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Accumulation by Dispossession and Its Limits: The Southern Africa Paradigm Revisited

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Abstract

The dispossession of agricultural producers from the land has long been considered a condition of successful capitalist development. The main contention of this paper is that such dispossession has in fact become the source of major developmental handicaps for at least some and possibly many countries of the global South. We develop our argument by focusing on the South(ern) African experience as a paradigmatic outlier case of accumulation by dispossession—that is, as one of its extreme instances capable of highlighting in almost ideo-typical fashion its nature and limits. After reconstructing interpretations of capitalist development in Southern Africa that in the early 1970s established the region as a paradigm of accumulation by dispossession, we discuss how useful these interpretations are for understanding the more recent developmental trajectory of South Africa. We then suggest ways in which these interpretations from the 1970s should be reformulated in light of subsequent developments. We conclude by briefly examining the theoretical and policy implications of the analysis.

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Notes

  1. Harvey himself argues that accumulation by dispossession can be seen as “the necessary cost of making a successful breakthrough to capitalist [and socialist] development”, but he also argues that in some instances (particularly post-1973) accumulation by dispossession, rather than opening up a new path of expanded reproduction, disrupted and destroyed paths that were already open (ibid 154–6).

  2. Seidman (1999: 420, 424–5) citing, among others, Arrighi (1970), Wolpe (1972), and Burawoy (1976).

  3. Amin (1976: 327–8).

  4. Freeman (2005).

  5. Chan (2003: 44–5).

  6. Alexander and Chan (2004: 614, 621; emphasis added)

  7. Hirsch (2005: 182).

  8. Hirsch (2005: 182–3).

  9. Hart (2002: 199–200).

  10. Hart (2002: 201).

  11. Barber (1961: 46, 93, 186–87, 208, 212–18).

  12. Arrighi (1970: 200–22).

  13. Arrighi (1970: 223).

  14. Arrighi (1970: 223–4).

  15. The different dynamics of the recessions of the early 1920s and of the late 1950s vividly illustrates the change. In the early 1920s, falling prices and wages induced businesses (especially in agriculture) to step up investments and absorb the increasingly “unlimited” supply of cheap Africa labor. In the late 1950s, in contrast, the recession led to an outflow of capital and a contraction in investment and the demand for labor. Arrighi (1970: 225–6).

  16. Arrighi (1970: 225–6).

  17. Arrighi (1970: 226).

  18. Legassick (1975: 249).

  19. Legassick (1975: 259–60).

  20. Legassick (1975: 253–5). On the weaker (and later) manifestation of an analogous convergence of interests in Rhodesia, see Arrighi (1967).

  21. Legassick (1975: 260–1).

  22. Legassick (1975: 262–3).

  23. Legassick (1975: 264–5).

  24. Wolpe (1972: 428, 433; second emphasis added). Although this article was published three years before Legassick’s, Wolpe referred to and quoted extensively the latter’s unpublished version.

  25. Wolpe (1972: 447).

  26. Wolpe (1972: 450, 452)

  27. Schneider (2000: 416).

  28. While state-owned monopolies continued to control electricity and water supply, railways and harbors, broadcasting, air transport, and much steel production, state-generated manufacturing capital increased from less than 10 per cent in the 1920s to 25% by the 1970s. Beinert (2001: 176).

  29. Lundahl (1992: 302).

  30. Schneider (2000: 417).

  31. Gelb (1991: 2).

  32. Terreblanche and Nattrass (1990: 9).

  33. Schneider (2000: 419).

  34. Marais (2001: 109). “There was a significant withdrawal of capital when slower growth in the late 1950s was followed by political crisis in 1960. But the government acted decisively to block the export of foreign exchange, increase interest rates, raise protectionist barriers, and crush opposition. Foreign investors responded by rewarding the reimposition of political authority rather than penalizing the intensification of repression” (Beinert 2001: 173). Evidently, as long as rates of profit were among the highest in the world, foreign capital had no qualms in placing its bets on apartheid.

  35. Lundahl (1992: 303).

  36. Thomas and Martin (1992: 172–175).

  37. Jones and Muller (1992: 296). For the comparative worsening of the South African performance, see Table 1.

  38. Deegan (2001: 44).

  39. Lundahl (1992: 293–4); Marais (2001: 32); Schneider (2000: 419).

  40. Lowenberg (1997: 64); Kaplinksy (1995: 189); Gelb (1991: 17); Schrire (1982: 132).

  41. Cf Gelb (1991: 20–1) and Marais (2001: 109). Gelb incorrectly contends that the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in March 1973 was a cause of the South African economic crisis because it destabilized the price of gold. In reality, up to 1981 the de-stabilization resulted in a major increase in the price of gold, which lessened the impact of the crisis.

  42. Marais (2001: 45, 101)

  43. Lowenberg (1997: 67); Marais (2001: 101).

  44. Beinert (2001: 314–5); Black (1991: 171); Marais (2001: 103).

  45. Rogerson (1991: 355); Jones and Muller (1992: 302).

  46. Marais (2001: 109); Padayachee (1995: 169); Jones and Muller (1992: 299).

  47. Silver (2003: 54–64).

  48. Drucker (1968).

  49. Castells and Portes (1989: 29–30). See also Piore and Sabel (1984).

  50. Harrison (1994:8–12).

  51. Arrighi et al. (2003).

  52. Terreblanche (2002: 27).

  53. Carmody (2002: 258).

  54. Marais (2001: 136).

  55. Marais (2001: 115, 117, 136).

  56. Marais (2001: 112); Carmody (2002: 267).

  57. “By encouraging offshore investments, government hoped to create ‘space’ in the economy for foreign investors (and it must be added, black economic empowerment consortia), since firms shifting abroad are pressured into selling off non-core local operations in order to raise investment capital. Foreign investors took the opportunity (evident in the large share of FDI acquisitions), but without robust local demand to trigger further, new investments, the rush soon waned” (Marais 2001: 111, 174).

  58. Marais (2001: 117).

  59. Carmody (2002: 267) and Marais (2001: 113) citing a study of FDI flows to 54 developing countries by Schneider and Frey (1985: 167–75).

  60. Beinert (2001: 317).

  61. The low levels of formal education of many Africans, for example, made them ineligible for employment in the tertiary sector, which was one of the few sectors that did expand. As a result, in 2001 about 50% of African entrants to the job market could not find jobs in the formal economy. Terreblanche (2002: 13–14).

  62. Terreblanche (2002: 30, 427, 433); Carmody (2002: 269).

  63. For a detailed development of the East Asian side of the argument made here see Arrighi 2007 and Arrighi and Zhang 2010; also Arrighi 2002: 24–31.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beverly Silver, Sociology Department, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA

    Giovanni Arrighi

  2. Sociology Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Nicole Aschoff

  3. Sociology Department, The John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA

    Ben Scully

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  1. Giovanni Arrighi
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  2. Nicole Aschoff
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  3. Ben Scully
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Correspondence to Ben Scully.

Additional information

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, May 3, 2007; the Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, February 28, 2008; and the Seminar on International Development, Department of Sociology, The Johns Hopkins University, March 2009. The authors would like to thank the participants at the seminars in which the paper was presented for their useful comments which inspired substantive revisions. We would also like to thank Peter Evans, Martin Legassick, Greg Ruiters, Sampie Terreblanche and Edward Webster for their helpful comments on a previous version of the paper. Special thanks are due to Beverly J. Silver, who provided extensive suggestions on multiple versions of the paper.

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Arrighi, G., Aschoff, N. & Scully, B. Accumulation by Dispossession and Its Limits: The Southern Africa Paradigm Revisited. St Comp Int Dev 45, 410–438 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12116-010-9075-7

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