Eduardo Galeano Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (1997)

Marx wrote in Chapter 3 of the first volume of Capital: "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation." Plunder, internal and external, was the most important means of primitive accumulation of capital, an accumulation which, after the Middle Ages, made possible a new historical stage in world economic evolution.

— Eduardo Galeano

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Marx wrote in Chapter 3 of the first volume of Capital: "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation." Plunder, internal and external, was the most important means of primitive accumulation of capital, an accumulation which, after the Middle Ages, made possible a new historical stage in world economic evolution." in the context of "Eduardo Galeano Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (1997)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Karl Marx" (Quotes about Marx: Alphabetized by author ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Karl Marx

About Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German political philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist. Marx's work in economics laid the basis for labor theory of value, and has influenced much of subsequent economic thought. He published many works during his lifetime, including The Communist Manifesto (1848) and the first volume of Das Kapital (1867), the two later volumes being completed by his collaborator Friedrich Engels.