Richard Peet

Theories of development

1. Introduction, 2. Economic Theories of Growth and Development, 3. Sociological Theories of Modernization, 4. Marxist and Neo-Marxist Theories, 5. Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism, and Post-Developmentalism 6. Feminist Theories of Development 7. Critical Modernism, Radical Democracy, Development.

Ideology, Discourse, and the Geography of Hegemony: From Socialist to Neoliberal Development in Postapartheid South Africa

The African National Congress (ANC) has long stood for a development policy committed to improving living conditions for black people in South Africa. Assuming power in 1994, the ANC adopted a leftist, basic-needs-oriented Reconstruction and Development Programme as the popular foundation for its economic policy. Within two years, the ANC had switched to a rightist, neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution policy stressing privatization, deregulation, and trade liberalization. This article critically examines the displacement of economic policy from socialism to neoliberalism. My thesis is that ANC policy was disciplined by a neoliberal economic discourse formulated by an academic-institutional-media complex with linked centers of persuasion inside and outside the country. The article combines ideas about hegemony from Gramsci with notions of discourse derived from Foucault in constructing a geographic theory of globally hegemonic discursive formations colonizing alternative, counterhegemonic discourses.

Neoliberalism and Nature: The Case of the WTO

Political pressures exerted by environmental movements have forced governments otherwise committed to neoliberal policies to find reconciliatory policy positions between two contradictory political imperatives—economic growth and environmental protection. This article explores some ideological means of reconciliation, as with notions of sustainable development, which appear to bridge the impassable divide, and some of the institutional means for dealing with contradiction, as with the displacement of political power upward, away from elected national governments and toward international agreements and nonelected global governance institutions. Through these two strategic maneuvers, the authors argue, environmental concern has been ideologically and institutionally incorporated into the global neoliberal hegemony of the late twentieth century. The global capitalist economy can grow, if not with clear environmental conscience, then with one effectively assuaged. This process of neoliberal deflection is illustrated using the case of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the World Trade Organization.

Culture, Imaginary, and Rationality in Regional Economic Development

This paper outlines some key terms in a cultural analysis of economic systems. During empirical research I have concluded that radical geography in the tradition of political economy must employ cultural terms such as symbol, imaginary, and rationality. These terms link the material, through experience and interpretation, to the mental—consciousness, intentionality, and rationality. I argue that culture understood as symbolic practice is compatible with historical materialism in the tradition of Gramsci, Thompson, and Williams. The paper applies cultural materialism to the explanation of economic rationalities and developmental logics by drawing on Weberian sociology. These ideas are exemplified by a brief account of the New England moral economy. The paper concludes by calling for a new type of critical inquiry called cultural economy.

Influences of the British Market on Agriculture and Related Economic Development in Europe before 1860

The growth of commercial and early-industrial cities in the Low Countries and England profoundly influenced agriculture in the surrounding regions. However, quite early, the growing urban-industrial core of western Europe also began to draw food and raw materials from coastal and riverine areas in northern and eastern Europe. A series of large export zones can be discerned across northern Europe by the early nineteenth century, with dairy products occupying an inner position, followed by feed grains, wheat and then animal products on the outer fringes. Repeal of the British Corn Laws and improvements in transport were followed by increased imports from existing European supply areas, together with spatial expansion of the export zones. It is hypothesized that agricultural exporting and greater farming prosperity provided important rural markets for embryonic European industries, although the strength of this relationship varied with the nature of the crop produced and with the rural class structure. Agricultural exporting was a significant additional force stimulating regional industrialization in north-western Europe, but its effect was largely dissipated in eastern Europe and Russia. The paper concludes by speculating that both commercial agriculture and manufacturing industry were probably parts of whole economic landscapes, concentric around the urban core of western Europe, and that the diffusion of economic development across the European space might be explained in terms of a model of economic landscapes expanding under the pressure of growing demand in the urban

Contradictions of Finance Capitalism

Over the last thirty years, capital has abstracted upwards, from production to finance; its sphere of operations has expanded outwards, to every nook and cranny of the globe; the speed of its movement has increased, to milliseconds; and its control has extended to include “everything.” We now live in the era of global finance capitalism.… Financialization has involved increasingly exotic forms of financial instruments and the growth of a shadow-banking system, off the balance sheets of the banks. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 symbolized the almost complete deregulation of a financial sector that has become complex, opaque, and ungovernable.… Although these are useful ideas, they only begin a full analysis of finance capitalism. Where did finance capitalism come from? Did neoliberal policy create finance capitalism? Does finance capital exploit differently from industrial capital? And, most importantly, what are the central contradictions that generate crises in finance capitalism?This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Review essays on: Key Thinkers on Space and Place

Geography and Geographers has undoubtedly been the formative text for many teachers currently charged with the responsibility of delivering courses on the history and philosophy of the discipline. Nevertheless, the addition of a whole series of new textbooks has opened up fresh opportunities for those keen to deliver material in more innovative ways.

I. Reading fukuyama: Politics at the end of history

Abstract This article provides a critical reading of Francis Fukuyamas ‘The end of history’ thesis, focusing on its Hegelian methodology and questioning its conception of democratic perfection in order to undermine/deconstruct its geopolitical conclusions. Beyond these immediate aims, the article is intended as a kind of psychoanalysis of American neo-conservatism. It attempts to uncover right-wing views signalled indirectly in code rather than blatantly expressed in words. Once the protective mask of Kojevian-Hegelian philosophy has been torn away, positions are revealed which constitute the main threats to global peace, and may, indeed, bring about the ‘end of history’. Finally, the article argues for a non-teleological, dialectical Marxism and a non-Leninist form of socialist democracy as guides to an alternative conception of the future of humanity.

Sachs’ Fifth Avenue

Eric Sheppard writes an interesting article critiquing economists’ views of the geography underlying development. But for me the main point gets lost in the verbiage. The point is that it does not matter what geographers think about economists’ conception of geography. For economics is, by far, the most powerful of the social sciences. What ‘professional economists’ say matters – and is widely reported. What we complain does not matter – no one hears of it outside a small academic circle that reads specialized journals. In fact, geographers are fortunate that the economists have, at least, noticed the existence of our discipline. For this graciousness, Sachs, Krugman et al. are invited to Association of American Geographers conventions, to be duly thanked, made honorary geographers, photographed smiling and shaking the hand of our ever-present Secretary of our main disciplinary institution. We reward them for their mistaken impression. It is all about power. Let us take the worst case – Jeffrey Sachs’ (2005) The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities For Our Time. Sachs says that economic development is like a ladder, with the rungs representing steps up a universal path to economic well-being. A billion people cannot lift a foot onto the first rung. Our generation’s ‘challenge’, he says, is to help the poorest of the poor escape the misery of extreme poverty so they can begin their ascent along Rostow’s path to full humanity. Why have some countries failed to step on the ladder? Sachs discusses several categories of problems that cause economies to stagnate or decline. These include governance failure and lack of innovation. But many poor countries are poor because they are landlocked and situated in high mountain ranges (like Switzerland?), trapped in arid conditions with low agricultural productivity (like Saudi Arabia?), with tropical climates (like Singapore?), or have climates that favor killer diseases (as did once the north of England’s hills and dales?). As Eric Sheppard mentions, Sachs dismisses the notion that geography ‘single handedly and irrevocably determines the economic outcome of nations’. Mentioning ‘other factors’ allows an apparent escape from pure determinism. But Sachs relies repeatedly on environmental determinism for his argument to make sense. So, ‘the key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development’. This means overcoming the effects of nature visited on the extreme poor as lack of various kinds of human, business and environmental capital. Breaking the poverty trap involves donor-based investments that raise the level of

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

Jeffrey D. Sachs. Foreword by Bono. New York: Penguin Press, 2005. xiii and 396 pp., maps, diagrams, photos, notes, index.