The Global Development Crisis

[BOOK DESCRIPTION]

The central paradox of the contemporary world is the simultaneouspresence of wealth on an unprecedented scale, and mass poverty.Liberal theory explains the relationship between capitalism andpoverty as one based around the dichotomy of inclusion (intocapitalism) vs exclusion (from capitalism). Within this discourse,the global capitalist system is portrayed as a sphere of economicdynamism and as a source of developmental opportunities for lessdeveloped countries and their populations. Development policyshould, therefore, seek to integrate the poor into the globalcapitalist system. The Global Development Crisis challenges this way ofthinking. Through an interrogation of some of the most importantpolitical economists of the last two centuries Friedrich List, KarlMarx, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Schumpeter, Alexander Gerschenkron, KarlPolanyi and Amarta Sen, Selwyn argues that class relations are thecentral cause of poverty and inequality, within and betweencountries. In contrast to much development thinking, which portrays the poor as reliant upon benign assistance, this bookadvocates the concept of labour-centred development.Here the poor are the global labouring classes, and theirown collective actions and struggles constitute the basis of analternative form of non-elitist, bottom-up human development.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

  Figures and Tables                         vi
Acknowledgements                                   vii
    1 The Global Development Crisis                1  (28)
    2 Friedrich List and the Foundations of        29 (24)
    Statist Political Economy
    3 Karl Marx, Class Struggle and Social         53 (23)
    Development
    4 Trotsky, Gerschenkron and the Clash of       76 (28)
    Marxism and Statist Political Economy
    5 Creative Destruction and Global              104(31)
    Inequality: From Marx to Schumpeter, and
    Back
    6 Class Struggle or Embedded Markets? Marx,    135(26)
    Polanyi and the Meanings and Possibilities
    of Socialism
    7 Development Within or Against Capitalism?    161(20)
    A Critique of Amartya Sen's Development as
    Freedom
    8 Towards a Labour-Centred Development         181(28)
References and Further Reading                     209(24)
Index                                              233