Labour Migration, Capitalist Accumulation, and Feudal Reproduction: A Historical Analysis from the Eastern Gangetic Plains

This paper engages with the long running debate on the transition from farm based livelihoods to capitalism. Tracing the historic evolution of modes of production in the peripheral Mithilanchal region the Eastern Gangetic Plains, it notes how the economic processes driving the peasantry into the labour force are not directly connected to the process of capitalist accumulation in the diverse locales where labour is employed, as one may observe under classic situations of ‘accumulation by dispossession’. The entry of the peasantry into the surplus labour pool is instead linked with a complex convergence of internal changes within the feudal mode of production on an economic, cultural and political level, and its interaction with expanding capitalist markets. The paper does note however that migrant labour still generates substantial profits for capitalism with a sharing of surplus between the latter and landlord-money lenders. It argues however that the relationship between modes of production is neither functional nor coincidental, and the paper sheds light on some of the larger class alliances which have evolved in the current political-economic conjuncture.