In this chapter, I have sought to present and discuss the key theoretical currents and debates within the field of economic development theory – in just over twenty pages.
Needless to say, this could not have been done without leaving out numerous relevant authors and issues, and without addressing those authors and schools of thought that were included but in a very cursory way – thus failing to do justice to the depth and scope of their theoretical contributions. The aim, however, was not to provide an overview of the main theories of development for its own sake, but to do it in order to account for the theoretical foundations of the research project underlying this thesis. With that in mind, it is hopefully understandable that I have left out many authors, theories and models and skipped a tremendous amount of detail – and instead simply sought to identify the key
72 features in each main current of thought and to put forth my reasons for adhering to, or rejecting, each theoretical approach.
My conclusion has been that historical materialism constitutes a body of theory that is uniquely able to account for many key aspects that, in my view, competing theories are unable to satisfactorily come to terms with: modern economic growth, inequality patterns at various scales, political dynamics, migration and urbanisation, etc. However, this assessment does not imply adhering to Marx’s (or Marxist) theory as dogma, nor endorsing certain less-than-convincing aspects of some Marxist theory – such as, for example, productive-force determinism or the simple and univocal base-superstructure model proposed by vulgar materialism. Historical materialism provides a powerful set of questions, a powerful set of analytical categories, and a powerful set of theoretical insights into the historical development of societies. That is how, in my view, it should be used. Still, if historical materialism is such a powerful toolbox with which to analyse social reality, it is of course reasonable to ask why it is that it has increasingly fallen out of favour in academia – and, in particular, why it is that Marxist political economy has in the last few decades taken on an increasingly peripheral role when it comes to theoretical and empirical work on development and underdevelopment. The view endorsed here is that, despite the validity of several important critiques made with regard to this theoretical framework (on which more below), the chief reasons for this decline have had an ‘external’ character, largely to do with changes in the ideological and political-economic context. Hence, the first thing that should be noted is that the decline of historical materialism in the analysis of (under)development is part and parcel of a much broader decline of Marxism in (particularly “Western”) academia roughly from the 1970s onwards. I shall therefore begin by briefly addressing the causes of this general decline before undertaking a discussion of the substantive critiques.
As suggested above, my view is that the gradual decline of historical-materialist scholarship over the last three or four decades has been, first and foremost, a consequence of ideological and material changes introduced in the context of neoliberalism. However, the impacts of these were arguably facilitated by the trajectory of Marxist scholarship previously in the 20th Century, and by the vulnerabilities that that trajectory had given rise to. In very summary terms, this can be explained by reference to Perry Anderson’s (1976) discussion of “Western Marxism”. This author’s key argument is that the general retreat of the revolutionary labour movement in Western Europe throughout the 20th Century, alongside the stifling dominance of ‘official Stalinist’ Marxism over that movement, brought
73 about a severing of the organic linkages between non-dogmatic Marxist scholarship and actual social struggles – a separation which translated into a relative neglect of political economy and its replacement with a focus on culture, ideology and discourse (along with, in many cases, a preference for political quietism).
Lacking such organic linkages and having distanced itself from its original core concerns and analytical foundations, academic Marxism found itself in an especially vulnerable position to face the political and ideological onslaught that was brought on in the context of the ascendancy of neoliberalism. The shift in the balance of power (in favour of capital and to the detriment of labour) that ‘resolved’ the crisis of accumulation of the late 1960s and 1970s in the advanced capitalist economies had wide-ranging ideological and material consequences (on which cf. Harvey, 2005, and the edited volume by Saad- Filho and Johnston, 2004), but of special importance in this context were the rise of postmodernism in the ideological sphere (with its rejection of modernist “meta-narratives”, particularly Marxism, and its embrace of radical subjectivism) and the increasing economic and political pressures placed upon academia (with funding and selection mechanisms increasingly constraining research agendas and intellectual output at the individual, departmental and faculty levels). As Petras (1990:2155) put it:
The worldwide retreat of the intellectuals [from Marxism] is intimately related to the declining power of the working class movement and the rising power of capital – in the cultural as well as economic sphere. Intellectuals are very sensitive to changes in power. (…) The structural factor is the deep structural integration of intellectuals into the mainstream academic foundation-professional publication networks that serve as the cultural bridge toward established power.
In sum, then, the decline of Marxist scholarship in the past few decades can be largely put down to the broader ideological and political shift ‘to the right’ in the context of neoliberalism, facilitated by Marxism’s own prior retreat into academia (as opposed to wider social and political rootedness), and by the increasing subjection of academia itself to market compulsions and mechanisms of political and ideological control. In such a general context, one should not be surprised that historical-materialist analyses of development and underdevelopment – indeed, as of other social phenomena – should have been increasingly relegated to the academic and intellectual fringes, regardless (or perhaps partly
74 because of) their intrinsic merits14.The above, however, does not amount to arguing that valid ‘substantive’ criticisms have not been levied against historical materialism in general, or its account of development and underdevelopment in particular. They have – and whether they play a greater or lesser role when it comes to accounting for the decline of this theoretical perspective, they need to be taken into account. Previously in this chapter, we have already referred to some less-than-convincing aspects of this theoretical framework, or at least of some of its variants. For the sake of reflexivity, however, it is important to address these weaknesses in a more systematic way. As a first step in this direction, we can begin by drawing on Runciman’s (2007) enumeration of three typical deficiencies of Marxist analyses: their teleological character; their neglect of culture; and their failure to come to grips with the enduring success of capitalism.
With respect to the first of these, there is little doubt that there has been a pervasive tendency towards teleology (i.e. a mode of explanation whereby final causes are deemed to account for processes) in much Marxist literature. Examples of this with direct bearing on this thesis would include explaining away labour migration or the persistence of non-capitalist social-productive arrangements by simple reference to the fact that they are in the interests of capital. As I have already suggested whenever theoretical propositions of this sort came up previously in this thesis, this mode of explanation is deeply problematic unless the concrete mechanisms are specified through which the ‘final cause’ is attained.
Social systems do not act intentionally – only human actors inside them do (Callinicos 2004:91). Engaging with historical materialism in a serious and non-dogmatic way thus requires that we steer clear not only of economic determinism, but also of any form of teleological reasoning.
Another frequent and important accusation levied against many Marxist analyses focuses on their neglect of culture as an important factor in social and historical explanation. This criticism relates to the former, given that implicitly regarding human beings as automata governed by teleological structural mechanisms entails disregarding the autonomy and influence of both consciousness and culture (i.e. practices, meanings and representations). Culture, in this anthropological sense, has a ‘relative autonomy’ of its own
14 This does not mean, however, that much theoretical and empirical work from a historical- materialist perspective has not continued to be undertaken and published. As an illustration, cf.
Bernstein and Byres’ (2001) extensive and impressive review of work along these lines published between 1973 and 2000 in the Journal of Peasant Studies alone (consequently, solely on agrarian political economy). Thus, the argument here is not that Marxist scholarship and historical materialism have been eradicated as a consequence of neoliberalism, but rather that they have become increasingly marginal(ised) in the social sciences.
75 and evolves in accordance with complex processes that involve emergent properties – not according to a simple and univocal base-superstructure correspondence. Moreover, both (individual) consciousness and (social) culture introduce variability and contingency to social processes, thereby co-determining them and infusing them with indeterminacy.
Serious historical-materialist analyses should therefore acknowledge, and enquire into, the role of cultural factors in terms of how they modify the effects of, and feed back upon, the political-economic structures that constitute the ‘core’ focus of the theoretical and empirical exercises..
The third weakness highlighted by Runciman – the failure of the prediction of the imminent overthrow of capitalism to materialise – is arguably the least relevant of these three. This theoretical postulate, which hinged on the tendency towards the increasing socialisation of the labour process under the increasing concentration and centralisation of capital, doubtless played a very important political role in Marx’s thought, as well as in the subsequent strategies of the revolutionary labour movement. In a theoretical sense, however, the postulate itself is relatively marginal to the fundamental core of the theory – and the failure of this particular prediction to materialise within a given time-frame does not invalidate the general tendencies identified therein, let alone the theoretical approach in a more general way.
In addition to the three key vulnerabilities identified by Runciman, another crucial weakness of much historical-materialist analysis that must be highlighted here consists of what Banaji (2010), in an eponymous book, refers to as substituting “theory for history” – that is to say, reducing the investigation of the concrete to a “programme of verifying ‘laws’
already implicit (…) in the materialist conception of history” (id ibid:47). A corollary to this, in the context of development and underdevelopment, consists of using mode-of- production analysis as a “structural grid along which history moves in a logical progression”
(Munck 1980, in Chilcote 1983). In my view as well as of others, this constitutes a formalist and deleterious adulteration of the historical-materialist approach that, once again, falls prey to economic determinism and teleological reasoning. Indeed, probably the single most important ‘internal’ critique and point of theoretical controversy within the historical- materialist analysis of (under)development in recent decades consists of the rejection of the reified and teleological view of modes of production, and its replacement with a more nuanced and indeterminate view that takes account of the variability and historical contingency of social-productive relations and their dynamics (cf. Kitching 1980:4-5) – a
76 debate in the context of which I hope to have made my own positions sufficiently clear (cf.
supra, pp. 66-68).
In bringing this discussion to a close, it is worth stressing again that all of the above are important and generally valid criticisms against much historical-materialist analysis.
However, it is my contention that they do not fundamentally challenge the validity of this theoretical framework, provided that a number of key provisos are taken into account.
These provisos, which shold qualify any serious attempt to develop and apply the historical- materialist approach, consist of: i) rejecting determinism, teleological reasoning and the univocal base-superstructure correspondence; ii) acknowledging that while class struggle is a constant feature and fundamental driver of history, other struggles and factors influence how history moves forward as well; and iii) understanding the concrete as the site of many determinations, therefore requiring careful analysis as opposed to merely serving to validate a priori theoretical postulates.
In the empirical component of this research project (Part II of this thesis), the adoption of this theoretical framework entails seeking to identify the predominant types of social-productive arrangements in Guinea-Bissau and their associated class structure in the recent past and present; the dynamics of the transition to commodity and capitalist relations; and the stimuli and obstacles to that transition. This will be done, it is hoped, with the aforementioned caveats in mind.
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