The main thrust of this massive volume is to unsettle the still widely held concept of capitalism as an essentially market-driven arrangement that, by definition, does not systematically rely on direct violence. To counter such received wisdom, Heide Gerstenberger, Emeritus Professor of Social Science at the University of Bremen, has undertaken another monumental feat, after her much acclaimed Die subjektlose Gewalt (1990/2006), now in its third edition. She strongly contests any inherent “development trend” in capitalism, which might “drive towards objectifying and depersonalizing (Versachlichung) economic relations” (p. 11). Rather, Gerstenberger’s main contention is the pervasive presence and potential of “direct violence” in capitalism.
For “capitalist societies”, Gerstenberger identifies as the “decisive functional mechanism […] competition”, from which flow the well-known material constraints that constitute “the organization of work as relations of domination” (p. 16). However, Gerstenberger objects to the idea that economic rationality inherent in such relationships precludes the use of “direct violence […] that is, practices which theoreticians of capitalism consider as unnecessary or even detrimental, at least for developed capitalist societies”. On the contrary, she undertakes to show that such violence, in particular under the forms of “exploitation devoid of limits (entgrenzt)” and also of land alienation, has been a feature of capitalism throughout its existence, even though such forms “contradict norms established in capitalist societies” and need to be “contested” (p. 17).
To prove her point that “direct violence” goes along well with established or “developed” capitalism, Gerstenberger uses a broad canvas on which she maps trajectories that reach from the Western European trading empires through to present-day globalization. Consistently, she maintains a difference between “developed” or “metropolitan” capitalism on the one hand and colonial as well as postcolonial spheres on the other. Gerstenberger takes as her point of departure the armed world trade of the sixteenth century. She sees violence as being linked to “increasing European presence” (p. 21), since in contradistinction to earlier trading systems this was based on enforcing monopoly. The argument then moves to an account of the preconditions of capitalism in the “metropolitan countries” (pp. 49ff.). Processes otherwise seen as disembedment, she accentuates as the setting free of competition, both by land and by sea, the latter being subject to the slow enforcement of the principle of mare liberum.
In terms of labour relations, Gerstenberger’s pivotal point is that marketable “free labour” is not conterminous with the “severing of labour relations from governmental control” (p. 64). She demonstrates this in an extensive account of master and servant laws in Germany, France, and England. The US case is complicated further by slavery as well as indentured and contract labour. In all these cases, she claims that the hemming in or elimination of “direct coercion” and the achievement of “free wage labour” was not due to “economic rationality”, but was instead an outcome of “specific regulation by the state” (p. 122).
Unsurprisingly, Gerstenberger sees specific forms of expropriation, exploitation, and appropriation in the colonial sphere. She highlights methods of “fiscal exploitation” (pp. 134ff.) and underscores the “permanent state of war” attendant on settler colonialism (p. 148). This she exemplifies by forms of “colonial political occupation of land” (Landnahme) (p. 178), where the presence of pre-existing populations made violence a pervasive feature. Further, in analysing the “pacification industry” (p. 187) that thrived here, Gerstenberger argues that “unauthorized action on the spot” was a “general feature of colonial rule” (p. 186); at least as far as she refers to the recently much discussed genocide in then German Southwest Africa – a daring statement given the continuous debate in parliament and civil society at the time. As in other places, her review of the relevant literature is sketchy. Further, in her overview of colonial war and conquest, Gerstenberger disregards the relevance given to the concept of the “small war” (p. 195) in legitimating complete disregard of ius in bello, and thereby the linkage that exists with the systematic discrimination of “natives” implicit in the construction of the colonial state Gerstenberger subsequently addresses. Under the conditions thus created, she asserts, work under the “command of capital” is not predicated on the employment of machinery; rather, a lack thereof implies “command in a verbatim sense” and discipline “forcibly established and maintained” (p. 220). The extensive review of “work under colonial coercive force” uses the example of sugar production to stress Gerstenberger’s pivotal point that industrialization was entirely possible on the basis of slavery. Further, the “coercive power of the colonial state” encompassed “all dependent workers” without precluding “private punitive power” (p. 222). This she exemplifies by an array of forms of slavery and other forms of unfree labour, notably debt bondage, contract (“coolie”) work, and forced labour as well as “less free wage labour” (pp. 185ff.) in several colonies, and “peasant workers”, where Gerstenberger stresses the transformative consequences of capitalist colonization even for seemingly “traditional contexts” (pp. 307ff.).
The “significant difference”, then, between colonies and metropoles can be summarized as a lack of the “separation of the polity and the economy”, which meant that, in the former, capitalism was “integrated completely into colonial state power” (p. 325). Nor was “society” distinct from the polity, which, in Gerstenberger’s view, contributed to the violent form of much anti-colonial resistance.
After a brief chapter on the impact of the two world wars on the social fabric of the metropoles and on the consequences of the mobilization of people and resources in the colonies, Gerstenberger turns to the “domestication of capitalism in the metropolitan states”. This term for a process otherwise called “civilization” (Robert Castel) or “normalization” (Etienne Balibar) is meant to denote the integration of violence into the everyday and its institutionalization (p. 339). The mainstay of this precarious achievement is the legal recognition of the right to strike and of collective bargaining. This has “rendered the capitalist mode of production a private form of domination” (p. 340). It was achieved only by “the shattering experience of World War II”, and, once again, the process was restricted to metropolitan countries.
The onset of World War I marked an important divide, making “anti-union policies dysfunctional” (p. 355); however, the trajectories Gerstenberger sketches for Britain, the US, France, and Germany differ considerably in form and time frame. One further commonality concerns a combination of “measures for enhanced disciplining of workers with strategies of formal cooperation” (p. 367). Further, a connection emerges between the regulation of labour relations and the retreat of the state from outright repression. The most obvious collapse of such domestication is marked by Nazi Germany, which also shows that “the domestication of capitalism should not be equated with social policy” (p. 377). Besides “terrorist disciplining” armed by “labour criminal law”, particularly the predatory policies pursued by the Nazis during World War II involved “using up” (p. 406) inmates of concentration camps, forcibly recruited foreign workers, or Soviet POWs. This raises the question of “slavery” in a political sense, violating not only human dignity by brute force, but also “economic rationality” (p. 419).
Gerstenberger closes her account by reviewing various consequences of globalization, highlighting the “relativization of boundaries […] which had been set for appropriation strategies by the domestication of capitalism” (p. 421). Here, the book encompasses a wide array of structures and practices, ranging from human trafficking or offshore shops and enterprises through to the predatory exploitation of raw materials. In analytical terms, Gerstenberger maintains the persistent relevance of the nation state, which also “precludes the theoretical construct of a global proletariat” (p. 533). Furthermore, her insistence on the continuing relevance of sovereignty, as well as the division between society and the state, also informs an extensive discussion of postcolonial states, at variance with the earlier point about the merging of polity, economy, and society under colonialism.
In her last paragraph, Gerstenberger remarks that she has treated the “excesses”, not the “basic structures”, of capitalism. This may be a judicious statement when limiting conclusions to “reform” (p. 675), but, at the same time, it subverts the author’s claim to address central issues of capitalism, such as the relevance of free wage labour.
Without question, Gerstenberger’s is a stimulating contribution. However, her effort to mobilize an astounding host of empirical materials is not without its pitfalls, from which sometimes a less than thorough engagement with the subject matter may be gauged. Thus, she uses the derogatory terms of Hottentotten for Nama (p. 192), consistently confounds the island of Guadeloupe with Guatemala (pp. 238ff.), Guyana with Guinea (p. 270), and distorts the Maji-Maji War into the “war against the Maji” (p. 184). Some of the literature used is also quite dated.
One may also note that current debates that seemingly have relevance for Gerstenberger’s approach, such as those on “global enclosure” or the closely linked approach of Landnahme, go unnoticed, even though they address directly the systematic place of violence throughout the trajectory of capitalism. Still, such debates will disregard only to their detriment Gerstenberger’s momentous contribution.
