The concept was initially called in different ways, and the expression of an "accumulation" which is at the origin of capitalism, began to appear with Adam Smith.[4] Smith, in his English language The Wealth of Nations spoke of a previous accumulation, although he never actually refers to accumulation as previous accumulation in "The Wealth of Nations";[5] Karl Marx, in the German language Das Kapital, reprised Smith's expression, by translating it to German as ursprünglich ("original, initial"); Marx's translators, in turn, rendered it into to English as primitive.[1] James Steuart, with his 1767 work, is considered by some scholars as the greatest classical theorist of primitive accumulation.[6]
