黑料社区 – Page 11 – A Critical Perspective On Development Economics

Floods in Pakistan: Where is the 鈥業nternational Community鈥� for the imperialized zones of the world-system?

October 15, 2022 asajjad011 Comment

The world鈥檚 brief concern for the plight of more than 35 million Pakistanis deprived of their homes, livelihoods and dignity by this summer鈥檚 unprecedented monsoon-related floods was summed up in late August by a suitably passionate video appeal by Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Gutierrez. He implored the 鈥榠nternational community鈥� to step up and take responsibility; as he rightly noted, Pakistan has contributed a pittance to the global emissions that drive climate change, and it is not 鈥榡ust鈥� for the country鈥檚 long suffering people to be left isolated.

Of course the UN does not deploy terms like empire and reparations, which a truly meaningful message would have contained. Mr. Gutierrez subsequently travelled to Pakistan on September 8, presumably to try and sustain what little media and donor attention the floods had garnered. As it turned out, Queen Elizabeth II passed away on the same day. Unsurprisingly, the imperial monarch鈥檚 death became a global concern overnight, while Pakistan鈥檚 colonial peripheries faded even further from the public eye. Let alone other bilateral and multilateral donors, the UN itself has to date disbursed only a small fraction of the US$160 million that it promised to raise for flood relief in late August.

A spade, as the proverbial saying goes, ought to be called a spade. Over the past two decades, at least some of the underlying structural causes of global warming and climate change have been identified and articulated, time and again, most notably at gatherings of the world鈥檚 richest and most powerful people. But even where emissions targets are agreed, the biggest polluters 鈥� western imperialist powers 鈥� are simply not doing enough. There is now very little chance that we will contain warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and as the Pakistan example demonstrates, there will be more and more hell to pay for the historically imperialized zones of the world-system.

Of course, there is much that is not even acknowledged, nay, spoken of, within the so-called 鈥榠nternational community鈥�. Like the fact that our political-economic system, the global regime of capital accumulation, is based on the deliberate expropriation of working people and the natural resources that sustain them. In Pakistan, the rest of South Asia and much of postcolonial Africa/Latin America, there is no forest, water body, landed plain or mountainous highland that is safe from violent grabs by a nexus that comprises local big men, state functionaries, 鈥榙evelopment鈥� practitioners, powerful states (western and increasingly non-western powers like China) and multinational corporations.

That more than half of Pakistan is inundated certainly has to do with unprecedented monsoon rains, particularly in the ethnic peripheries of Sindh and Balochistan. But the fallouts of mega infrastructure like dams, canals and drains, made through WB and ADB monies, and imbued with British-era colonial engineering logics motivated by the desire to conquer nature, are plain to see. As is the fact that real estate moguls and big construction lobbies are running riot across the country, thereby further eroding already fragile eco-systems upon which millions of people rely for their livelihoods. As Rosa Luxemburg said: 鈥楢 natural economy鈥� confronts the requirements of capitalism at every turn with rigid barriers. Capitalism must therefore always and everywhere fight a battle of annihilation against every historical form of natural economy that it encounters鈥�.

Marx and Colonialism

October 13, 2022October 7, 2022 luguangmingLeave a comment

It is widely believed that Marx did not systematically consider the role of colonialism within the process of capital accumulation. According to聽, Marx concentrated on a self-closed national economy in his main work. Although he did mention colonialism in Part 8 of聽Capital聽Volume 1 on the so-called primitive accumulation, this would only belong to a pre-history of capital, not to its everyday development. Based on a similar assumption, some postcolonial scholars criticise Marx for being Eurocentric, even a complicit supporter of Western imperialism, who ignored the agency of non-Western people.

If we read some we could think that they are right. How can we explain otherwise Marx and Engels praising the role of the bourgeoisie drawing even the most barbarian nations into civilisation or the view that the liberation of colonised peoples depended on the victory of the revolution in Europe?

Before I start, let me make a short premise. In my first book I read Marx鈥檚 Capital in the light of his writings and articles on Ireland, China, India, Russia, and the American Civil War. At the time I believed that Marx only published a significant, but still limited amount of writings on the colonial question, those available in the Collected Works and in collections like Marx & Colonialism. But then in 2007 I worked at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, contributing to the complete edition of Marx鈥檚 and Engels鈥檚 writings. I thus 鈥渄iscovered鈥� some of Marx鈥檚 20,000 print page long notebooks (just to give you an idea, the printed notebooks alone would look like a new Collected Works). These writings show that Marx was interested in colonialism all his life, including when he wrote the Manifesto.

What came out of my reading? Let me start with the question of Marx鈥檚 field of analysis in聽Capital聽Volume 1. To analyse capital reproduction 鈥榠n its integrity, free from all disturbing subsidiary circumstances鈥�, Marx treats the world of commerce as one nation (1976: 727) and presupposes the full worldwide imposition of the capitalist mode of production. Does this mean that Marx analysed a 鈥渟elf-enclosed national economy鈥� as Harvey and others believe? In my view, this abstraction means exactly the opposite. Marx鈥檚 positing a coincidence between the national and global levels is a premise for conceptualising the world market, which includes both internal and foreign markets of all nations participating in it. This abstraction makes it possible to include expansionism into the analysis of capital accumulation. In this framework, a country鈥檚 economic system is not confined within its national borders but consists of all production branches where capital is freely transferable, including the colonies and dependent economies.

Ignorance is Bliss: Why should we study Leontief?

September 22, 2022September 19, 2022 Thair AhmadLeave a comment

What is at stake?

Let鈥檚 start with a story. A friend asked me what my favourite genre of fiction is. I replied: microeconomics. If you get the joke, you would be laughing. Otherwise, you would be wondering why I said that. Well, that鈥檚 the truth. Take any standard economics textbook, we find ourselves in the fictional worlds of 鈥榣et鈥檚 assume there are two goods鈥� and 鈥榠f we move from point A to B鈥�. It is true and well understood that these assumptions and imaginations are meant to break down complex phenomena. However, this entry point of supply and demand curves with the endless possibilities of hypothetical scenarios is not the only way to study/introduce economics. In this regard, I put forth the relevance of studying Wassily Leontief鈥檚 work and argue that it adds pluralism to economics education at least in three aspects: 1) methodology (philosophical and mathematical approach), 2) the unit of analysis (micro to macro and in between), and 3) ideas at the margins (reading thinkers like Piero Sraffa and other classical political economists). Now we shall deal with these three themes individually.

A value perspective of price and currency stability in Zimbabwe

September 14, 2022September 13, 2022 Valentine GuruuswaLeave a comment

In his , Zimbabwe鈥檚 Finance and Economic Development Minister, Hon. Prof. Mthuli Ncube identified rising inflation and currency depreciation as the major challenges requiring 鈥渢he support of all stakeholders and citizens鈥�. Zimbabwe is failing to ward off persistent inflation. According to Ncube鈥檚 mid-term budget report, headline inflation increased from 60.7% in January to 191.6% in June 2022.

In this post, I will argue that whilst price and the exchange rate have some importance, preoccupation with them can constrain economic development. I start off by giving a brief background of inflation in Zimbabwe as well as inflation targeting policies, before arguing that sheepishly pursuing currency and price stability equates to commodity fetishism. I then look at the real beneficiaries of price and currency stabilisation policies. Finally, I attempt to demystify value and price in Zimbabwe鈥檚 context.

Re-embedding the economy to rethink (sustainable) development

September 8, 2022September 13, 2022 Juliette Alenda1 Comment

鈥極n ne d茅veloppe pas聽; on se d茅veloppe.鈥�

This famous sentence from Joseph Ki-Zerbo could be translated as 鈥榳e do not enforce development; we develop ourselves.鈥� However, development paradigms have been largely influenced by external views, mainly those of Western countries. 鈥淒evelopment鈥� is considered as a moral concept. Many people around the world suffer and don鈥檛 have access to welfare programmes that are fundamental to strive, hence the need for development, through the improvement in terms of basic needs and democratic institutions. However, development as a concept is far from having a universal definition, on how to develop and the ultimate goals of this development. Development paradigms are fundamentally linked to ideologies. In particular, the connection between the economics discipline and the dominant development paradigm is deep. Thus, rethinking development also calls for rethinking the assumptions in the economics discipline. In this blog, I summarize the main ideas of a recent paper I published (鈥溾€�).

The holy triad of economics: 鈥榤arket-scarcity-rationality鈥�

Karl Polanyi established two different definitions of economics: a formal one, used to justify the rise of self-regulated markets, and a substantive one, trying to show that markets are not a universal truth in the history of human exchanges. The formal definition refers to the logic of rational action and decision-making based on alternative uses of scarce resources. This formal approach has gradually become the dominant definition of (mainstream) economics, through the theory of utility value, based on the subjective utility associated with the consumption of goods and services. In this view, the primary focus is the individual, captured through the market relationships that he or she enters into. Resources, as natural resources, are allocated through market mechanisms, the main instrument of efficiency in what is called neoclassical economics. The implications of these assumptions are very important for development.

Since the process of formal decolonization began, the mainstream view of development has been founded on the assumption that post-colonial economies can develop in the same manner that Western countries did. In this sense, they are assumed to simply be at a later stage of Western economic history. In this context, economic growth is often considered an indicator of progress. This idea gained currency with modernization theories that started to dominate mainstream development discourse after the second World War, conceiving development as an imitative process, establishing from the onset a distinction between a modern sector (capitalist economy derived from the Global North) and a traditional sector (considered as a subsistence economy, that should be abolished). With the Washington consensus in the 1980s and the resulting structural adjustments, pulling developing countries towards stability, getting them as close as possible to the market ideal was the new goal for development, society becoming an auxiliary of the economy. In the 1990s, the discourse of international financial institutions evolved, as they incorporated political and social dimensions to their economic analyses to better explain the failures of the past. However, instead of challenging the fundamental assumption of this narrative, the new incorporations simply include more ways in which the developing countries need to 鈥榗atch up鈥�, such as through developing better institutions. We went from economic determinism to institutional determinism and not much has changed over time.

However, the mainstream view of development has been challenged from many quarters. For example, as scholars from the Global South long understood, underdevelopment and development are actually two sides of the same coin, based around the uneven accumulation of capital on a world scale. Dependency theorists, the regulation school, and post-developmentalist theorists all recognized this. Economic growth and capital accumulation in the Global North still relies on . Even alleged attempts to become more sustainable, as with electric cars or renewable energy, rely on . It is time now for new frameworks for development thinking.

Sanctions and the changing world Order: Some Views from the Global South

September 1, 2022August 31, 2022 Farwa Sial9 Comments

In the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, major world powers including the United States and the European Union have introduced sanctions on Russia. These wide ranging sanctions have been approached diversely by states, leading to distinct and approaches. The marked is notable. As the invasion and the sanction regime continues, the global economy is also slowing down with the imminence of a . While the majority of analysis debates the , this Q&A with sociologist and author of the A People鈥檚 Green New Deal, , political scientist and author of the forthcoming Race, Nature, and Accumulation, , and historian and author of Finance in Colonial Zimbabwe: Money, Sanctions and War Economy, , analyses the structural and political nature of sanctions situating its modern iteration in a historical light. We ask them about the history of global sanctions, whether they an effective deterrent to wars, why countries in the global south have abstained from the current sanctions, how should we understand the current sanctions in the global order of neoliberalism, and whether sanctions are leading towards a new round of a non-aligned movement.

The Co-evolution of Diversity in Property and Economic Development: Evolutionary Economics and the Vertical Dimension (Part 2)

August 18, 2022September 23, 2022 tingxulaw3 Comments

Having laid out the horizontal dimensions of diversity in property in Part 1, I here offer a critique of the assumption in mainstream economics that all kinds of property institutions need to be or will be transformed into private property to promote economic development. I also reflect on my previous work that applies and develops Darwinian mechanisms of variation, inheritance, and selection鈥攚hich has been extensively discussed in evolutionary biology and evolutionary economics鈥攖o study property regime transformation in China.

While working on , Professor Erik Reinert introduced me to two very important books and encouraged me to think about the relevance of the work of Darwin and Veblen to study property regime transformation in China: by Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), Harvard biologist and historian of science; edited by Erik himself and Francesca Viano. Erik also introduced me to the work of evolutionary economists including of Columbia University.

The Co-evolution of Diversity in Property and Economic Development: Key Concepts and the Horizontal Dimension (Part 1)

August 18, 2022September 23, 2022 tingxulaw2 Comments

This blog post builds on the 鈥業nstitutions, Economic Development, and China鈥檚 Development Policy for Escaping Poverty鈥� piece and comprises two parts dealing with the key concepts (Part 1) and mechanisms (Part 2) for evaluating the co-evolution of diversity in property and economic development. I argue that diversity in property plays a key role in economic development and that there are two dimensions that are important for examining the co-evolution of diversity in property and economic development鈥攈orizontal (Part 1) and vertical (Part 2).

In this post, I offer a critique of the assumption in mainstream economics that private property is the only kind of property institutions that can stimulate and preserve economic development (I am, of course, not the first to offer critiques of this assumption; for existing studies, see e.g., ). I focus on the meaning of 鈥榙iversity in property鈥�, which concerns the horizontal level analysis.