Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the role of peasant production within the larger process of capitalist accumulation in India. It engages with two distinct theoretical positions — Kalyan Sanyal's formulation of the 'need economy' which is driven by an objective of need fulfilment outside the domain of capitalist production, and Henry Bernstein's thesis on the irrelevance of the agrarian question of capital as discussed by Jens Lerche in the particular context of India. The article extends the category of the 'need economy' from the present focus on the non‐agricultural informal sector to include smallholder or peasant agriculture. In doing so, the analysis demonstrates that the position of Bernstein and Lerche on the irrelevance of the agrarian question of capital and its replacement with a new agrarian question of labour is consistent with Sanyal's conceptualization of the 'need economy'. Further, by providing evidence in support of the key function of food provisioning undertaken by small and marginal farmers in India, the article highlights how both the positions above fail to incorporate the food linkage of agriculture that is vital for the continuation of capitalist accumulation.

This essay reviews the 'Human Development Report' for 2014 and analyses its policy agenda for mitigating structural vulnerabilities faced by the global population. The essay concludes that while the report supports several progressive policies that are critical for broad-based human development, the lack of a systemic approach with an analysis of neoliberal capitalism remains a fundamental drawback that the report shares with other official publications from multilateral agencies.

ABSTRACTThis article acts as the Introduction to the Debate that follows. It contends that the so‐called impasse in development has been a constant feature of the field and is an indicator of its self‐critical outlook rather than any deep‐seated existential crisis. It unpacks the various dimensions of ongoing debate regarding the future of development studies, probing its policy relevance and legitimacy, interdisciplinarity, geographic focus and relationship with post‐structuralist and Marxist thought. In order to revive and reorient the field in line with the contemporary world, the article proposes to return to an explicit Marxist/Marxian political economy framework to analyse the dynamics of capitalism in its local, national and global dimensions. Such a move would entail turning away from the increasingly dominant approach of critique for the sake of critique. Instead, the article argues that development studies can only fulfil its mission if scholars keep the goal of emancipatory development and change in mind when they engage with contemporary capitalist processes.

This book aims to reclaim the mission, relevance and intellectual orientation of development studies - something that is increasingly challenged from different directions. Confronted by the status quoist enterprise of randomized control trials (RCTs) on the one hand and the radical endeavour to decolonize dominant knowledge systems (decoloniality) on the other, the study of development as an enduring societal ambition needs urgent revival.The essays featured in this book build on the contributions of Ashwani Saith - an ardent critic of development orthodoxy and who at the same time is not ready to give up on the emancipatory potential of the development project. Written by leading scholars in the field, the essays touch upon many of the key questions of development studies centred around structural change, labour and poverty and inequality. They also highlight the continued necessity to ground the study of development processes in a critical political economy approach while interrogating the quick-fixes touted by the mainstream discourse on development.