Uneven Development and the Changing Regime of Accumulation in West Bengal

Abstract

The changing regime of capital accumulation at the national level has fostered significant transformation of the auto industry. In a liberalizing environment embourgeoisment has also led to increased production and consumption of consumer durables. These developments suggest uneven development, not only in terms of worsening pre-existing economic and social inequality (a theme taken up in the next chapter) but also regional differentiation. The assumption is that not all social groups or geographic regions are likely to experience similar rates of growth. Rather, in an expansionary environment the benefits of growth also accrue differentially among different groups. Not all firms are capable of making a successful transition to the new imperatives of capital accumulation.¹ Older firms located in older industrial regions are likely to find it more difficult to adjust to the new mode of capitalist regulation involving not only less state protection but also the adoption of flexible systems of production. Moreover, institutional legacies, firm strategy, local industrial relations, and, in the case of multicultural, federated system in India, the particular role of provincial governments will have a cumulative bearing on industrial transformation. The long march to capitalism entails industrial restructuring, whereby lagging firms must either adjust to a new competitive environment or else become moribund. There must be also an accompanying ideological shift, whereby the regime is anticipated to change to accommodate the imperatives of a deregulated capitalist environment. In the event of failure to change, regional decline becomes imminent.