Polarising Development – Introducing Alternatives to Neoliberalism and the Crisis

Neoliberal economic policies, with their emphasis on market-led development and individual rationality, have been exposed as bankrupt not only by the global economic crisis but also by increasing social opposition and resistance. Social movements and critical scholars in Latin America, East Asia, Europe and the United States, alongside the Arab uprisings, have triggered renewed debate on possible different futures. While for some years any discussion of substantive alternatives has been marginalised, the global crisis since 2008 has opened up new spaces to debate, and indeed to radically rethink, the meaning of develop- ment. Debates on developmental change are no longer tethered to the pole of ‘reform and reproduce’: a new pole of ‘critique and strategy beyond’ neoliberal capitalism has emerged. Despite being forcefully challenged, neoliberalism has proven remarkably resilient. In the first years since the crisis erupted, the bulk of the alternative literature pointed to continued growth in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and in other big emerging market countries to affirm the necessary role for the state in sustaining capitalist development. New devel- opmental economists have consequently reasserted themselves. Their proposals converged into a broader demand for global Keynesianism (Patomäki, 2012) – a demand that is proving to be less and less realistic in the face of a deepening global economic crisis

Libya and Europe: imperialism, crisis and migration

This article examines the recent dynamics of European imperialism in Libya in the light of Marx’s theory of the global reserve army of labour. It analyses the limited advance of Western imperialism in Libya in the decade before the 2011 uprisings, the interactions between local, regional and international forces during and after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention, and, finally, the evolving migratory patterns from Libya. In this light, the instability along the southern and eastern Mediterranean coastline – a product of the uprisings and the forms of political reactions they unleashed – is simultaneously a security threat and a channel of migratory movements to European capitalism

Globalisation and Critique of Political Economy in the Light of the New Historical Critical Edition of the Writings of Marx and Engels (MEGA²)

La thèse présente une reconstruction de l’évolution de l’analyse marxienne de l’internationalisation du capital en lien avec les formations sociales précapitalistes, en se basant sur la nouvelle édition historico-critique des écrits de Marx et Engels, pour offrir les éléments d’une réflexion autour de l’actualité de l’œuvre de Marx, quant à l’analyse critique des processus actuels de mondialisation. Les deux premiers chapitres retracent l’évolution de l’analyse du marché mondial et de la mondialisation, du mercantilisme à l’économie politique classique et à Hegel. Le troisième chapitre identifie les éléments de rupture et de continuité de la critique marxienne au cours des années quarante du XIXème siècle. Le quatrième chapitre présente le contenu des cahiers londoniens, qui représentent une étape fondamentale de l’approfondissement de la mondialisation capitaliste, et qui marquent la fin de la vision passive des peuples non européens. Le cinquième chapitre présente enfin la synthèse que l’on retrouve de ces travaux dans les manuscrits et dans les œuvres de la deuxième moitié des années cinquante et dans les manuscrits de 1861-1863, et s’intéresse notamment au dépassement du concept de capital en général et au plan articulé en six ouvrages. Le premier livre du Capital inclurait certaines questions que Marx avait prévu de développer dans les ouvrages sur l’Etat, le commerce extérieur et le marché mondial. L’approfondissement des lois de développement combiné et inégal du capital lui a donné la possibilité d’échafauder une vision de la révolution internationale qui s’affranchisse progressivement des éléments encore « eurocentriques » de sa réflexion des années quarante.This thesis studies the evolution of Marx's analysis of the internationalisation of capital in relation to pre-capitalistic social formations, drawing upon the new historical critical edition of Marx and Engels’ writings, with the aim of laying the foundation for establishing the relevance of their work to critical understanding of today’s processes of capitalist globalisation. The first two chapters follow the development of the analysis of the world market and globalisation from mercantilism to classical political economy and Hegel. The third chapter identifies the elements of discontinuity and continuity in Marx’s critique during the 1840s, while the fourth presents the content of Marx’s London Notebooks, showing that these represent a qualitative advance in his analysis of globalisation, in which he overcomes his previous vision of the passivity of non-European peoples. The fifth chapter presents the elaboration of these studies in the manuscripts and works in the second half of the 1850s and in the 1861-63 manuscripts, focussing in particular on his advance beyond the concept of capital in general and the six-book plan which corresponded to it. As a result, Capital Volume 1 integrated themes Marx originally intended for the projected volumes on state, foreign market and world market. The deepening of his understanding of the laws of capitalist uneven and combined development allowed him to articulate a vision of world revolution which overcame some of the “Eurocentric” elements still present in the 1840s