Benjamin Selwyn, The Global Development Crisis. Polity, 2014.
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RATING: 85
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Buy this book?
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Yes
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This is an excellent book. It combines a critical introduction to key contributors to the political economy of development with an indispensable account and critique of current pro-capitalist global development, and advances a healthy 'labour-centred' alternative. It is clearly and succinctly written, and based on thorough reading of key historical and current texts in development studies, and a good comparative knowledge of development situations around the world - notably in Asia and Latin America. It is very highly recommended.
The book opens with the 'central paradox of the contemporary world': 'the simultaneous presence of wealth on an unprecedented scale, and mass poverty', and takes immediate issue with the liberal ideology of international financial institutions and business and political leaders that presents exclusion from global capitalism as the source of poverty, and inclusion as the source of opportunity for development. Following Marx and Engels, Selwyn argues that "while capitalism's productive dynamism represents a potential source of real human development, capitalism's social relations, in particular the non-democratic ownership of wealth and means of creating wealth by a tiny percentage of the world's population, preclude such possibilities" (4-5). While capitalist states and markets have shown themselves capable of delivering rapid rates of economic growth, technological innovation and wealth generation, they necessarily do so by reinforcing and perpetuating the systemic exploitation and repression of the majority of propertyless workers. Even with the elimination of below-market wages, excessive working hours and demeaning conditions, as sought by the ILO (or, we might add, child labour, forced labour, and the labour of trafficked workers, condemned in the UNDP's Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development), the relationship between capital and labour remains inherently unequal, antagonistic and exploitative. It follows that the fluctuating balance of class power (the capacity of workers to resist) is the key variable in development processes (explaining why workers are sometimes able to make 'progressive' gains), albeit one that is hidden from view if capitalism is presented as the solution to impoverishment.
Against this background Selwyn draws attention to the acute novelty of the circumstances of the last half century, in which the global labouring class has grown from around 1 billion to over 3 billion (a third of them living on less than US$2 per day), the income gap beween the richest and poorest quintiles (or fifths) of the global population has more than doubled, and global wealth has shifted enormously not just to the top 1 per cent, but to the top 0.01 per cent. Selwyn argues that because exploitation is inbuilt and immiseration is increasingly a requirement of exploitation under contemporary globalization, we should expect resistance to be a feature of relations between globalized capital and labour (and incidentally, the international organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, the ILO and the UNDP do expect it, and devote their best efforts to keeping it at bay). "Under such circumstances," Selwyn argues, "it behoves progressive social scientists, thinkers and activists to consider the extent to which such resistance can be considered 'developmental', that is, whether it can generate human developmental gains in the present and future. It is also necessary to think through how struggles can contribute to an alternative future vision and reality of human development" (18). This is a powerful antidote to the attempts of the World Bank and its allies to mould behaviour to the needs of capital, and the alternative model of genuinely labour-centred development that Selwyn advances underlines the hypocrisy of the claims of 'empowerment' that such institutions make.
The chapters that follow, on Friedrich List, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Schumpeter, Alexander Gerschenkron, Karl Polanyi, and Amartya Sen, vindicate Selwyn's assertion that the book is more than a collection of essays. Previously published material has been substantially reworked to turn accounts of key contributions into an historically informed critique of contemporary liberal and statist models of development, and of contemporary contributions to the literature. Each chapter associates the authors under scrutiny with contemporary work and critical debates in an exemplary fashion: there is nothing else that puts development debate and practice in context so well. Rather than summarize at length the accounts given of the key work examined, I draw attention here to the key points identified and connections drawn. Selwyn draws out the influence on List of early US Hamiltonian protectionism and his advocacy of colonization, correcting the mistaken impression that he can accurately be characterized as anti-imperialist. But his strongest contribution is to highlight the concept of 'productive power' (37-39), with its focus on the need to develop what is today called human capital: "The creation of a skilled workforce and managerial cadre was central to the production of higher-value goods," while the technological coordination of infrastructure, communication and transport "was to be complemented by an ideological 'coordination' designed to pull a country's population behind the development project" (38). It was List who first accused developed countries of 'kicking away the ladder' by which they had secured initial industrial development, and that idea is influential today. But, following Marx's acute critique of List (45-8), Selwyn draws attention to another feature that contemporary statists share with him: they endorse, as they logically must, the subordination of labour to capitalist managers, in labour repressive regimes: "The concept of state capitalism highlights, despite varying ideologies, the existence of the capital-labour relation and the role of the state in reproducing these relations. While SPE [statist political economy] emphasizes the effectiveness of state-led resource allocation within developmental states, such effectiveness is analytically secondary to the essential (exploitative) relations between capital and the state on the one hand and labour on the other". That is, citing Burkett and Hart-Landsberg (2003: 148), "the catch-up vision ... simply presumes that the primary role of working people and their material and social conditions is to serve as instruments and vehicles of capital accumulation and economic growth" (51).
The following chapter, on Marx, dwells too long and is too defensive for my liking on the spurious claims that Marx was either Euro-centric or an economic determinist. But once this is out of the way, it sets out clearly Marx's vision of primitive accumulation and the rise of capitalism as an 'intrinsically global process', whose combined character "precluded any linear conception of capitalist development". The focus is on the politics of class struggle on a global scale: "how global capitalism generated a global labouring class, and how capitalism's continued reproduction generated rival politics - of divide and rule by capital, and of international solidarity by labour" (58). The vision of class struggles as constitutive of the development process and the outcomes of struggles between dominant and labouring classes as conditioning subsequent historical development, along with the political priority given to "labouring classes in their attempts to rid themselves of capitalist exploitation" (75) - shared by Trotsky, as discussed in Chapter 4 - becomes the touchstone with which the merits of other approaches are assessed. Gershenkron's valuable insights into graduated deviation and differentiation in late industrialization and the constant need for institutional innovation as the system as a whole evolves highlights as did List the need to "establish a well-educated, hard-working and, above all, disciplined labour force" (99); Schumpeter's focus on the dynamic consequences of capitalist competition in 'creative destruction', and his celebration of the figure of the entrepreneur "strips away two of Marx's core concerns: (a) how capitalism is constituted by exploitative class relations, and (b) how 'national' economies exist in and operate through the capitalist world system" (105). Polanyi's critique of the market is weakened by his failure to explore the social relations of production that underpin it, and his understanding of 'society' as an organic whole distinct and separate from the 'economy' renders him unable to see "a central determinant of social (re)production and transformation: exploitation and resistance to exploitation" (151); and Sen's vision of human flourishing is undercut by his insistence that capitalist markets are a source of individual freedom, and his presentation of the imperatives of capitalist development as opportunity, when: "The drive to accumulate capital is a response to an externally determined imperative imposed by market mechanisms of competition and cost-price rationalization. Such competitive pressures manifest themselves through continual attempts to reduce input costs (including labour costs/wages), often realized through limiting workers' freedoms both within and outside the workplace" (167).
Finally, among its many other virtues, the book throws a harsh light on the strategies and theoretical affiliations of the international organizations concerned with the governance of the global economy and the promotion of capitalism on a global scale. The output of the OECD, the World Bank, the UNDP and the multilateral development banks draws heavily, systematically and positively on the notions of active industrial policy, 'productive power', and creative destruction, and invokes the various authors covered here in its attempt to present such policies as investment in education and skills, support for entrepreneurship, and the reform of social protection as both breaks with and improvements on the 'neo-liberal' policies of the past. Selwyn's critique shows conclusively that they are not.
Reference
Burkett, P. and M. Hart-Landsberg (2003). 'A Critique of "Catch-Up" Theories of Development', Journal of Contemporary Asia, 33, 3, 147-171.
The book opens with the 'central paradox of the contemporary world': 'the simultaneous presence of wealth on an unprecedented scale, and mass poverty', and takes immediate issue with the liberal ideology of international financial institutions and business and political leaders that presents exclusion from global capitalism as the source of poverty, and inclusion as the source of opportunity for development. Following Marx and Engels, Selwyn argues that "while capitalism's productive dynamism represents a potential source of real human development, capitalism's social relations, in particular the non-democratic ownership of wealth and means of creating wealth by a tiny percentage of the world's population, preclude such possibilities" (4-5). While capitalist states and markets have shown themselves capable of delivering rapid rates of economic growth, technological innovation and wealth generation, they necessarily do so by reinforcing and perpetuating the systemic exploitation and repression of the majority of propertyless workers. Even with the elimination of below-market wages, excessive working hours and demeaning conditions, as sought by the ILO (or, we might add, child labour, forced labour, and the labour of trafficked workers, condemned in the UNDP's Human Development Report 2015: Work for Human Development), the relationship between capital and labour remains inherently unequal, antagonistic and exploitative. It follows that the fluctuating balance of class power (the capacity of workers to resist) is the key variable in development processes (explaining why workers are sometimes able to make 'progressive' gains), albeit one that is hidden from view if capitalism is presented as the solution to impoverishment.
Against this background Selwyn draws attention to the acute novelty of the circumstances of the last half century, in which the global labouring class has grown from around 1 billion to over 3 billion (a third of them living on less than US$2 per day), the income gap beween the richest and poorest quintiles (or fifths) of the global population has more than doubled, and global wealth has shifted enormously not just to the top 1 per cent, but to the top 0.01 per cent. Selwyn argues that because exploitation is inbuilt and immiseration is increasingly a requirement of exploitation under contemporary globalization, we should expect resistance to be a feature of relations between globalized capital and labour (and incidentally, the international organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, the ILO and the UNDP do expect it, and devote their best efforts to keeping it at bay). "Under such circumstances," Selwyn argues, "it behoves progressive social scientists, thinkers and activists to consider the extent to which such resistance can be considered 'developmental', that is, whether it can generate human developmental gains in the present and future. It is also necessary to think through how struggles can contribute to an alternative future vision and reality of human development" (18). This is a powerful antidote to the attempts of the World Bank and its allies to mould behaviour to the needs of capital, and the alternative model of genuinely labour-centred development that Selwyn advances underlines the hypocrisy of the claims of 'empowerment' that such institutions make.
The chapters that follow, on Friedrich List, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Schumpeter, Alexander Gerschenkron, Karl Polanyi, and Amartya Sen, vindicate Selwyn's assertion that the book is more than a collection of essays. Previously published material has been substantially reworked to turn accounts of key contributions into an historically informed critique of contemporary liberal and statist models of development, and of contemporary contributions to the literature. Each chapter associates the authors under scrutiny with contemporary work and critical debates in an exemplary fashion: there is nothing else that puts development debate and practice in context so well. Rather than summarize at length the accounts given of the key work examined, I draw attention here to the key points identified and connections drawn. Selwyn draws out the influence on List of early US Hamiltonian protectionism and his advocacy of colonization, correcting the mistaken impression that he can accurately be characterized as anti-imperialist. But his strongest contribution is to highlight the concept of 'productive power' (37-39), with its focus on the need to develop what is today called human capital: "The creation of a skilled workforce and managerial cadre was central to the production of higher-value goods," while the technological coordination of infrastructure, communication and transport "was to be complemented by an ideological 'coordination' designed to pull a country's population behind the development project" (38). It was List who first accused developed countries of 'kicking away the ladder' by which they had secured initial industrial development, and that idea is influential today. But, following Marx's acute critique of List (45-8), Selwyn draws attention to another feature that contemporary statists share with him: they endorse, as they logically must, the subordination of labour to capitalist managers, in labour repressive regimes: "The concept of state capitalism highlights, despite varying ideologies, the existence of the capital-labour relation and the role of the state in reproducing these relations. While SPE [statist political economy] emphasizes the effectiveness of state-led resource allocation within developmental states, such effectiveness is analytically secondary to the essential (exploitative) relations between capital and the state on the one hand and labour on the other". That is, citing Burkett and Hart-Landsberg (2003: 148), "the catch-up vision ... simply presumes that the primary role of working people and their material and social conditions is to serve as instruments and vehicles of capital accumulation and economic growth" (51).
The following chapter, on Marx, dwells too long and is too defensive for my liking on the spurious claims that Marx was either Euro-centric or an economic determinist. But once this is out of the way, it sets out clearly Marx's vision of primitive accumulation and the rise of capitalism as an 'intrinsically global process', whose combined character "precluded any linear conception of capitalist development". The focus is on the politics of class struggle on a global scale: "how global capitalism generated a global labouring class, and how capitalism's continued reproduction generated rival politics - of divide and rule by capital, and of international solidarity by labour" (58). The vision of class struggles as constitutive of the development process and the outcomes of struggles between dominant and labouring classes as conditioning subsequent historical development, along with the political priority given to "labouring classes in their attempts to rid themselves of capitalist exploitation" (75) - shared by Trotsky, as discussed in Chapter 4 - becomes the touchstone with which the merits of other approaches are assessed. Gershenkron's valuable insights into graduated deviation and differentiation in late industrialization and the constant need for institutional innovation as the system as a whole evolves highlights as did List the need to "establish a well-educated, hard-working and, above all, disciplined labour force" (99); Schumpeter's focus on the dynamic consequences of capitalist competition in 'creative destruction', and his celebration of the figure of the entrepreneur "strips away two of Marx's core concerns: (a) how capitalism is constituted by exploitative class relations, and (b) how 'national' economies exist in and operate through the capitalist world system" (105). Polanyi's critique of the market is weakened by his failure to explore the social relations of production that underpin it, and his understanding of 'society' as an organic whole distinct and separate from the 'economy' renders him unable to see "a central determinant of social (re)production and transformation: exploitation and resistance to exploitation" (151); and Sen's vision of human flourishing is undercut by his insistence that capitalist markets are a source of individual freedom, and his presentation of the imperatives of capitalist development as opportunity, when: "The drive to accumulate capital is a response to an externally determined imperative imposed by market mechanisms of competition and cost-price rationalization. Such competitive pressures manifest themselves through continual attempts to reduce input costs (including labour costs/wages), often realized through limiting workers' freedoms both within and outside the workplace" (167).
Finally, among its many other virtues, the book throws a harsh light on the strategies and theoretical affiliations of the international organizations concerned with the governance of the global economy and the promotion of capitalism on a global scale. The output of the OECD, the World Bank, the UNDP and the multilateral development banks draws heavily, systematically and positively on the notions of active industrial policy, 'productive power', and creative destruction, and invokes the various authors covered here in its attempt to present such policies as investment in education and skills, support for entrepreneurship, and the reform of social protection as both breaks with and improvements on the 'neo-liberal' policies of the past. Selwyn's critique shows conclusively that they are not.
Reference
Burkett, P. and M. Hart-Landsberg (2003). 'A Critique of "Catch-Up" Theories of Development', Journal of Contemporary Asia, 33, 3, 147-171.