Can development be decolonised? The dominant form of contemporary development thinking prioritise... more Can development be decolonised? The dominant form of contemporary development thinking prioritises capital accumulation and economic growth, guided, if necessary, by violent means by national elites and hegemonic states. This article recounts an early moment in the struggle over the form and content of development. It argues that in response to post-World War 2 decolonisation, W.W. Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth represents the modernisation and application to development thinking of supremacist norms rooted in the standard of civilisation (recolonising development). By contrast, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth proposed a "new humanist" alternative (decolonising development). However, reflecting and reinforcing the dominant ideology of development, the violence inherent in Rostow's notion of development has been whitewashed (development without violence), especially within the sub-discipline of development economics, while within various strands of development thinking Fanon's vision of development has been blackwashed (violence without development). Reclaiming Fanon's humanism requires grappling with his insistence upon revolutionary violence as necessary to overcome supremacist forms of development.
Handbook of the International Political Economy of the Corporation
Global commodity chain, global value chain and global production network (GCC/GVC/GPN) approaches... more Global commodity chain, global value chain and global production network (GCC/GVC/GPN) approaches (here simply labelled GVC analysis) are part and parcel of mainstream development theory and practice. This chapter introduces and discusses critically these approaches. It: (1) describes their utility in understanding globalizing processes; (2) traces their lineage and evolution; (3) highlights and explains their key concepts; (4) illuminates some of their limitations; and (5) identifies ways in which they can be advanced further.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has exacerbated many of the system’s worst aspects. In the UK, the birth... more The outbreak of Covid-19 has exacerbated many of the system’s worst aspects. In the UK, the birthplace of free wage-labour based capitalist agriculture, the pandemic has exacerbated existing food inequities. The pandemic has stimulated discussions about how to remedy the world’s corporate-dominated food system. The most popular alternative visions propose shifting production and consumption away from meat increasingly to plant-based diets produced according to agro-ecological principles. Whilst these approaches could be part of a broader solution, so far they have tended to eschew explaining the food system’s inequities in class-relational terms. This essay argues that the root problems of the contemporary food system are three-fold: (1) it is rooted in, and depends upon, the commodification of labour, food, and natural resources (including land); (2) that these commodities are subordinate to capitalism’s endless drive of exploitation-based accumulation; and (3) that the food system itself incorporates, and contributes to reproducing, these dynamics throughout the wider capitalist system. Facilitating healthy, increasingly plant-based diets should be part and parcel of a socialist agenda. What might an emergent alternative food system look like? How could it decommodify food in order to reduce labouring class market dependence while enhancing workers’ health? How could it increase workers’ democratic control over its production, distribution and consumption? How could it reduce race and gender inequalities? How could the construction of such an alternative system facilitate political alliance building amongst oppressed and exploited groups? How could it enable workers’ organizations to encroach upon the power of capital? This essay suggests that community restaurants, serving free and cheap food, represent a socialist demand that can fulfil the above criteria
We seek to tackle myriad problems of a global production system in which China is the world’s lar... more We seek to tackle myriad problems of a global production system in which China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of consumer electronics products. Dying for an iPhone simultaneously addresses the challenges facing Chinese workers while locating them within the global economy through an assessment of the relationship between Foxconn (the largest electronics manufacturer) and Apple (one of the richest corporations). Eight researchers from Asia, Europe and North America discuss two main questions: How do tech behemoths and the Chinese state shape labor relations in transnational manufacturing? What roles can workers, public sector buyers, non-governmental organizations and consumers play in holding multinational corporations and states accountable for human rights violations and assuring the protection of worker interests? We also reflect on the possibility that national governments, the electronics industry and civil society groups can collaborate to contribute to improved ...
The World Development Report 2020 (WDR2020) asserts that global value chains raise productivity a... more The World Development Report 2020 (WDR2020) asserts that global value chains raise productivity and incomes, create better jobs and reduce poverty, and proposes state policies to facilitate global value chain-based development. We deploy an immanent critique of WDR2020 to interrogate its claims regarding wages and working conditions. Using the Report’s own evidence, we identify contradictions in its claims, which stem from its use of comparative advantage trade theory to reconceptualize global value chain relations. This perspective predicts mutual gains between trading partners, but its core assumptions are incompatible with the realities of global value chains, in which (mostly Northern) oligopolistic lead firms capture value from (mostly Southern) suppliers and workers. We show how WDR2020 conceals these contradictions by misconstruing, inverting and ignoring evidence (particularly of labour’s agency), whilst failing to recommend redistributive measures for the unequal outcomes t...
Perspectives on Neoliberalism, Labour and Globalization in India, 2019
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) generate a picture of a world which, despite continuing ... more The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) generate a picture of a world which, despite continuing challenges, is experiencing the benefits of capitalist development. SDG goal no. 1—the ending of poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030—is widely proclaimed to be realizable. Global Capitalism is, indeed, an incredibly powerful wealth-generating system, which feeds such optimism. However, capitalism’s exploitative social relations mean that its dynamism will only benefit a minority, while its costs will be borne by the majority. This chapter provides a critical commentary on popular thinking about global development by outlining (a) the unsoundness of the World Bank’s poverty measurement methodology; (b) the processes that have generated a highly exploited and largely poor global labouring class; and (c) the anti-labour sentiments at the core of mainstream theories of development. It concludes by arguing that genuinely progressive development thinking and practice—within and potenti...
What might socialist development look like? Mainstream conceptions of development regard capital ... more What might socialist development look like? Mainstream conceptions of development regard capital accumulation as the bedrock upon which to achieve human development. In these conceptions of change, labouring classes are regarded as fuel for the development motor, which in turn justifies their exploitation and oppression. This essay asks, in contrast, how a non-exploitative socialist development strategy might be operationalised. It does so by conducting a thought experiment: Imagine that labouring classes, supported by a small-farmer/peasant sector have conquered political power in a poor country. Imagine too, that there is no immediate prospect of a socialist ascendency elsewhere in the world. What kinds of development strategies, policies and practices would and could a nascent socialist state pursue? This essay discusses the problems such a nascent socialist state would face, notes ways in which wealth distribution, even in very poor countries, can provide the basis of significan...
How could it be the socialist development? The principal conceptions of the development consider ... more How could it be the socialist development? The principal conceptions of the development consider that the accumulation of capital is the ground on which the human development can be reached. In this conceptions of change, the working clases are considered fuel for the development engine, which at the same time justifies their exploitation and oppression. In contrast, how to operate a strategy of socialist development without exploitment? This article gives a plan of ten points for the sustainable socialist transformation.
As the internationalization of monopoly capital grows, particularly through the domination of glo... more As the internationalization of monopoly capital grows, particularly through the domination of global value chains, the worldwide rate of exploitation and degree of monopoly increase as well.
ABSTRACT Covid-19 has highlighted the destructiveness of modern agro-industry upon biosphere and ... more ABSTRACT Covid-19 has highlighted the destructiveness of modern agro-industry upon biosphere and humanity. Its contribution to environmental degradation intertwines with socio-economic inequality and labour exploitation. There are increasing calls for a green new deal (GND) to counter these dangers. This article argues that a GND for agriculture must combat environmental degradation, social inequality and labour exploitation, rather than aim to re-boot capitalist economies. This article identifies a number of areas for discussion and political action - reorientation of state subsidies, workers' rights, agrarian reform, the decommodification of food, agroecology, possibilities for urban agriculture, the application of new technologies, and rewilding.
A Research Agenda for Critical Political Economy, 2020
This chapter discusses how economic growth is central to most thinking about development. It argu... more This chapter discusses how economic growth is central to most thinking about development. It argues that growth is visualised across much of development studies – ranging from Liberalism, to Statism, to varieties of Marxism – in ways that obscure the social (class) relations from whence it springs. These social relations are simultaneously generative of rapid economic growth, and impoverishment and inequality. Mainstream development theories, however, portray poverty as a consequence of a lack of growth, therefore justifying ever more growth, in a vicious cycle. These political economic and ideological dynamics are best explained by Marx’s theory of capitalist accumulation and exploitation. The chapter concludes by discussing alternatives to growth-based development
The 'pink tide' in Latin America, or what remains of it, is drawing increasing criticisms from th... more The 'pink tide' in Latin America, or what remains of it, is drawing increasing criticisms from the political left for its inability to confront existing socio-structural inequalities. This article contributes to these debates in two ways. First, as a means of understanding better the development strategies that have been followed by left-leaning governments, it highlights and critiques what it labels Elite Development Theory (EDT) encompassing Washington Consensus and Statist Political Economy. It shows how despite its self-stated objectives-the amelioration of the conditions of the poor and their uplifting-EDT is grounded in elite assumptions about social change: States and corporations are posited as prime-movers in the development process while collective efforts of labouring classes to pursue their own developmental strategies are ignored and/or de-legitimated. Exploitation, oppression and the ideological delegitimation of labouring class collective actions form the core of EDT. The second contribution of this article is to argue for an alternative form of what it terms labour-centred development (LCD). This argument is supported through an examination of the Chilean cordones industriales and Argentinian empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores (ERT) movements. The article concludes that whilst LCD may be a rarity, its existence offers the basis for alternative development theory and strategy.
Can development be decolonised? The dominant form of contemporary development thinking prioritise... more Can development be decolonised? The dominant form of contemporary development thinking prioritises capital accumulation and economic growth, guided, if necessary, by violent means by national elites and hegemonic states. This article recounts an early moment in the struggle over the form and content of development. It argues that in response to post-World War 2 decolonisation, W.W. Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth represents the modernisation and application to development thinking of supremacist norms rooted in the standard of civilisation (recolonising development). By contrast, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth proposed a "new humanist" alternative (decolonising development). However, reflecting and reinforcing the dominant ideology of development, the violence inherent in Rostow's notion of development has been whitewashed (development without violence), especially within the sub-discipline of development economics, while within various strands of development thinking Fanon's vision of development has been blackwashed (violence without development). Reclaiming Fanon's humanism requires grappling with his insistence upon revolutionary violence as necessary to overcome supremacist forms of development.
Handbook of the International Political Economy of the Corporation
Global commodity chain, global value chain and global production network (GCC/GVC/GPN) approaches... more Global commodity chain, global value chain and global production network (GCC/GVC/GPN) approaches (here simply labelled GVC analysis) are part and parcel of mainstream development theory and practice. This chapter introduces and discusses critically these approaches. It: (1) describes their utility in understanding globalizing processes; (2) traces their lineage and evolution; (3) highlights and explains their key concepts; (4) illuminates some of their limitations; and (5) identifies ways in which they can be advanced further.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has exacerbated many of the system’s worst aspects. In the UK, the birth... more The outbreak of Covid-19 has exacerbated many of the system’s worst aspects. In the UK, the birthplace of free wage-labour based capitalist agriculture, the pandemic has exacerbated existing food inequities. The pandemic has stimulated discussions about how to remedy the world’s corporate-dominated food system. The most popular alternative visions propose shifting production and consumption away from meat increasingly to plant-based diets produced according to agro-ecological principles. Whilst these approaches could be part of a broader solution, so far they have tended to eschew explaining the food system’s inequities in class-relational terms. This essay argues that the root problems of the contemporary food system are three-fold: (1) it is rooted in, and depends upon, the commodification of labour, food, and natural resources (including land); (2) that these commodities are subordinate to capitalism’s endless drive of exploitation-based accumulation; and (3) that the food system itself incorporates, and contributes to reproducing, these dynamics throughout the wider capitalist system. Facilitating healthy, increasingly plant-based diets should be part and parcel of a socialist agenda. What might an emergent alternative food system look like? How could it decommodify food in order to reduce labouring class market dependence while enhancing workers’ health? How could it increase workers’ democratic control over its production, distribution and consumption? How could it reduce race and gender inequalities? How could the construction of such an alternative system facilitate political alliance building amongst oppressed and exploited groups? How could it enable workers’ organizations to encroach upon the power of capital? This essay suggests that community restaurants, serving free and cheap food, represent a socialist demand that can fulfil the above criteria
We seek to tackle myriad problems of a global production system in which China is the world’s lar... more We seek to tackle myriad problems of a global production system in which China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of consumer electronics products. Dying for an iPhone simultaneously addresses the challenges facing Chinese workers while locating them within the global economy through an assessment of the relationship between Foxconn (the largest electronics manufacturer) and Apple (one of the richest corporations). Eight researchers from Asia, Europe and North America discuss two main questions: How do tech behemoths and the Chinese state shape labor relations in transnational manufacturing? What roles can workers, public sector buyers, non-governmental organizations and consumers play in holding multinational corporations and states accountable for human rights violations and assuring the protection of worker interests? We also reflect on the possibility that national governments, the electronics industry and civil society groups can collaborate to contribute to improved ...
The World Development Report 2020 (WDR2020) asserts that global value chains raise productivity a... more The World Development Report 2020 (WDR2020) asserts that global value chains raise productivity and incomes, create better jobs and reduce poverty, and proposes state policies to facilitate global value chain-based development. We deploy an immanent critique of WDR2020 to interrogate its claims regarding wages and working conditions. Using the Report’s own evidence, we identify contradictions in its claims, which stem from its use of comparative advantage trade theory to reconceptualize global value chain relations. This perspective predicts mutual gains between trading partners, but its core assumptions are incompatible with the realities of global value chains, in which (mostly Northern) oligopolistic lead firms capture value from (mostly Southern) suppliers and workers. We show how WDR2020 conceals these contradictions by misconstruing, inverting and ignoring evidence (particularly of labour’s agency), whilst failing to recommend redistributive measures for the unequal outcomes t...
Perspectives on Neoliberalism, Labour and Globalization in India, 2019
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) generate a picture of a world which, despite continuing ... more The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) generate a picture of a world which, despite continuing challenges, is experiencing the benefits of capitalist development. SDG goal no. 1—the ending of poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030—is widely proclaimed to be realizable. Global Capitalism is, indeed, an incredibly powerful wealth-generating system, which feeds such optimism. However, capitalism’s exploitative social relations mean that its dynamism will only benefit a minority, while its costs will be borne by the majority. This chapter provides a critical commentary on popular thinking about global development by outlining (a) the unsoundness of the World Bank’s poverty measurement methodology; (b) the processes that have generated a highly exploited and largely poor global labouring class; and (c) the anti-labour sentiments at the core of mainstream theories of development. It concludes by arguing that genuinely progressive development thinking and practice—within and potenti...
What might socialist development look like? Mainstream conceptions of development regard capital ... more What might socialist development look like? Mainstream conceptions of development regard capital accumulation as the bedrock upon which to achieve human development. In these conceptions of change, labouring classes are regarded as fuel for the development motor, which in turn justifies their exploitation and oppression. This essay asks, in contrast, how a non-exploitative socialist development strategy might be operationalised. It does so by conducting a thought experiment: Imagine that labouring classes, supported by a small-farmer/peasant sector have conquered political power in a poor country. Imagine too, that there is no immediate prospect of a socialist ascendency elsewhere in the world. What kinds of development strategies, policies and practices would and could a nascent socialist state pursue? This essay discusses the problems such a nascent socialist state would face, notes ways in which wealth distribution, even in very poor countries, can provide the basis of significan...
How could it be the socialist development? The principal conceptions of the development consider ... more How could it be the socialist development? The principal conceptions of the development consider that the accumulation of capital is the ground on which the human development can be reached. In this conceptions of change, the working clases are considered fuel for the development engine, which at the same time justifies their exploitation and oppression. In contrast, how to operate a strategy of socialist development without exploitment? This article gives a plan of ten points for the sustainable socialist transformation.
As the internationalization of monopoly capital grows, particularly through the domination of glo... more As the internationalization of monopoly capital grows, particularly through the domination of global value chains, the worldwide rate of exploitation and degree of monopoly increase as well.
ABSTRACT Covid-19 has highlighted the destructiveness of modern agro-industry upon biosphere and ... more ABSTRACT Covid-19 has highlighted the destructiveness of modern agro-industry upon biosphere and humanity. Its contribution to environmental degradation intertwines with socio-economic inequality and labour exploitation. There are increasing calls for a green new deal (GND) to counter these dangers. This article argues that a GND for agriculture must combat environmental degradation, social inequality and labour exploitation, rather than aim to re-boot capitalist economies. This article identifies a number of areas for discussion and political action - reorientation of state subsidies, workers' rights, agrarian reform, the decommodification of food, agroecology, possibilities for urban agriculture, the application of new technologies, and rewilding.
A Research Agenda for Critical Political Economy, 2020
This chapter discusses how economic growth is central to most thinking about development. It argu... more This chapter discusses how economic growth is central to most thinking about development. It argues that growth is visualised across much of development studies – ranging from Liberalism, to Statism, to varieties of Marxism – in ways that obscure the social (class) relations from whence it springs. These social relations are simultaneously generative of rapid economic growth, and impoverishment and inequality. Mainstream development theories, however, portray poverty as a consequence of a lack of growth, therefore justifying ever more growth, in a vicious cycle. These political economic and ideological dynamics are best explained by Marx’s theory of capitalist accumulation and exploitation. The chapter concludes by discussing alternatives to growth-based development
The 'pink tide' in Latin America, or what remains of it, is drawing increasing criticisms from th... more The 'pink tide' in Latin America, or what remains of it, is drawing increasing criticisms from the political left for its inability to confront existing socio-structural inequalities. This article contributes to these debates in two ways. First, as a means of understanding better the development strategies that have been followed by left-leaning governments, it highlights and critiques what it labels Elite Development Theory (EDT) encompassing Washington Consensus and Statist Political Economy. It shows how despite its self-stated objectives-the amelioration of the conditions of the poor and their uplifting-EDT is grounded in elite assumptions about social change: States and corporations are posited as prime-movers in the development process while collective efforts of labouring classes to pursue their own developmental strategies are ignored and/or de-legitimated. Exploitation, oppression and the ideological delegitimation of labouring class collective actions form the core of EDT. The second contribution of this article is to argue for an alternative form of what it terms labour-centred development (LCD). This argument is supported through an examination of the Chilean cordones industriales and Argentinian empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores (ERT) movements. The article concludes that whilst LCD may be a rarity, its existence offers the basis for alternative development theory and strategy.
This is an excellent book. It combines a critical introduction to key contributors to the politic... more 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
Global Value Chain (GVC) analysis is part and parcel of mainstream
development discourse and poli... more Global Value Chain (GVC) analysis is part and parcel of mainstream development discourse and policy. Supplier firms are encouraged, with state support, to ‘link-up’ with trans-national lead firms. Such arrangements, it is argued, will reduce poverty and contribute to meaningful socio-economic development. This portrayal of global political economic relations represents a ‘problem-solving’ interpretation of reality. This article proposes an alternative analytical approach rooted in ‘critical theory’ which reformulates the GVC approach to better investigate and explain the reproduction of global poverty, inequality and divergent forms of national development. It suggests re-labelling GVC as Global Poverty Chain (GPC) analysis. GPC’s are examined in the textiles, food, and high-tech sectors. The article details how workers in these chains are systematically paid less than their subsistence costs, how trans-national corporations use their global monopoly power to capture the lion’s share of value created within these chains, and how these relations generate processes of immiserating growth. The article concludes by considering how to extend GPC analysis.
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Papers by Ben Selwyn
development discourse and policy. Supplier firms are encouraged, with
state support, to ‘link-up’ with trans-national lead firms. Such
arrangements, it is argued, will reduce poverty and contribute to
meaningful socio-economic development. This portrayal of global
political economic relations represents a ‘problem-solving’
interpretation of reality. This article proposes an alternative analytical
approach rooted in ‘critical theory’ which reformulates the GVC
approach to better investigate and explain the reproduction of global
poverty, inequality and divergent forms of national development. It
suggests re-labelling GVC as Global Poverty Chain (GPC) analysis. GPC’s
are examined in the textiles, food, and high-tech sectors. The article
details how workers in these chains are systematically paid less than
their subsistence costs, how trans-national corporations use their global
monopoly power to capture the lion’s share of value created within
these chains, and how these relations generate processes of
immiserating growth. The article concludes by considering how to
extend GPC analysis.