Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Developmental State under Global Neoliberalism

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01436590802201121

1360-2241

Hugo Radice,

Economic Theory and Policy

Abstract The developmental state remains one of the chief points of reference, both analytical and political, for those who reject the current neoliberal global order. In this paper the validity of this approach is examined theoretically and historically. After a preliminary description of the developmental state, the paper investigates in turn the four terms contained in the title—neoliberalism, globality, the state and development—from a historical materialist standpoint. It is then argued that any approach that aims to provide an effective roadmap for a progressive alternative to neoliberalism needs to centre its analysis on the Marxian concept of class. Notes Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Universities of York, Nottingham, Warwick and Limerick: I thank colleagues for their comments. I am particularly grateful to Anthony Barzey, Mark Beeson, Ilan Bizberg, Werner Bonefeld, Ha-Joon Chang, Ben Fine, Adrian Leftwich and Adam Morton for their help and encouragement. The paper is part of a larger project on the political economy of global capitalism, which is rooted in Marx's critique of political economy. 1 For example, D Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; and A Saad-Filho & D Johnson, Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader, London: Pluto Press, 2005. 2 A Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962. 3 A Amsden, Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989; and R Wade, Governing the Market, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. The literature on the ds frequently cites Chalmers Johnson as their immediate precursor. Johnson, miti and the Japanese Miracle, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982. For a brief and clear introduction to the ds, see A Leftwich, States of Development: On the Primacy of Politics in Development, London: Polity Press, 2000, ch 7. A good range of views can be found in FC Deyo (ed), The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987; and M Woo-Cumings (ed), The Developmental State, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. 4 See A Amsden, J Kochanowicz & L Taylor, The Market Meets its Match, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. 5 L Weiss, The Myth of the Powerless State: Governing the Economy in a Global Era, London: Polity Press, 1998. 6 Schneider points out that the term (or near equivalents such as desarrollismo) was widely used in Latin American debates in the 1970s. BR Schneider, 'The desarrollista state in Brazil and Mexico', in Woo-Cumings, the Developmental State, pp 276–304. However, for most observers the debt crisis of the 1980s indicated the failure of the Latin American ds actually to achieve development in the sense implied. For more specific comparisons between East Asia and Latin America, see also G Gereffi & DL Wyman (eds), Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East Asia, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990; and R Jenkins, 'The political economy of industrialization: a comparison of Latin American and East Asian nics', Development and Change, 22, 1991, pp 197–232. 7 On South Korea, see J Cherry, '"Big deal" or big disappointment? The continuing evolution of the South Korean developmental state', Pacific Review, 18 (3), 2005, pp 327–354; J Minns, 'Of miracles and models: the rise and decline of the developmental state in South Korea', Third World Quarterly, 22 (6), 2001, pp 1038–1039; D Hundt, 'A legitimate paradox: neoliberal reform and the return of the state in Korea', Journal of Development Studies, 41 (2), 2005, pp 242–260; H-J Chang & PB Evans, 'The role of institutions in economic change', in G.Dymski & S de Paula (eds), Re-imagining Growth, London: Zed Press, 2005; and I Pirie, 'The new Korean state', New Political Economy, 10 (1), 2005, pp 25–42. On Taiwan see YP Wu, 'Rethinking the Taiwanese developmental state', China Quarterly, 177, 2004, pp 91–114; and CM Dent, 'Taiwan's foreign economic policy: the "liberalization plus" approach of an evolving developmental state', Modern Asian Studies, 37 (2), 2003, pp 461–483. On the PRC, see J Howell, 'Reflections on the Chinese state', Development and Change, 37 (2), 2006, pp 273–297. 8 On Latin America, see R Higgott & N Phillips, 'Challenging triumphalism and convergence: the limits of global neoliberalization in Asia and Latin America', Review of International Studies, 26 (3), 2000, pp 359–379; M Kurtz, 'State developmentalism without a developmental state: the public foundations of the "free market miracle" in Chile', Latin American Politics and Society, 43 (2), 2007, pp 1–25; and A Schrank, 'Asian industrialization in Latin American perspective: the limits to institutional analysis', Latin American Politics and Society, 49 (2), 2007, pp 183–200. Elsewhere, see D O'Hearn, 'Globalization, "new tigers" and the end of the developmental state? The case of the Celtic tiger', Politics and Society, 28 (1), 2000, pp 67–92; and SO Riaín, 'The flexible developmental state: globalization, information technology and the "Celtic Tiger"', Politics and Society, 28 (2), 2000, pp 157–193, on Ireland; and B Fine, 'State, development and inequality: the curious incident of the developmental state in the night-time', paper presented at the Sanpad Conference, Durban, 26–30 June 2007, on South Africa. 9 K Polányi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times, New York: Rinehart, 1944. 10 To get a sense of how enfeebled liberalism was at that time as a result of economic depression, fascism and war, see the diagnoses of JM Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London: Macmillan, 1936; JA Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper, 1942; WH Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society, London: Allen & Unwin, 1944; and Polányi, The Great Transformation. 11 See, for example, TJ Byres, 'Neoliberalism and primitive accumulation in less developed countries', in Saad-Filho & Johnston, Neoliberalism, ch 8; and, from a very different standpoint, H de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, New York: Basic Books, 2003. 12 The significance of this break is set out very fully by Postone, who argues that traditionally Marxists have failed to build on Marx's insight. M Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, esp ch 2. 13 See P Mattick, Marx and Keynes: The Limits of the Mixed Economy, Boston, MA: Porter Sargent, 1969; and S Clarke, Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1988. 14 In K Marx, Capital, Vol 1, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1954. 15 The economist AW Phillips identified an apparent trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the long-term historical record of the UK. Phillips, 'The relation between unemployment and the rate of change of money wage rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957', Economica, new series, 25 (100), 1958, pp 283–299. In monetarist hands this was transformed into the modern theory that unemployment is caused by labour-market rigidities. For a critical account, see D Baker, 'The nairu: is it a real constraint?', in D Baker, G Epstein & R Pollin (eds), Globalization and Progressive Economic Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp 369–387. 16 M Rupert, Producing Hegemony: The Politics of Mass Production and American Global Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p 24. 17 It is no coincidence that this is also the period of the 'age of the nation-state', as the next section makes clear. 18 On modernisation, see WW Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960; and S Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968. On civic culture, see GA Almond & S Verba, The Civic Culture, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963. On pluralism, see RA Dahl, Who Governs?, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961. On the end of ideology, see D Bell, The End of Ideology, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960. 19 On corporatism, see PC Schmitter & G Lehmbruck (eds), Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, London: Sage, 1979; and JH Goldthorpe (ed), Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. On dependency, see AG Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967; FH Cardoso & E Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979; and PB Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. 20 JM Buchanan & RD Tollison, The Theory of Public Choice: Political Applications of Economics, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1972. 21 See PB Evans, D Rueschemeyer & T Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; and JG March & JP Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1989. 22 See, for example, World Bank, Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000; and F Fukuyama, State Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. 23 See B Gills, J Rocamora & R Wilson (eds), Low Intensity Democracy: Political Power in the New World Order, London: Pluto Press, 1993; and P Cammack, 'Globalization and the death of liberal democracy', European Review, 6 (2), 1998, pp 249–263. 24 A Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, New York: Harper & Row, 1957. 25 Representative overviews of the vast literature on globalisation include D Held & A McGrew, Globalization/Anti-Globalization, London: Polity Press, 2002; MB Steger, Globalisation: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; JA Scholte, Globalisation: A Critical Introduction, London: Palgrave, 2005; and N Bisley, Rethinking Globalization, London: Palgrave, 2007. See also the readings collected in D Held & A McGrew (eds), The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate, London: Polity Press, 2003. For a survey of theoretical perspectives in the field of global political economy more widely, see R Palan (ed), Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories, London: Routledge, 2000. 26 The forms of advanced industrial capitalism are discussed further in the following section. For an examination of the methodology of the comparative political economy literature, see H Radice, 'Comparing national capitalisms', in J Perraton & B Clift (eds), Where are National Capitalisms Now?, London: Palgrave, 2004, pp 183–194. 27 See notably the essays in M Rupert & H Smith, (eds), Historical Materialism and Globalization, London: Routledge, 2002. 28 See especially G Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times, London: Verso, 1994. 29 For example, WI Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class and State in a Transnational World, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 30 See J Niederveen Pieterse, 'Oriental globalization', Theory, Culture & Society, 23 (2–3), 2006, pp 411–413. 31 N Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy, London: Merlin Press, 1972 (originally published in 1918). 32 R Hilferding, Finance Capital, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981 (originally published in 1910). 33 S Bromley, 'Marxism and globalisation', in A Gamble, D Marsh & A Tant (eds), Marxism and Social Science, London: Macmillan, 1999, pp 285–286. See also C von Braunmuhl, 'On the analysis of the bourgeois state within the world market context', in J Holloway & S Picciotto (eds), State and Capital: A Marxist Debate, London: Edward Arnold, 1978, pp 160–77; H Lacher, The International Relations of Modernity: Capitalism, Territoriality and Globalization, London: Routledge, 2003; and B Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern International Relations, London: Verso, 2003. 34 J Rosenberg, The Follies of Globalisation Theory, London: Verso, 2000, ch 1. 35 R Murray, 'The internationalization of capital and the nation state', New Left Review, 67, 1971, pp 84–109. 36 See H Radice, 'Keynes and the policy of practical protectionism', in JV Hillard (ed), JM Keynes in Retrospect, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1988, pp 153–171. 37 For a critique of this approach within the 1990s globalisation debates, see H Radice, 'Responses to globalisation: a critique of progressive nationalism', New Political Economy, 5 (1), 2000, pp 5–19. 38 This has been the main focus in recent years of the field of 'comparative political economy'. See, for example, JR Hollingsworth, P Schmitter & W Streeck (eds), Governing Capitalist Economies: Performance and Control of Economic Sectors, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994; S Berger & R Dore (eds), National Diversity and Global Capitalism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996; C Crouch & W Streeck (eds), Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Diversity, London: Sage, 1997; and PA Hall & D Soskice (eds), Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Although there are many variations in taxonomy and nomenclature, the bimodal approach presented here is the norm. 39 See, for example, R Miliband, 'Poulantzas and the capitalist state', New Left Review, 82, 1973, pp 83–92; Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1979; N Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, London: Verso, 1973; and Poulantzas, 'The capitalist state: a reply to Miliband and Laclau', New Left Review, 95, 1976, pp 63–83. 40 S Clarke, 'Marxism, sociology and Poulantzas' theory of the state', Capital and Class, 2, 1979, pp 1–31. 41 N Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism, London: New Left Books, 1978, p 18 (author's emphasis). 42 London–Edinburgh Weekend Return Group, In and Against the State, London: Pluto Press, 1980. 43 See Clarke, Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State. 44 Apple argues that even the supposed Keynesian commitment to full employment through fiscal activism was only actually honoured for a few years in the 1950s. N Apple, 'The rise and fall of full employment capitalism', Studies in Political Economy, 4, 1980, pp 5–39. As the global economic turmoil of January 2008 attests, however, the idea of fiscal activism is still wheeled out when monetary policy falters in the face of a threat of recession. 45 JM Keynes, 'National self-sufficiency', The Yale Review, XXII (4), 1933. 46 Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, ch 24. 47 Incomes policies entail the setting by the state of permissible rates of increase in wages or earnings. They were the pre-eminent tool for controlling inflation, especially in the Anglo-Saxon economies, in the 1960s and 1970s. See, for example, F Hirsch & JH Goldthorpe, The Political Economy of Inflation, London: Martin Robertson, 1978. 48 See, for example, M Hampton, 'Hegemony, class struggle and the radical historiography of global monetary standards', Capital and Class, 89, 2006, pp 131–164. 49 See Clarke, Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State, pp 311–316. 50 See S Wilks, 'Class compromise and the international economy: the rise and fall of Swedish social democracy', Capital and Class, 58, 1996, pp 89–111; and G Ramia, 'The downturn of the Swedish model: inevitable?', Journal of Australian Political Economy, 38, 1996, pp 63–97. 51 On US 'Japanolatry', see P Burkett & M Hart-Landsberg, 'The use and abuse of Japan as a progressive model', Socialist Register 1996: Are There Alternatives?, London: Merlin Press, 1996, pp 62–92. On UK admiration for Germany, see W Hutton, The State We're In, London: Cape, 1995. 52 See the references in note 38 above. 53 Both lines of defence are developed in detail across a wide range of policy areas in the essays in L Weiss (ed), States in the Global Economy: Bringing Domestic Institutions Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 54 Leys argues that the pragmatic orientation of early development 'theory' can be attributed to three factors: the scale and urgency of the problems revealed by decolonisation, the political constraints placed on social science by the Cold War, and the scope and effectiveness of state action apparently permitted by the Bretton Woods institutions. C Leys, The Rise and Fall of Development Theory, Oxford: James Currey, 1996, ch 1. 55 See notably PT Bauer, Dissent on Development, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1971. Fascinating insights into the early period of development theory and practice can be found in the essays by 10 'pioneers' of development economics in GM Meier & D Seers (eds), Pioneers in Development, Washington, DC: World Bank, 1984. 56 See references in note 19. 57 I Wallerstein, 'The state and social transformation', Politics and Society, 1, 1971, pp 359–364. The quotation is from a reprint in H Bernstein (ed), Underdevelopment and Development: The Third World Today, London: Penguin Education, pp 277–278. 58 Ibid, p 280. 59 As in Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies. 60 See, for example, J Malloy (ed), Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press, 1977. 61 R Saull, 'Locating the global South in the theorisation of the Cold War: capitalist development, social revolution and geopolitical conflict', Third World Quarterly, 26 (2), 2005, pp 253–280. 62 R Desai, 'From national bourgeoisie to rogues, failures and bullies: 21st century imperialism and the unravelling of the Third World', Third World Quarterly, 25 (1), 2004, pp 169–185. However, Lenin only offered communist support to the 'more revolutionary elements' in the bourgeois-democratic movements for national liberation, and in 1920 explicitly reasserted this view in proposing to support only 'national-revolutionary' movements. It was the Comintern that elided this distinction during Stalin's rule. See J Smith, 'Lenin and the national bourgeoisie', private communication available from the author. 63 For a wide-ranging review of the consequences of the end of the Cold War for the Third World, see the essays in L Fawcett & Y Sayigh (eds), The Third World Beyond the Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 64 See references in note 3. 65 World Bank, Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance. 66 Chang & Evans, 'The role of institutions in economic change'. 67 See H-J Kwon, 'Transforming the developmental welfare state in East Asia', Development and Change, 26 (3), 2005, pp 477–497. 68 L Cliffe & R Luckham, 'Complex political emergencies and the state: failure and the fate of the state', Third World Quarterly, 20 (1), 1999, pp 27–50; and J Milliken & K Krause, 'State failure, state collapse and state reconstruction: concepts, lessons and strategies', Development and Change, 33 (5), 2002, pp 753–774. 69 See R Wade, 'What strategies are viable for developing countries today? The World Trade Organization and the shrinking of "development space"', Review of International Political Economy, 10 (4), 2003, pp 621–644; JE Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, New York: Norton, 2002; and Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work: The Next Steps to Global Justice, New York: Norton, 2006. 70 Evans et al, Bringing the State Back In. 71 P Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957. 72 See, for example, O Sunkel, 'Transnational capitalism and national disintegration in Latin America', Social and Economic Studies, 22 (1), 1973, pp 132–176. 73 It is at least arguable, in the light of events from 1989 onwards, that the same ultimately was true of the so-called communist alternative. See H Radice, 'Gramsci, Marx and the emancipation of labour', paper presented at the Nottingham workshop on Global Restructuring, State, Capital and Labour, October 2007. 74 K van der Pijl, Transnational Classes and International Relations, London: Routledge, 1998; L Sklair, The Transnational Capitalist Class, Oxford: Blackwell, 2001; and Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism. 75 Desai, 'From national bourgeoisie to rogues, failures and bullies'. 76 For the case of South Korea, see K Gray, 'Challenges to the theory and practice of polyarchy: the rise of the political left in Korea', Globalizations, forthcoming.