A very interesting post. I assume "extreme LACK of unregulation" should have been "extreme LACK of regulation". No?
Cheers, Ken Hanly ----- Original Message ----- From: Ben Day <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2002 11:18 PM Subject: [PEN-L:28702] Re: Kerala (was Re: Vandana Shiva) > At 04:38 PM 7/26/2002 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: > >I completely agree with that. But to do all these things, you need more > >industry, and more industry means transforming the division of labor and > >socializing production now done in the household. You can do the good > >things that Kerala did, but Kerala is still poor. The only way to make > >India less poor is to industrialize somehow. I don't think Shiva, or her > >fans in the West, agree. > > > >Doug > > Well, Kerala was also the only Indian state, to a great extent, to > successfully implement land reform. This seems to me a basic prerequisite > of industrialization of any sort, but almost impossible elsewhere in India > since the Congress Party - like the parties that drove independence and > dominate the political landscape in so many developing countries - is > inextricably bound up with landed elites. Kerala was able to carry out land > reform due to the strength of its two Communist Parties (but particularly > the Communist Party--Marxist, which split from the CP during independence > when Stalin backed Nehru, and the rest of the CP followed the Moscow line > by taking an accomodationist tack with the Congress Party), and the fact > that labor unions (most affiliated witht he CPM) had great success > organizing agricultural labor, particularly in the informal sector (this is > a rare form of success, in any country). So, although we usually single out > Kerala's welfare policies, and the debate over the "Kerala model" in > developmental economics hinges on whether a welfare state is a viable (or > more importantly, a sustainable) road to development - I think we tend to > miss Kerala's real accomplishments, which involve the successful > commodification of land and labor. Most developing countries have, or are > gaining, at least /nominally/ capitalist relations - capitalists and wage > labor. But wage labor here is embedded in despotic social relations, and > extensive power inequalities, that function to tie labor to the land. > > Or, in Marxist terms, without effective land reform most agricultural > production attempts to improve productivity by increasing absolute surplus: > producers in the informal sector, facing a supine working class, and > essentially beyond any meaningful regulation by the state, will tend to > improve productivity through labor-squeezing tactics (driving down wages, > extending the working day/week/year, etc.). With less unequal power > structures governing the wage relation, with greater labor mobility, and a > state presence in the labor market (e.g. the ability to enforce national > minimum wages), producers are more likely compete by introducing new > technologies, or other means of increasing "relative surplus." Of course, > neoliberals tend to target State intervention in developing countries' > markets, but the bulk of most developing countries' economies are informal, > and growing even more informal. The informal sector is characterized in > most places by extreme LACK of unregulation - usually without even the > enforcement of existing laws governing market interactions, and accepted by > most neoliberal theory as fundamental for the preservation of markets. > Neoliberal developmental economists have a tendancy, I think, to myopically > focus on the formal sector in justifying policy prescriptions. > > The east asian tigers - who have had the greatest success in industralizing > - were able to carry out land reform successfully due, in large part, to > their top-heavy State apparatuses (the legacy of colonialism) and weak > social classes - there was no landed elite strong enough to resist land > reform imposed from above. But this solution is simply not viable for most > developing countries, either because of the third wave of democratization, > or due to a state implicated in the interests of landed elites. And even if > it were, this model's reliance on fairly autonomous State control and weak > social classes has its own problems of long-term sustainability. So I think > Kerala presents a viable model of development "from below" in this respect. > > This doesn't exactly explain why Kerala is still poor though (and, in > particular, with lower per capita income than the average in India). It's > clear, though, that international markets have punished Kerala for its > labor militancy, as has the national State in India. There is also the > issue of time, suggested by Ulhas, and I think there's a good case to be > made that Kerala is in a better position to grow than most developing > states (or States) in a similar position. > > In any case, if any of you haven't heard of or had the chance to read > Patrick Heller's _The Labor of Development: Workers and the Transformation > of Capitalism in Kerala, India_ (Cornell UP, 1999), I'd highly highly > recommend it, and my comments above are basically a regurgitation of some > of the theoretical backbones of his historical narrative and analysis. > > -----Ben >
