Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Last Rites for Development Studies? -- Are We the Masters Now? -- Dismantling Development -- Post-development? -- This Sense of Identity -- Climate, Class, Risk -- Themes -- part 1 -- Questioning the Paradigm -- 1 Racism and Development: Blood, Sweat and Fears -- Introduction: More Lessons from History -- An Absent Nationality -- A Race against Time, a Time against Race -- Southern Myths -- No Ear to Hear -- Differences, Sameness -- Common Heirs to Its Impositions -- The Battle for Bread -- The Pinch of Hunger -- Conclusion -- 2 The Industrial Reserve and Development: A Vanishing Army? -- Introduction: Redefining the Industrial Reserve -- 19th Century Marxist Views -- 20th Century Liberal Views -- 20th Century Marxist Views -- Border Wars -- Human Flourishing, but Whose? -- What Marx Really Said -- Travelling the Same Road? -- Conclusion -- 3 Sociology and Development: A Warning from  The History Man -- Introduction: Publishing, Hierarchy, Power -- The Bleak End of Things -- Who Is The History Man Now? -- The Power of Hierarchy -- No One Is Listening? -- Conclusion -- 4 Critical Agrarian Studies and Development: A Populist Land Grab -- Introduction: The Sleep of Forgetfulness -- In the Academic Salon -- Deprivileging Marxism -- ‘Marxist’ Questions -- ‘Marxist’ Answers -- Reprivileging Agrarian Populism -- Conclusion -- part 2 -- Alternative Agendas -- 5 Development: A Theory without a Past, Present, or Future? -- Introduction: Paradigms/Concepts That Disappear/Reappear -- Call a Friend -- Concepts, Origins -- Capitalism Everywhere, Capitalism Nowhere -- Development Theory? -- The Sharpest Weapon -- Conclusion -- 6 Liberalism and Development: Fukuyama’s Scylla and Charybdis -- Introduction: A Benign Capitalism? -- Floreat Classical Liberalism? -- I Am a Nice Shark … -- A Progressive Left? -- Political Corrections, Problematic History -- Conclusion -- 7 Anthropology and Development: Self in the World, World in the Self -- Introduction: What Do I Know? -- The Self (in the World) -- Self-help -- No Friends There -- The World (in the Self) -- Insufficiency -- Self-sufficiency -- Humanity’s Priority -- Restlessness -- Conclusion -- 8 Labour Regime and Development: Deproletarianisation and Neo-bondage Compared -- Introduction: Explaining Unfree Labour -- Deproletarianisation, Neo-bondage -- Unfreedom, Patronage, Politics -- Differences Explained? -- Misinterpreting Capitalism -- Conclusion -- part 3 -- Beyond Capitalism? -- 9 Postmodernism and Development: Misremembering the Peasantry -- Introduction: Doing without Development? -- Methodology -- Sources -- Stories -- Theory -- Definitions -- Economy -- Politics -- Conclusion -- 10 On the Continuing Necessity of (Marxist) Critique -- Introduction: Paradigms, Polemics, Popularity -- A Return to Yesterday -- New Paradigms, Old Assumptions -- Class Dismissed -- Producing Curtains -- Urgent Need of Renewal -- Conversation, Collaboration, Cooperation? -- Hegemonic Formation, Populist Moments, Floating Signifiers? -- Taking People’s Beliefs Seriously? -- Conclusion -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

Critiques presented here in defence of development range across a number of issues, all of which are central to discussions about the desirability or undesirability of this historical process. These include one particular aspect – labour market competition – of the debate about racism, why the reproduction of this ideology is more acute at some historical conjunctures but not others, the same question that can also be asked of the industrial reserve. Equally contentious is the current dominance of populist and postmodern interpretations of rural development, in the misleading guise of new paradigms, the object of which is to exorcise two ghosts: not just development itself, but also Marxist theory about development. See Less

English

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