(1976). State capitalism and the Third World. Journal of Contemporary Asia: Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 432-443.

Development Economics as a discipline and the idea of the state as the organiser of economic activity are inseparable. Basic concepts and distinctions are put forward to unravel the complex question of the role of the state in the industrialisation process. These are then used to examine the state in three waves of socialist industrialisation which shows a strong capacity to mobilise and direct economic, social and political resources. The typically pervasive state may, however, outlive its historically progressive role and become a bastion of economic irrationality and political authoritarianism.

State Capitalism and the Third World

Developmental states and socialist industrialisation in the third world

Noting an apparent ‘return’ of the state this article analyzes the rearticulation of state–capital relations in the context of the current global crisis. Departing from the notion that capital and state are internally related, we distinguish four roles that the state can play with respect to capital accumulation and on that basis examine to what extent and how the state–capital nexus is reconfigured in both the global South and global North. We argue that in spite of a more activist role of the state in the latter and the rise of globalizing yet state-led accumulation strategies in the former, the globalizing dynamic of capital and the concomitant deepening commodification go on unabated. The ‘rebound of the state’ that is the focus of this special issue is thus seen as instrumental to an ongoing globalization of capital, notwithstanding significant power shifts arising out of this contradictory process. Este articulo analiza la rearticulacion de las relaciones del estado y el capital, indicando un aparen...

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The Reconfiguration of the Global State–Capital Nexus

State capitalism has recently come to the fore as a transversal research object in the social sciences. Renewed interest in the notion is evident across several disciplines, in scholarship addressi...

The many lives of state capitalism: From classical Marxism to free-market advocacy:

The reconfiguration of the global State-Capital Nexus

The rise of capitalism in Western Europe was based on rising mass incomes and a political power relationship favorable to the lower classes, which created opportunities for profitable investment. Nowhere in today's underdeveloped world did such conditions exist before the European expansion; nowhere were they created by the mere fact of integration into the capitalist world system. Thus the periphery has been ever more disadvantaged by its connection with the capitalist center. But the center could and can dispense withthe contribution of the periphery and, indeed, on occasion has done so. A planned restructuring of the productive apparatus and social reform in the Third World are both complex and contradictory processes. The working class in the North has to realize its interest in defending the masses of the Third World. It can do so by linking economic concessions in the North-South dialogue (raw material prices or access to markets) to social reform and the creation of a productive apparatus that permits the rise of mass incomes in the Third World.

State Capitalism and the Third World

Citations

Developmental states and socialist industrialisation in the third world

The Reconfiguration of the Global State–Capital Nexus

The many lives of state capitalism: From classical Marxism to free-market advocacy:

The reconfiguration of the global State-Capital Nexus

Rising mass incomes as a condition of capitalist growth: implications for the world economy

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