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CLASS FRAME OF REFERENCE IS USED TO ANALYZE THE POLICY CHANGES AND CRISIS THAT CULMINATED IN THE OVERTHROW OF MODIBO KEITA'S LEFTIST ADMINISTRATION IN MALI ON NOV, 19, 1968. THE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH A MOVE FROM STATE CAPITALISM TO STATE SOCIALISM ARE EXAMINED FROM A DEVELOPMENTAL AND CLASS PERSPECTIVE.

Making the land issue a total economic phenomenon and capital the driving force of development equates to giving free rein to the commodification of the land. Is it really necessary for Mali to sell off its agricultural land and its land resources to access development? For what development? Does development demand that family-run small farming operations and age-old, traditional land management methods be sacrificed? Ever since the country attained national sovereignty in 1960, Mali ‒ a poor country in sub-Saharan Africa ‒ has been seeking in vain to achieve rapid economic, social and industrial development by all the means available, with the exception of the deployment of an endogenous development model. In that quest, Mali has had to subscribe to the dominant development model which is none other than the capitalist model, made vulnerable as it always has been and still is at present by the consequences of its limitations, namely the succession of food, social, environmental and financial crises. If the downside of capitalism has had far-reaching social effects in the southern countries, it has also led certain emerging countries and providers of capital to grab the natural resources of the poorest countries. Caught between preserving its socioeconomic specificities in land terms and its desire to achieve sustainable development, Mali regards the large-scale commodification of its land resources as a real windfall. It is thus going to adapt its legal and political system of access to land resources ‒ at the risk of seeing a blurring of vision, discrepancy and inconsistency between its political strategies and the reality of the land issue ‒ in order to attract new stakeholders. In so doing, Mali runs the risk of exposing its people to the foreseeable consequences of the changeover without transition to a globalized economy, including notably the despoliation of customary law land rights, increased rural poverty and inequality, and the destruction of family-run farming operations, whereas proper control of ...