Category: Imperialism

Samir Amin and Beyond

Ingrid Harvold KvangravenLeave a comment

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By Ushehwedu聽Kufakurinani, Ingrid Harvold聽Kvangraven and Maria聽Dyveke聽Styve

When the sad news came of Samir Amin鈥檚 passing on August 12th, 2018, a plethora of beautiful obituaries were published in his memory (see for example聽,听,听听辞谤听). These have made it more than evident not only how important his scholarship and work through the World Social Forum聽is, but also what an extraordinary person he was. We never had the privilege of meeting Samir Amin in person, but he was very kind to grant us an interview over Skype for an聽聽we put together in 2017 on the contemporary relevance of dependency theory (since published by the聽). Now we wish to unpack his contributions to our understanding of political economy and uneven development, and explore how his ideas have been interpreted and聽adopted in different contexts,听and their relevance today.

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Neoliberalism or Neocolonialism? Evaluating Neoliberalism as a Policy Prescription for Convergence

Rahul Menon6 Comments

Melton_Prior_-_Illustrated_London_News_-_The_Transvaal_War_-_General_Sir_George_Colley_at_the_Battle_of_Majuba_Mountain_Just_Before_He_Was_Killed.jpgBradford deLong has recently argued that neoliberalism provides a way for former colonies to close the gaps with their erstwhile colonial masters. But this argument ignores the fact that several economic policies of colonial times were explicitly laissez-faire in nature.

The recognition of the dangers of allowing finance a free hand in the economy has led to a rethink of the soundness of neoliberalism as an economic and policy doctrine, from . has attacked the theoretical foundations of neoliberalism itself, judging that its insistence on allowing for unhindered market activity is bad economics itself, for economic models that make a theoretical case for markets cannot be easily transplanted into the real world in the way that advocates of neoliberalism believe.

Yet this is not to say that the concept is dead and buried. As Harvey (2007) points out, neoliberalism is a political economic process that ostensibly seeks to organise society and economies around the principle of free market activity, while primarily attempting to shift the balance of power towards dominant economic classes that control capital. Seen in this light, neoliberalism is still a powerful force shaping political and economic changes in much of the world today.

, first published in 1998 and re-published now shows that the term 鈥渘eoliberalism鈥� still carries intellectual currency. His is a curious argument; neoliberalism provides the only suitable path for countries of the developing world to close the gap with their former colonial powers. Access to the latest goods and technology allows developing economies 鈥� with low levels of productivity 鈥� to boost productivity and output growth, and consequently incomes. The reason the State should stay away from the economic sphere in the developing world is because democratic institutions have not been established yet, and hence the political sphere is vulnerable to capture by elites.Read More »

Pitfalls of the Developmental State: The Fate of the Sudanese Economic Model

tinashenyamundaLeave a comment

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I have lately been grappling with the question of how African states came into being, not just as political, but especially economic territorial units. Connected to this are questions of how experts, especially economists came to influence and account for what became national economies. At the center of the state, economy and society are critical question of development and welfare. How did independent African countries make sense of their inheritance and what mechanisms did they deploy to transform themselves into coherent nations of multiple but entangled identities with disparate circumstance but common material goals united by the logic of a national economy? As I grappled with these issues, a great new monograph informed by an impressive historiography has arrived. The author grounds his work in an archivally based history of the transformation of the Sudan into an economic unit between the 1940s and the 1960s. 鈥檚 new book: (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) is centred on addressing these question using the history of a territory that transformed from being an Anglo-Egyptian Sudan condominium into the independent state of Sudan.Read More »

Toward an Economic Theory of Imperialism?

mohamedobaidyLeave a comment

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鈥淥ur role is to widen the field of discussion, not to set limits in accord with the prevailing authority.鈥� Edward Said, Orientalism (1978)

This blog post aims to introduce Patnaik鈥檚 theory of imperialism 鈥� as developed in – and its relation to economic theory. According to Patnaik a cogent economic theory that seeks to understand the laws of capitalism necessarily stems from a coherent theory of money due to the central place money plays in a capitalist mode of production. Hence, the purpose of his scientific endeavor is to examine the underlying social arrangement behind the determination of the value of money. Consequently, the conceptual framework Patnaik establishes starts with the following question: what does determine the value of money?

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Is 鈥業mperialism’ a Relevant Concept Today? A Debate Among Marxists

Ingrid Harvold KvangravenLeave a comment

This month, four prominent Marxists met at The New School in New York to debate the relevance of imperialism. The debate was related to the publication of (Jawaharlal Nehru University) new book (written with Utsa Patnaik). With him in the panel were geographer (CUNY), political scientist (The New School), and economist (The New School). Economics Professor (The New School) moderated the debate. The main question for the panelists was: Is 鈥業mperialism’ a relevant concept today? A fruitful debate followed, suggesting that contemporary imperialism is crying out for analysis and critique.

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