The Struggle for Development For Mjriam The Struggle for Development Benjamin Selwyn polity Copyright © Benjamin Selwyn 2017 The right of Benjamin Selwyn to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2017 by Polity Press Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Polity Press 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1278-2 ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1279-9 (pb) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   Names: Selwyn, Ben, author. Title: The struggle for development / Ben Selwyn. Description: Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2017. | Includes    bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017004330 (print) | LCCN 2017020101 (ebook) | ISBN    9781509512812 (Mobi) | ISBN 9781509512829 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509512782    (hardback) | ISBN 9781509512799 (pbk.) Subjects:  LCSH: Economic development. Classification: LCC HD82 (ebook) | LCC HD82 .S428 2017 (print) | DDC    338.9--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004330 Typeset in 10 on 16.5pt Utopia Std by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire Printed and bound in Great Britain By Clays Ltd, St Ives PLC The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com Contents Preface and Acknowledgements page vi 1 The Big Lie 1 2 Capitalism and Poverty 22 3 Poverty Chains and the World Economy 49 4 Deepening Exploitation: Capital-Centred Development 76 5 Resisting Exploitation: Labour-Led Development 101 6 Beyond Exploitation: Democratic Development 125 Notes 155 References 163 Index 185 v Preface and Acknowledgements This book contributes to development thinking, policy and practice in two ways. The vast majority of development literature and policy analyses are based upon elitist conceptions of social change, where states and corporations are identified as primary development actors. This book, by contrast, views social change from the bottom up. Its first contribution is to conceptualise development from the perspec- tive of labouring classes. Doing so provides an answer to the puzzle of expanding (and highly concentrated) wealth in a sea of global pov- erty. Secondly, it contends that collective actions by labouring classes, far from undermining development, which is how elite conceptions of social change portray them, generate real human development. Once this two-part argument is grasped, then the project of seeking to engender human development assumes a new perspective. Some of the chapters in this book draw upon and develop arguments previously published. Part of chapter 3 was published as a Centre for Global Political Economy working paper (no. 10, 2016). Parts of chap- ters 4 and 5 were published in Third World Quarterly (both vol. 7, 2016). In writing this book I have incurred many intellectual debts. First and foremost, my colleagues in the Historical Materialism World Development Research Seminar (HMWDRS) continue to provide the most stimulating forum within which to collectively understand and apply Marxist political economy to contemporary capitalism. Over vi PrefACe AnD ACknowleDgemenTS the years HMWDRS has included Liam Campling, Satoshi Miyamura, Jon Pattenden, Gavin Capps, Elena Baglioni, Owen Miller, Alessandra Mezzadri, Sam Ashman, Helena Pérez Niño, Demet Dinler, Jeff Webber, Penny Howard and Kristian Lasslett. Many people have read parts of this book and/or discussed it with me and in the process have suggested improvements. They include Tom Selwyn, Andy Sumner, Thomas Pogge, David Woodward, Luke Martell, Adam Fishwick, Felipe Antunes, Lucia Pradella, Ray Kiely, Mary Mellor, Siobhán McGrath, John Minns, Leslie Sklair, Peter Newell, Tom Marois, David Ockwell, Julian Germann, Sam Knafo, Earl Gammon, Andreas Bieler, Kalpana Wilson, Feyzi Ismail, Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Carlos Oya, Tony Norfield, Paul Cammack and Juanita Elias. I am truly lucky to work alongside wonderful colleagues in the Department of International Relations and in the Centre for Global Political Economy (CGPE) at the University of Sussex. Rorden Wilkinson and Andrea Cornwall, as head of department and head of school respectively, deserve special thanks as they have worked extra hard to generate creative time and space for colleagues to pursue their research. Students at Sussex, at undergraduate, MA and PhD level, are simply marvellous and have, over the years, provided much critical stimulation to my thinking about global development. I am deeply indebted to four brilliant thinkers who, knowingly or not, helped me construct my intellectual foundations. These are Henry Bernstein, Chris Harman, Ellen Meiksins Wood and Michael Lebowitz. I am very grateful to John Minns, director of the Australian National Centre for Latin American Studies (ANCLAS) at the Australian National University, who made it possible for me to spend six fantastic weeks conducting research and writing at the centre in late 2015. I thank Louise Knight, Nekane Tanaka Galdos, Clare Ansell, Caroline Richmond and David Held at Polity for supporting this project. vii PrefACe AnD ACknowleDgemenTS Our daughter Valentina has provided continuous entertainment over the last three years. Most profoundly, I thank my wife Mjriam, who supported me all the way through this and previous labours, and who has always pushed me to explain my ideas with more clarity. To her I dedicate this book. viii ‘The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise up.’ Louis-Marie Prudhomme, Révolutions de Paris