to expand their claim on the land and resources of vulnerable groups with little to no reparations. Governments all over the world have effectively privatized and confiscated land and transformed the people into recipients of development, promising their actions would someday materialize. Indigenous groups, ethnic minorities and rural dwellers have a disproportionate reliance on land-based resources, thus causing them to be among the most vulnerable to these state actions. Tactics to economically develop the country not only dispossess entire communities and destroy their livelihoods, but often directly contribute to climate change through egregious amounts of deforestation, pollution of freshwater and soil, and release of harmful emissions into the air. Additionally, the neoliberalization of environmental arenas has led to the privatization and commoditization of nature, which further exacerbates the climate crisis. If we are serious about combating climate change in the appropriate time frame (before the Earth’s temperature raises 1.5 degrees Celsius), we cannot continue to commodify and privatize nature for the profits of the few. Doing so will only intensify existing struggles and create additional problems around issues of ownership of land and natural resources.
Analytical Framework
For a productive analysis I will be using David Harvey’s theory of accumulation by dispossession and how it has functioned purposely in the era of neoliberalism. Simply put, accumulation by dispossession is the naked transfer of wealth from the world’s working class and poor to the ruling elite. David Harvey (2005) shows some of the more visible aspects of this transfer of wealth in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, “commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations; conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights” (p. 159). A defining factor of neoliberalism is privatization, and is one way that wealth becomes, and remains, concentrated in a small, elite class. To properly understand how the modern processes of neoliberalism came to exist, it is important to understand the origins of primitive accumulation.
Marx commonly is given credit for the theory of primitive accumulation; however, the origins began with Adam Smith’s assertion that “the accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things, be previous to the division of labour” (Smith 1776, p. 277). But it is Marx’s definition that has now become popularized, and which I have found so salient throughout my research. According to Smith, economic development progresses through the voluntary acts of participants, but Marx believed that, "capital comes dripping from head to toe, from every pore, with blood and dirt" (1977, p. 926). When researching in both Morocco and Bolivia, I repeatedly learned of communities that were neither consulted, nor gave consent to, economic development progresses that would be affecting them. The capital came from the working poor who were forced to this work as a means of survival, while the elite had surplus wealth. The old theory is that the producer could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman. Today it can be seen that this theory is deeply oversimplified, it makes it seem easy to gain emancipation from serfdom, but in practice there are many barriers to being able to detach yourself from soil. David Harvey identifies a few of the barriers in A Brief History of Neoliberalism:
suppression of rights to the commons; commodification of labour power and the suppression of indigenous forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land; and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession (p. 159).
All of these show the continuation and proliferation of accumulation. It follows that as long as the conditions remain so unfavorable for the working class, they must continue to produce to as a means to survive. Furthermore, the worse the conditions, the more they will need to produce for survival. Modernly, this is implemented through neoliberal policies and privatization.
As I have shown, accumulation by dispossession has always been a feature of capitalism. However, David Harvey argues that accumulation by dispossession became increasingly significant during the long period of economic crisis beginning in the 1970s, and that it has continued to this day. What started in the United States under Ronald Reagan, China under Deng Xiaoping, and in Great Britain under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gained worldwide appeal between 1978-1980. David Harvey refers to this period of time as a critical “turning point in the world’s social and economic history”(2005, p. 1). This period saw massive tax cuts to the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing and competition in public services. The IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization imposed neoliberal policies to much of the world, often without democratic consent. The freedom that neoliberalism offers is for the wealthy, elite and ruling members of society, at the expense of the working poor.
Neoliberalism brought about freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining, which really just means the freedom to suppress wages. The freedom from regulation allows the freedom to pollute rivers and endanger workers. The freedom of tax results in the freedom from distribution of wealth that allows people economic mobility. Moreover, this era saw the privatization of public services such as energy, and water. Services that are fundamental to the wellbeing of citizens and that are provided to everyone by Mother Earth have been commodified for profit, dispossessing those who can no longer afford the goods and deepening the pockets of the already wealthy. The kind of inequality that neoliberalism enables is recast as virtuous; a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which supposedly will someday “trickle down” to enrich everyone. The rich and powerful often boast that they have acquired their wealth through hard work and merit, and ignore their obvious advantages such as education, inheritance and class that have enabled them to ensure their wealth in the first place. The factors that helped the rich get richer act as barriers to economic mobility for the working poor.
It is important to analyze the case studies I have chosen in Bolivia and Morocco under the framework of neoliberalism through accumulation by dispossession in order to understand where the struggles of the people lie. In the early 1990s, Morocco was pushed forward by the World Bank and IMF as a success story of macro-economic stabilization and text-book economic reform (Pfeifer 1999). It was obvious in my research that the privatization policies in Morocco have further encouraged the concentration of wealth in the hands of a minority elite, better known as the Makhzen. Privatization became a new source of patronage for the Makhzen to reinforce and extend their links with the political and economic elites of the country (Catusse, 2008). A clear example is King Mohammed VI, who, from the beginning of privatization and the implementation of neoliberalism in Morocco, has also become the most important private businessman in the country.
Bolivia is a special case in history. Bolivians mobilized against neoliberal agendas and the privatization of water and gas, and were successful. However, the emergence was quite similar to Morocco. In 1985, the IMF, World Bank and Harvard-educated economists promoted the “New Economic Plan” (Webber, 2011, p.15). Changes included the privatization of natural resources and state-owned companies, including the valuable mines and other public services. The poorest parts of the country, especially indigenous peasants, were affected the most. Poverty rose more than 20 percent in the first 10 years, largely among the working class. Although successful against the privatization of one of their most precious and sacred resources, water, Bolivia’s struggle continues. In both cases I observed self-interested governments and elites who had removed themselves so far from the land and the implication of their policies and decisions, that they had no problem acquiring their wealth from the people who need it most. In the neoliberal era, privatization has become a fundamental strategy of accumulation by dispossession. Many people are unaware of neoliberalism and its implication. Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises and acts as a modern way to enforce accumulation by dispossession.
Methodology
In my research I analyzed two countries and three case studies. In Morocco, I chose the struggle of the community around Imider silver mines and the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station, commonly known as NOOR. On Wednesday, March 28, I had the pleasure of talking to Moha Tawja, who is directly involved in the struggle against the Imider silver mine. After our discussion, he provided me with several articles further articulating their struggle as well as the actions being taken by both the Moroccan government and the company that owns the silver mine. He also provided me with a short documentary created to show the conditions of Imider residents. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to speak to more people involved in the struggle, nor did I have the chance to speak to anyone who works at the silver mine, both of which would have made my research more robust and less biased. Moha was very involved and understandably passionate about the silver mine; however, this increases his bias. A second issue with the research I conducted for Imider was that Moha used a translator when presenting his information. The translator was one of our program assistants, Rayan, who, although very fluent in English, French and Darjah, was not a trained translator and often simplified and put the information into his own words. Word choice and inflection are very important and, unfortunately, are often lost in translation.
My research for NOOR was more reliant on scholarly articles I could find online. After sharing my research topic with Jawad Moustakbal, the Moroccan country coordinator for the program, he recommended I look further into the social implications of the project. It was very easy for me to find a lot of research concerning the solar project; however, a lot of the information cast the project in a “green” light, talking about how it will economically develop Morocco, advance its green technology and be a progression from a reliance on fossil fuels. Not surprisingly, a lot of this information was provided by government agencies. Fortunately, I did find a handful of articles that had compiled research on the social implications and had included talking to the community directly, boosting the credibility of their research. One problem with the research I conducted in Morocco on both the NOOR project and Imider was that a significant amount of scholarly research was not written in English. This means a portion of the scholarly research conducted, that I was able to understand, was done by English-speaking people who were not directly involved in the local community they studied, or even Morocco at large. Researchers who speak English and are alien to Morocco will likely bring Western ideas and mindset to their research which impose biases in their writing. Fortunately, with Moha, he was directly involved in the community and shared articles he felt represented Imider well. Additionally, the main article I am using for NOOR actually cited Jawad often. While Jawad may not be directly impacted by the project, he is from Morocco and has taken great interest in the project, so I trust him as a credible source of information.
In Bolivia, I chose to study the struggle of privatization of water and hydrocarbons. I had the great privilege of speaking to Oscar Olivera who was a prominent leader during the Water Wars. He, as well as his scholarly work, are my main resources for gathering information on this historical crisis in Bolivia. Having access to both Oscar Olivera and his academic work was a great benefit. He was able to provide a detailed, first-hand account of both the events leading up to the water war and the fight against privatization. This is a privilege I do not take lightly. I would not have had access to him and his knowledge if it were not for the program I am with, International Honors Program, and my country coordinator, Ismael Saavedra. Additionally, Ismael was able to provide me with Oscar Olivera’s personal number, and made himself very accessible for questions.
Throughout my three months of conducting research, there are a few denominators that impacted my interactions with local people. First, I am an American. This directs a power dynamic for I am coming from a place of privilege, and more importantly, from a country that has often contributed to or been directly involved in the struggles I am studying in these countries. Secondly, I am a young student and most people I interact with understand I am here studying about the climate. This could prompt them to focus on how the issue is somehow related to, and or impacted by, the climate. This could lead to their leaving out other valuable information by putting emphasis on how it relates to what I am studying. The third denominator, the design of my program, makes research difficult. It is hard to form relationships with communities and the people I am using for my research when on a limited time schedule. However, the context of my program has made me increasingly conscious of my positionality and impact on the communities I am studying and how I will represent them in my research, being sure to give them a voice and autonomy.
Case Studies
Morocco is not an exception to the trend of privatization that occurred in the 1980s. It is no surprise that neoliberalism has been enthusiastically embraced by the Moroccan monarchy and much of the business elite, for they are the ones who benefit. Neoliberalism and privatization policies have contributed to accumulation by dispossession by expanding state power and control over natural resources and collective land ownership (Davis, 2006). The commune of Imider is just one of the many examples in Morocco of how neoliberalism serves the few and harms the masses. Imider is located at the foot of the Anti-Atlas and is home to seven villages within one commune, consisting of mostly ethnic Amazighs. Like much of Morocco, their climate is characterized by drought conditions and their livelihoods rely on agriculture activities. Juxtaposed to this, Imider is also home to one of the largest and wealthiest silver mines in the world, owned by a private Moroccan holding company, SNI. SNI is another example of how the royal family had expanded its control over the economy. The King had fused ONA and SNI for what is known as the “royal big bang.” This convergence cost 24 billion MAD, and further consolidated the king’s economic power. “The dominance of the royal family forces other capitalist families to be hesitant to rebel since the king is one of their most important business partners and main political guarantor” (Bogatart, 2011, p. 176). It is no coincidence that this marginalized group was chosen to be victims of dispossession because they are vulnerable due to their location and income status. Many residents live on less than a dollar a day and they are (in)conveniently situated on Africa’s largest silver mine.
When speaking to Moha about the efforts of the villagers in Imider, he spoke of how the companies never took into consideration the interests of the local people or had a thorough analysis of the environmental consequences this mine could bring. With proper consideration of local people and ethical end-goals of the mine, it could have been a vital resource for the people who live there, but in reality, it is their condemnation to indigence and social exclusion. The mine has drained the community’s water reserves and devastated their livelihood of agriculture, using 12 times more than the village’s daily consumption. Additionally, Imider now has unsafe levels of lead, cyanide and cadmium in their soil and has witnessed increased land desertification. The families that could afford to leave Imider did so, and as of 2004, 106 families had left, increasing the vulnerability and further diminishing the resiliency of the remaining families.
The silver mine is often praised for contributing to the development of the region in terms of infrastructure, a health center, mosque, nursery and housing for 300 families; however, the beneficiaries of these projects are those working in the mine. A majority of workers at the mine are Arabs from large cities, replacing the ethnic Amazigh locals. The monarchy in Morocco champions itself for promoting renewable energy and being environmentally friendly, but in reality they invest in and promote development projects that add to environmental destruction and the decay of community lands and livelihoods. The silver mine produces 240 tons of silver annually and sees around 74 million Euros in annual turnover. The mine should not be considered a symbol of economic development, but instead a symbol of how Morocco practices accumulation by dispossession under neoliberalism; the Makhzen extract enormous wealth from the traditional lands of the Imider villagers. Moreover, these officials and elites leave the villagers struggling to eke out an impoverished existence.
Imider is one case of material dispossession of water and land in Morocco, but the NOOR solar energy project in Ouarzazate offers a second type of dispossession happening in Morocco, green dispossession. It is an example of a project intended for sustainability that is also dispossessing local communities from their territories’ land and water, while also commodifying and profiting from solar radiation. The goal of this project is to end Morocco’s dependency on energy imports and to provide electricity to more than a million Moroccans (Hamouchene, 2016). The dominant narrative throughout Morocco is that this project will help avert the climate chaos by shifting away from a reliance on fossil fuels. My research deconstructs this narrative by looking at it as another example of accumulation by dispossession, revealing that it is no different from the destructive mining activities happening in Imider.
NOOR has about nine billion US dollars invested, much of which is private capital from international institutions such as the World Bank, African Bank of Development, and European Investment Bank. It is not surprising that IFIs have shown strong support for this large scale project, as Morocco boasts one of the most neoliberal economies in the region (Hamouchene, 2016). The NOOR project will be operated as a PPP with a private partner, however, PPPs are only a euphemism for outright privatizations. David Harvey observed that decades of easy loans and increasing indebtedness are often quickly followed by a political economy of dispossession (2009). NOOR is a perfect example of this.
The creation of NOOR involves the acquisition of 3000 HA of communally owned land to produce energy, some of which will be exported to Europe (Rignall, 2012). By 2020, it is expected that NOOR will consume 2.5-3 million cubic meters of water a year–water that is used by the community for irrigation and drinking. As mentioned, this is an example of green dispossession; it is the appropriation of land and resources, transferring the ownership from local people into the hands of the powerful. The rollout of the project happened rather quickly, and much like Imider, without the consent or knowledge of a massive number of the people affected. In 2010, collective land representatives, only three of whom were from the ethnic community of Ait Oukrour, gave their formal approval for the sale. Due to historical laws from their colonial origins, residents in surrounding communities were never informed of the initial process, nor were they contacted when the land was sold. “These laws function to concentrate collective land ownership within the lands of an individual land representative, typically under the control of powerful nobles” (Hamouchene, 2016). This demonstrates how deeply rooted accumulation by dispossession is in Moroccan colonial history. A local inhabitant exclaimed, “the project people talk about is as a desert that is not used, but to the people here it is not desert, it is a pasture. It is their territory and their future is in the land. When you take my land, you take my oxygen” (Rignall, 2012, p.15).
A protest sign that Imider villagers used while protesting during the COP22 conference read, “destruction is not development.” This slogan is poignant and applicable to both Imider and the silver mine and NOOR’s creation in Ouarzazate. Neoliberal development tactics such as these are only profiting the Makhzen at the expense of the masses. Despite the economic and sometimes environmental allure, it is important for the people to question Morocco’s propaganda and the dominate global discourse around economic development projects as a whole, including analyzing who is accumulating and who is being disposed.
Over the last two decades, water has become a central focus for the implementation of global and national neoliberal policies. It is an arena in which transnationals see immense capacity for development and profit. Increasingly, water has been treated as an economic good and priced in such a way as to recover its cost of production. During the massive wave of privatization during the neoliberal era in the 1980s, the World Bank extended major infrastructure loans to aid the development of public water resources, believing that doing so would lead to a developmental takeoff. However, for the people in Bolivia, water is not a commodity, it is their mother, “a social good and a natural inheritance of all living beings—plants, animals and humans” (Olivera, 2004, p. 1). Additionally for Bolivians, it is a scarce resource that is further endangered by climate change. The cases of water privatization in the cities of Cochabamba and La Paz-El Alto are exemplars of accumulation by dispossession, but these cases prove that it is possible to fight against privatization, and win.
Climate change has brought the issue of water scarcity to center stage. Many transnational organizations have therefore seen this as a window for privatizing this valuable resource. They disguise their greed for profit as a way they can work with governments to “manage the scarce resource” (Webber and Spronk, 2007, p. 38). The water wars began in Cochabamba in 2000, and La Paz-El Alto in 2005. The public utility of water in Cochabamba was in poor shape compared to La Paz-El Alto as the city had been in a water shortage for more than 50 years. Citizens received water for around four hours per day and only about 57 percent of the residents had access. The other half of Cochabamba’s residents were involved in cooperative water houses that had been built in each neighborhood to meet its community’s needs (Olivera, 2004, p. 9). Whereas La Paz-El Alto was a much more attractive investment; water was available for 19 hours a day and had reached nearly full coverage (Webber and Spronk, 2007, p. 39). During the first seven years of business, the company SAMAPA in La Paz-El Alto declared profits of 12 million US dollars.
Law 2029 was passed in 1999 and was effectively the law that brought privatization over Bolivia’s waters. This law also brought the company, Aguas del Tunari, to run the Cochabamba water system. It just so happens that the Bolivian government has significant interest with Aguas del Tunari. Once this company began to operate, it took advantage of all the powers Law 2029 provided to it. This law eliminated any guarantee of water distribution to rural areas as well as to the communal water system that half of Cochabamba was reliant upon. It also threatened to cap personal wells if use was not discontinued. Moreover, Law 2029 privatized rainwater and banned the collection of it without consent from the superintendent of water. Private companies were given an allowance for 40 years, while irrigators and rural peasants were only given five years. Furthermore, all existing water systems had to be turned over without any compensation. Law 2029 is a significant measure to enforce accumulation by dispossession, directly harming those who are most vulnerable to the privatization of water while making exceptions and widening the profit for private companies, corporations and the elite.
Many Cochabamban families had a minimum wage of 330 bolivianos per month, around 41 dollars (Olivera, 2004, p. 8). When the World Bank and International Development Bank recommended that there be “no public subsidies,” they clearly did not have the local people in mind. Some people saw price increases up to 300 percent in their bill. Many people could not afford this bill and afford to survive, and thus refused to pay. Many also refused to pay due to the principle that water is a public good and not a commodity to be used for profit. Oscar Olivera said that water privatization, “has no other purpose than to insure maximum profitability for transnational corporations at the expense of ordinary working people” (2004, p. 11). This tariff increase is what started the water wars and attracted the solidarity of Coca growers and peasant farmers. They were all affected by the water law 2029, even though not all were customers of Aguas del Tunari. The protesters shared a frame that pitted the needs of the local communities of water users against the abuses of two transnational corporations, Bechtel and Suez. With an already limited water supply, and law 2029 destroying their adaptation measures, Bolivians’ vulnerability to the State was solidified. Ultimately, the people of Bolivia won against privatization and the consumption of water was turned over to a collective, self-managed enterprise. However, a substantial reason the second water war ended in La Paz-El Alto was that the private company operating no longer found the area profitable, as it continually complained that “it could not make enough money selling water to poor people in El Alto” (Poupeau, 2000, p. 15). Only when the area was no longer profitable did Suez announce a policy to pull from risky markets. The companies and government were not moved to act when the people took to the streets to protest for affordable water needed to sustain their life and livelihood; they were unconcerned until it ultimately impacted their profits.
Without a doubt, the people of Bolivia needed a water solution and had been asking for one since before the privatization. However, a business-centered plan designed by transnationals in order to maximize profit for the wealthy was not the solution they were seeking. Bolivians were asking for inexpensive water through the Misicuni project for drinking and irrigation, and for the project to be centralized and to reach previously unconnected areas. Instead, the state implemented a law that destroyed community resilience, brought about price increases common people were never going to be able to afford and gave no guarantee that areas outside the city would have access to water at all. The issue of water privatization strikes an emotional cord because it has a cultural and symbolic meaning as the essence of life. Along with this, having access to drinkable water is fundamental to the quality of life, but has limited significance to the political economy in Bolivia. Because of these combined facts, the struggles against privatization were mostly resolved. However, water activists have learned that expelling a foreign company and changing the national water legislation were only small steps in a larger struggle to exert social control over water systems worldwide.
Comparative Analysis
During the time period that neoliberalism was trending, both Morocco and Bolivia were deemed by international actors and western countries as “developing.” After World War II, the United States adopted a paternalistic attitude towards these nations as if they needed help. This line of thinking was adopted by the transnational actors such as the World Bank and IMF who took on projects in these countries in the aim of developing them for a profit. Both Morocco and Bolivia had the World Bank and IMF pushing them to implement neoliberal policies in their countries. While I discourage framing these countries as being developing, both countries were implementing measures to economically develop their countries. Morocco had recently been freed from colonial control and was attempting to become part of the international community, and thus invited international actors into their country to assist them. In Bolivia, the World Bank offered $600 million in debt relief on the condition they privatize the water in Cochabamba. “Acceptance seemed like a requirement with the implementation and enforcement of conditions set forth if it wanted to have a chance to participate in the new global economy” (Plessas, 2013, p. 6). The result of implementing neoliberal policies was effectively accumulation by dispossession. The living standards of the most marginalized communities worsened while the ruling classes secured power and capital.
The main difference in my two studies is that Bolivia was ultimately successful in defeating privatization and the power of neoliberalism. The indigenous communities understood the effects of capitalism as imperialism. They had experienced uninterrupted exploitation and oppression for more than 500 years, and they were not willing to let their country revert to these same tactics under the pseudonym of neoliberalism. However, as I said earlier, part of the reason the company left La Paz-El Alto was due to their finding the region unprofitable. Since the water wars, Evo Morales won the Bolivian presidency, campaigning on an anti-neoliberal message, and the people have continued to make structural changes in the state and economy. They are working toward an alternative model to neoliberalism to ensure a better future for all Bolivians. While there are anti-neoliberal movements in Morocco, notably in the Rif region, the government often disguises its neoliberal acts with a cloak of propaganda. Moreover, due to the country’s recent independence from colonialism and the laws that remain in place, the government has no legal obligation to inform its people of how they will be impacted by their “development” tactics. The masses cannot resist a project if they do not know of its development until after it has already been implemented. Additionally, Morocco has chosen to dispossess rural peoples who have vastly different livelihoods than those at city center. These people make very little money a day and depend deeply on the shared resources being attacked by the silver mine.
It could be that Morocco has been able to dispossess two different communities because the rest of the country is under the illusion that there is a “greater good” attached to the dispossession. Unfortunately, the majority of Moroccans will never benefit from this “greater good.” In the case of Bolivia, the water tax affected people in Cochabamba and La Paz-El Alto; however, water law 2029 affected masses of people across the country, making it evident to them that they would never benefit from the privatization. Understanding the system you are fighting, who is benefiting (accumulating) and who is losing (being dispossessed) are critical to resisting neoliberalism and the broader system of capitalism.
Conclusion
As David Harvey observed in The New Imperialism, alongside expanded reproduction, capital also expands by incorporating resources, peoples, activities and lands that were previously managed, organized and produced under social relations (2003). This appropriation is accumulation by dispossession. As I have shown, this process of accumulation often takes place under the adoption of neoliberalism, or privatization. When countries decide to adopt these practices, often only after they have been recommended by transnational institutions, they are choosing to destroy the livelihoods of their most vulnerable citizens. Privatization has an adverse impact on both the community and the environment by giving large corporations exemptions from regulations against environmental degradation. Moreover, when governments dispossess people from their traditional life and land, they are forcing them to assimilate to the new economic system or struggle.
Privatized corporations problematically occupy space, denying people sovereignty over their land and robbing them of resources in order to further concentrate the capital in the hands of the government elite and private companies, both national and international. In order to protect the lives of those being dispossessed by neoliberal actions, it is necessary to recapture nature from the clutches of market mechanisms. These cases are just three examples of experiences that occur all over the world and that come with varying levels of violence from the state. Collectively, they prove that there is no justice or accountability under this system of neoliberalism. Instead, it is crucial to implement meaningful forms of local engagement and to ensure honest, wide-spread discussions in communities which are then free to give or deny their prior and informed consent. As practiced today, privatization acts as a legally condoned, and encouraged, form of theft.