Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The crisis of development: uneveness, polarization and contestation

“Those who preach socialism,” Shivji wrote in Intellectuals at the Hill , “must first learn to practise democracy.” A review of Development as Rebellion

Introduction by Joel Beinin Political economy addresses the mutual and historical constitution of states, markets, and classes… In this perspective, causes are simultaneously effects; all events are situated in a relational matrix; all social hierarchies are subject to contestation. The historical development of social formations dominated by capital is inextricably intertwined with genocides, slavery and other forms of unfree labor, racialization, patriarchy, national oppression, and empire. Capital accumulation by individuals, partnerships, and even contemporary corporations can occur through exploiting many different forms of labor as well as cheap nature. The ambit of political economy also includes the legal, political, and cul- tural forms of the regulation of regimes of capital accumulation; relations among local, national, and global forms of capital, class, and culture; the so- cial structure of reproduction; the construction of forms of knowledge and hegemony; technopolitics;

Degrowth economics

This is a good take on the political economy of occupation/colonisation. Confronting the Reality of Power in Palestine

How Yemen's Dream of Unity Turned Sour Related A page from Yemen's history Monuments of Famine

A poor conclusion and no alternative, but to implicitly expect the liberal parties to change track. How Europe works to keep Africans in Africa

"This image has also become a stereotype because it is simplistic in its pitting supposedly free sisters in the West against wretched victims in Arab countries. Muslim societies are assumed to have sweeping patriarchal structures, while it is claimed that Western societies are pictures of progressive modernity, says Swiss social anthropologist Annemarie Sancar. Neither of these absolute views are correct." The West's gleeful obsession with "oppressed Arab women" Further reading: Islam in Liberalism by Joseph A. Massad "In his analysis of the emergence of 'military humanitarianism,' David Chandler notes that the development of the NGO regime prevalent in the 1980s focused on 'capacity buidling,' 'empowering,' and 'civil society' (and this is of course in line with the democratisation ideas...that Muslims lack civil society and one has to be created for them to advance democracy), 'as they argued the need for a lo

Economic growth: a short history of a controversial idea

At the end of the academic year at an elite institution, One student studying Development does not know where inequality comes from. Nor is she provided in the course with an alternative to what she called "dependency" of the underdeveloped countries or the Gates Foundation work. A student burst in laughter upon hearing "social justice" in a sentence. Then she said: it is impossible to have social justice. A student from France voted for Emmanuel Macron, and still supports him, because he hoped that he would legalise marijuana. A student from another elite college came to class full of excitment after she attended a lecture by the King of Spain. She confidently said that the King "was giving them tools to change the world."

From the archive (2016) A good overview on the MENA region. Making and Unmaking of the Greater Middle East

Hickel goes against the grain, but wants to correct and better manage capitalism with modest solutions. Yet I think the book is worth reading. The Divide:  A brief guide to global inequality and its solutions

Development In Rodney's view, "the disproportionate weight and importance of even a small African working class offered potentially a more stable base of resistance. But, he emphasizes, that possibility cannot be fully realized as in the “developed” world because production in Africa proceeded on a different path than in Europe. In the latter, the destruction of agrarian and craft economies increased productive capacity through the development of factories and a mass working class. In Africa, he argues, that process was distorted: local craft industry was destroyed, yet large-scale industry was not developed outside of agriculture and extraction, with workers restricted to the lowest-paid, most unskilled work. “Capitalism in the form of colonialism failed to perform in Africa the tasks which it had performed in Europe in changing social relations and liberating the forces of production.”  How Europe underdeveloped Africa: the legacy of Walter Rodney Further reading &g

"Development" Between 1970 and 2007, the external debt of the developing countries was multiplied by twenty-nine. During this time, they repaid the equivalent of ninety-four times the amount owed in 1970. Between 1985 and 2007, developing countries sent to their creditors the equivalent of 7.5 Marshall Plans*...with the local capitalist elite taking their commission on the way. It is a well-oiled mechanism, with part of the money coming back to the South in the form of new loans to ensure that the transfers continue. Thanks to the debt, the wealth of the citizens of the South is being transferred under our very eyes to the elite of the North, with the complicity of the elite of the South. * Marshall Plan cost around $100 billion in 2010 value. Toussaint and Millet, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank,  2010

"we might note that for the underachieving Arab countries, which is in fact the overwhelming majority of them, the crunch on their course of development is fourfold." Development under the threat of war in the Arab World

Morocco Justice and/or Development

"Aid in reverse: how poor countries develop rich countries" A good article. Useful data. In his 2013 book Globalisation in Africa Daniel Offiong mentioned that in every $1 that goes into Africa $10 leave the country. I don't think the author's suggestions as a solution would work though. It is because the motive force of the capitalist system (led by corporations and especially Western governments and international instituions) is ignored. Corporations seek profit even if that happens at the account of people and the earth. A high enough rate of profit makes the system greased. Otherwise stagnation or crisis takes place. One should add of course the context of neocolonialism and the way it operates in making other countries dependent. The author, or probably the Guardian editor, has not used the appropriate terms to describe the situation: capitalism, imperialism (through institutions or violence), and neocolonialism, support of the status quo, including supporti

Unexpected Cuba L'origines structurelles de la dictature bureaucratique Fidel Castro dies at 90, leaving lasting legacy in the Middle East Havana, Trinidad, Cientfuegos: Photos from my flickr

A Dr.  preaching neo-orientalism, imperialism and patronizing other countries , brandishing an empty term ("democracy) of the West, i.e. the capitalist, imperialist democracy of the Western powers that we have seen in practice not only in wars and occupations, but in IMF adjustment programmes, in global capitalism's uneven development, in plunder by corporations, in NGOs working with repressive regimes and perpetuating power structure, in Western powers working with local regimes in aborting, diverting or co-opting uprisings or confining it to the parliamentary capitalist democracy, oppression within the undemocratic European Union itself, level of corruption on an unprecedented scale, driving down wages, undermining unions (even banning people from joining a union), gambling with pensions, corporatization of education, undermining academic freedom, a development of an oligarchy and a mediaocracy, depolitization, passivity and narcissism, a plague called identity politics ins