黑料社区 – Page 16 – A Critical Perspective On Development Economics

Neoliberal capitalism and the聽commodification聽of social reproduction, from our home to our classroom

February 8, 2022 alemezzadriLeave a comment

It is official: we are getting ready for another round of industrial action in the UK higher education sector. For those who may be wondering what the current is all about, a short recap may help. Higher education UCU members are striking because of planned pensions cuts that risk pushing academic staff into 鈥榬etirement poverty鈥�; to fight against ever-growing labour casualisation in universities; and because of the growing inequalities of gender, race and class the UK higher education sector has nurtured in the last five decades. Colleagues at Goldsmith 鈥� to whom we shall extend all our support – are also fighting .

We 鈥� higher education workers and students – were on this picket before, so many times, fighting other policies deepening the process of commodification of education. We were on this picket fighting 鈥� which education workers are still experiencing. We were on this picket to fight against the . At SOAS, where I work, we were on this picket to , , against the on campus ground – an event which remains the darkest chapter of SOAS industrial relations and for which the university has not yet apologised in recognition of the harm caused to the and to all our community. We hope the school will acknowledge the need to do so, so that we can move forward, together.

We were at other demonstrations and on other picket lines, protesting against austerity, in the , , against racism and in support of against . The picket really is a sort of archive, which can be consulted backward to reconstruct a history of attacks to our rights – at work, at home, or both.

And if we consult this archive, we can clearly see a pattern emerging in the last decades, a pattern which in fact connects neoliberal Britain with many other places in the world economy, which have also experienced processes of neoliberalisation. All the pickets and demonstrations, become a sort of tracing route; we can reconnect the dots spread across a broader canvas. These dots design a specific pattern; that of a systematic attack to life and life-making sectors, realms and spaces.

, starting from the 1980s, has promoted a process of systematic de-concentration of resources in public sectors, and particularly in so-called 鈥�socially reproductive sectors鈥�, that is those that regenerate us as people and as workers. This attack has been massively felt in the home, which has become a major battleground for processes of . The withdrawal of the state from welfare provisions, the rise and rise of co-production in services (i.e. the incorporation of citizens鈥� unpaid labour in public service delivery;聽 a practice further cheapening welfare) – 聽and processes of partial or full privatisation of service delivery in healthcare and education have . These gaps have been filled through to others. 黑料社区s have become net users of market-based domestic and care services. The in-sourcing of nannies, au-pairs, and elders carers, from a vast number of countries in the Global south and transition economies have remade the home as a site of production and employment generation, at extremely low costs.

(After) Neoliberalism? Rethinking the Return of the State

January 10, 2022January 6, 2022 John NarayanLeave a comment

By Ishan Khurana and John Narayan

A number of commentators have recently suggested or is in a . During the disruption of global commodity chains caused by the Covid 19-pandemic, free-market policies that have dominated the global economy for the past 40 years appear to have less purchase. Here, authors point to a reversion to a national form of capitalism and protectionism, the questioning of globalization and return of state intervention in the economy. A prime example is the Biden regime鈥檚 approach to the US economy, which has turned to deficit driven social spending, expansion of union rights and protectionist measures to public procurement. This hasn鈥檛 come out of nowhere 鈥� with the neo-liberal global economy being zombie-like since the 2008 global financial crisis.

The fracturing of the global economy along national lines may herald conflict and a new cold war between the US and China. However, the retreat of neo-liberalism also seems to offer a possible opening 鈥� . Here, a rejuvenated politics of the left may be able to avoid the pitfalls of and launch a new national form of progressive politics around welfare policies such as the Green New Deal and Universal Basic Income in locations such as the UK and US.

Neo-liberalism is in trouble, but missing from these debates about its demise is a discussion of neo-liberalism in the Global South and, thus, the reality of what the crisis of neo-liberalism means for all rather than simply those within the Global North.

The triple day thesis: Theorising motherhood as a capability and a capability suppressor

January 4, 2022January 4, 2022 tontoheLeave a comment

鈥�Where do people not say, 鈥淚 want to do X, but the circumstances of my life don鈥檛 give me a chance鈥�? To this sort of common discontent, the [capabilities] approach responds by saying, 鈥淵es indeed, in some very important areas you ought to be able to do what you have in mind, and if you aren鈥檛 able, that is a failure of basic justice.鈥�

Martha Nussbaum,

The Triple Day Thesis: Describing the Triple Day Problem

The triple day thesis presents a theoretical analysis of motherhood from a capability perspective as a path to resolving maternal capability failures within the triple day 鈥� the triple day problem. The triple day thesis of motherhood is conceptualized as a mother who engages in the reproductive work of childbearing and childrearing (the single day), in addition to waged work (the double day) and self-reproductive work (the triple day).

In my article “” (2021), I formally define self-reproduction as involving tasks or activities that a person, in this case a mother, undertakes to replenish herself physically, medically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, psychologically, or other forms of replenishment that is primarily beneficial to her non-economic well-being. Self-reproductive activities could involve having time for recreation; time for healthy living practices; time for friendships and joining associations, awareness groups etc., within the community; the 鈥渕e-time鈥� for basic personal hygienic practices, to pray, reflect on and plan one鈥檚 life; and time to engage in academic work which is the more intellectual form of self-reproduction. A combination of one or more of these self-reproducing or self-realizing activities within a twenty-four-hour day including sleep hours would make up what I call the triple day.

According to the triple day thesis, it is within the triple day that several of the central capabilities Martha Nussbaum () proposes in her capability theory of social justice take place. Nussbaum鈥檚 central capabilities for women鈥檚 human flourishing include life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses, imagination and thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, concern for other species, play, and control over one鈥檚 material and political environment.

The absence of self-reproduction in women鈥檚 lives due to the pursuit of motherhood, entails the absence of human flourishing, and therefore constitute social (gender) injustice. It is this which describes the problem of the triple day.

The Nobel Prize winner that predicted a crisis between nature and capital

December 27, 2021December 27, 2021 Erik ReinertLeave a comment

Since 1901, December has been a time for Nobel Prizes. Only in 1969, as an afterthought, the Swedish Central Bank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 鈥� a decision that was met with protests by some members of the Nobel family.

Nevertheless, a scientist who used much of his time on economics was rewarded a Nobel Prize in 1921. Admittedly, Frederick Soddy (1877鈥�1956) received the prize in chemistry, for his work on radioactivity. But in the period from 1921 to 1934 Soddy wrote four books campaigning for a radical restructuring of the global monetary system.

I have been leafing through Soddy鈥檚 book entitled, 鈥楳oney versus Man鈥�, published in 1931. The book opens with a full-page quote from another English polymath, John Ruskin (1819鈥�1900). The social problems of England in the 1840s 鈥� 鈥楾he Hungry 40s鈥� 鈥� and the financial crises that followed in 1847 inspired Ruskin. The mass deaths in World War I and the crisis that started in 1929 provided new inspiration to Soddy.

For Ruskin, and later Soddy, consumption was the only purpose of the economy. 鈥楾here is no wealth but life鈥� is the basic message in Soddy鈥檚 long quote from Ruskin. It is on this basis we should read the title of Soddy鈥檚 book, placing money as a kind of enemy for humankind. Here is a new type of economics: we have standard neoclassical economics, based on the metaphor of equilibrium between supply and demand, and we have evolutionary (Schumpeterian) economics based on a metaphor from biology (innovations as mutations). Soddy offered us a third angle: economics rooted in physics, in the laws of thermodynamics.

Green financialization and de-risking in Zambia鈥檚 renewable energy transition

December 16, 2021December 10, 2021 Simone ClaarLeave a comment

By Simone Claar and

Zambia鈥檚 has a history full of hopeful prospects and broken dreams. In the 1980s and again in the early 2010s, Zambia experienced an economic upswing. Labelled as an emerging middle-income country and called the new 鈥�, a mix of copper extractivism, an aspiring tourism sector, as well as political stability led to an impressive rise. However, the phase was short-lived, as Zambia’s political economy remains fragile: dependent on the price of copper and the world market, it is regularly on the verge of state bankruptcy due to a significant burden. A history of structural adjustment programs in exchange for IMF loans and dependency on billion-scale Chinese loans means that Zambia became the first African country to declare bankruptcy in the wake of the Covid pandemic, first asking for a moratorium, and later for restructuring its Eurobond loans and Chinese loans. In this context, Zambia’s dependence on development financing is highly evident and deeply anchored in the state structures. Zambia’s political economy of energy and the ongoing energy transition reflect this tedious situation. Rising energy demands and lack of investment mean that widespread load shedding has become a frequent phenomenon. Climate change and recurring droughts negatively affect hydropower performance, which makes up 95 per cent of installed capacity. The current roll-out of renewable energy is a beacon of hope. Nevertheless, its financial structures give rise to the assumption that Zambia may also be the first African state where the miracle of green capitalism and “white magic” () is becoming manifest, resulting in both shiny solar panels and a loss of political and economic sovereignty. Analyzing Zambia’s energy transition’s political and financial toolbox, we delineate how green financialization and de-risking are executed based on blended development finance.

Constructing a Global History of Human Rights and Development

December 13, 2021December 8, 2021 annagrimaldiLeave a comment

The history of global human rights has been, as Joseph Slaughter puts it: 鈥渉ijacked鈥� by Euro-American narratives (Slaughter, 2018). It has been claimed, through history books and the institutional memory of bodies such as the United Nations or Amnesty International, that human rights can be traced back to documents such as the Magna Carta, that they were intellectually developed and promoted globally through the ages of Enlightenment and Imperialism, and that they were enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

Even in recent decades, attempts to frame and conceptualise the latest milestone of human rights, which took place at the height of globalisation in the 1970s, was a Western 鈥榬evival鈥� or 鈥榬ediscovery鈥� of human rights as a transnational tool through which states could be held accountable for their violation of rights. Crucial reference points for scholars today include the so-called 鈥楬uman Rights Utopia鈥� of the 1970s (see Moyn, 2010) or the development of 鈥楴ew鈥� Human Rights two decades later (see Nelson & Dorsey, 2008). To reconstruct the past, scholars often seek changes in the discourse of global institutions; they analyse the most widely reported human rights movements; they call upon the emergence and establishment of organisations such as Amnesty International; they run keyword searches of major international newspapers; and they look to the political discourse of major global players, all of which are largely based in the Global North.

No wonder, then, that the major turning point of the transnational human rights movement is so precisely associated with the year of 1977, when Amnesty International won the Nobel Peace Prize and US President Jimmy Carter incorporated human rights into the country鈥檚 foreign policy. The so-called utopia that was set forth during this transformative moment in history was that human rights came to represent an alternative to anti-establishment movements against US imperialism and consumerism. It also represented an alternative to socialist states, which for many of the Left was proving to be a disappointing avenue for meaningful change. A transnational social movement of solidarity was also imagined as the key to holding states accountable for the human rights violations of their own citizens.

The result of this revisionist history is not only an incomplete picture, but what Walden Bello calls “the [structural] resubordination of the [Global] South within a US-dominated global economy鈥� (Bello, 1994 cited in Slaughter, 2018). As the agency of Global South-identifying actors is denied, so is their role in shaping what today are known as rights of self-determination, sustainable development, peace, minority, and rights to natural resources and the environment, among other things.

Yet there exists an alternative history to human rights that has been obscured through attempts to narrate the past. This history has been prevented from entering the debate, I would argue, for three key reasons: first, dominant historical narratives emphasise actors and institutions of the Global North as the leading protagonists in the process of the construction of human rights. Second, and as a result of the first, methodological approaches have been limited by what is perceived as the spaces within and through which concepts and practices of human rights are constructed and diffused globally. Third, potential alternative sources of ideas surrounding human rights and their global diffusion are and have almost always been brushed aside as anything but potential sources of human rights: they have been labelled as socialist, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and even terrorist, none of which could possibly be compatible with human rights.

But the issue does not stop at asking the right questions. The problem cannot be solved simply by asking whether and if so what Global South actors and organisations contributed to human rights norms, concepts, and practices, but also how they did so. And this requires returning to the drawing board methodologically. If potential contributions do not take place within dominant institutions, state-to-state dialogue, and major international organisations, then we need to look beyond these spheres for our evidence.

Living in the shadows of Dubai

November 29, 2021December 8, 2021 Jonathan NgehLeave a comment

Figure 1:. Dubai Marina, an affluent residential area in New Dubai. Photograph by Jonathan Ngeh, 2015.

By achieving economic success while embracing market friendly policies: lower taxes, free trade, privatization and deregulation, Dubai has earned the reputation as a neoliberal success story. As it is typical of neoliberal economic policies, economic growth has not trickled down to the people at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. Rather, inequality has been reenforced, and Dubai consists of two distinct parts: 鈥極ld鈥� Dubai housing and representing the distressed and economically disadvantaged, and 鈥楴ew鈥� Dubai where the economically and politically powerful live (see Figure 1 and 2).聽 Existence of poverty alongside wealth puts pressure on both poor and rich city residents. Among the poor, the kind of pressure they face usually is related to the lack of money to provide basic needs for themselves and their dependents, as highlighted in Dawson鈥檚 remarks on Johannesburg (Dawson 2020). On the other hand, the rich (and also the poor) face pressure caused by challenges that are psychological or social or both. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with mostly African migrants in Dubai in 2015 and 2020, focusing particularly on their housing and labour market conditions, this piece鈥檚 central argument is that the extreme inequality in Dubai puts economic pressure on low-income migrants, the city鈥檚 poorest residents, while the juxtapositions of poverty and wealth right next to each other exert psychological pressure on the wealthy by instigating fear of low-income migrants because of crime concerns.

Figure 2: Deira, a district in Old Dubai where many low-income migrants live. Photograph by Jonathan Ngeh, 2015.

With migrants accounting for over 80 percent of the population in Dubai and the UAE (de Bel-Air 2015, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2019), the city and country stand out as a leading immigration destination in the world. While some of the Africans I encountered in the UAE travelled for studies or tourism, the vast majority of them had migrated for economic reasons鈥搃n search of employment or with the intention to establish their own businesses. Convinced by the prospects of greener pastures in Dubai, these economic migrants spent their savings to pay for the migration journey. In some cases, migrants or family members borrowed money at high interest rates to cover the cost of migration. In either case, the financial obligations of African labour migrants in Dubai increased because of migration. Upon arrival in Dubai, they were shocked to realise that opportunities are limited and the living conditions for the majority of migrant workers are unbearable.