Capital Development Research Articles

Marketing a culture of achievement to Black and Brown students: TNTP and neoliberal multiculturalism

ABSTRACT Neoliberal multiculturalism is a global racialization process that works as a unifying discourse for the rationalization of neoliberal policies within U.S. global ascendancy and capitalist development. Invoking state multiculturalism, e.g. ‘diversity’ or ‘equity’, neoliberal multiculturalism is officially antiracist. Official antiracism portrays multiculturalism as being at its core while limiting discussions of race and racism to sanctioned racial discourses. Using neoliberal multiculturalism as a framework, this paper presents a critical analysis of the racial ideology presented in TNTP’s founding teacher training curriculum designed specifically for its Teaching Fellows. The analysis demonstrates how official antiracism can function in curriculum designed to train fast-tracked selective alternative route program teachers to teach predominantly Black, Latino, and immigrant students in lower-income neighborhood public schools.

The New City Megaproject's Issues: Network Discourse Analysis of the Development of the Pros and Cons of the Archipelago's Determination and Capital Development (IKN)

President Jokowi signed Law Number 3/2022 on February 15, 2022, which declared Nusantara as the name of the new capital city, which is known in Indonesia by its abbreviation, IKN (Ibu Kota Nusantara). Since the passage of the law, both supporters and opponents of the decision have raised their voices in public places. IKN will replace Jakarta, which has existed as the capital of Indonesia since 1945. In the midst of concerns and issues regarding democratic regression, oligarchic dominance, the displacement of indigenous peoples, the COVID-19 pandemic, and forecasts of a global recession, these pro and con voices are becoming more and more abrasive. The paper attempts to discuss the debate between proponents and opponents of IKN's determination and development. Discourse can be interpreted in this context as a set of concepts or ideas that are communicated by actors in order to influence public policy. The research mixes discourse analysis (qualitative content) with social networking techniques by applying the discourse network method (DNA) analysis. The idea of discourse coalition adds depth to the DNA approach by mapping every discourse that emerges about an issue (what), as well as the players who express the discourse (who) related to the issues and actors who are pro and contra to the IKN.

Anti-colonial raced capitalism in Malaysia: Contested logics, gendered repertoires

Abstract This paper offers a non-Eurocentric account of raced capitalism in Malaysia, articulated as a developmental state project that has navigated the contested racial logics of British colonialism and Japanese imperialism. By historicising Malaysia’s experience, I provide a reading of the Malaysian developmental state as a project that has taken the form of anti-colonial raced capitalism. This is not meant to valorise raced capitalism as anti-colonial, but to suggest that decolonisation must also confront hegemonic elements engraved on the anti-colonial register of nationalised raced capitalism. In bringing a feminist critique to anti-colonial projects that leave capitalist relations uncontested, the paper makes three contributions. First, it recentres race and colonialism in its analysis of the developmental state, offering anti-colonial raced capitalism as a language that speaks to similar projects that enable, legitimise, and obscure new forms of racial/gender domination with counter-hegemonic frames. Second, it brings back politics to anti-colonialism, reestablishing it as a political space with competing visions, imaginations, and agendas, shaped by the geopolitics of empires. Third, it features gender, social reproduction, and the household as key sites to ground the politics of anti-colonialism, enacting the scaffolding for gendered understandings of raced capitalist development on the periphery of the global economy.

Hubungan Kapitalis di Tempat Produksi yang Tersembunyi: Studi Kasus Petani Kakao Sertifikasi di Desa Piriang Tapiko

Abstract: This paper aims to depict the formation of capitalist relations in the hidden abode of production within the cocoa sector in the Village of Piriang Tapiko. The research is based on data collected from field research using an explanatory qualitative method. Employing a Marxist political economy approach, this study reveals that: (1) The presence of cocoa plants has ensnared local farmers in the village of Piriang Tapiko in commodification of subsistence. However, this entanglement does not necessarily subject them to class differentiation, as believed by some Marxist scholars. (2) Despite undergoing commodification of subsistence and full integration into market relations, cocoa farmers in the village of Piriang Tapiko can still access the market freely and control their work processes and its outcomes independently. The fertile forest land shapes their self-reliance in confronting market forces. (3) The plummeting cocoa productivity due to plant diseases has separated them from control over the means of production and their output, ensnaring them in a concealed capitalist relation as unpaid labor through outsourcing mechanisms hierarchically controlled by Nestle in the certified cocoa commodity chain. Ultimately, the formation of capitalist relations in the village of Piriang Tapiko adds a unique dimension to the trajectory of capitalism's development in diverse contexts.

Winning the transition: Strategic state action in France and Germany amid the low carbon transition and energy shock

European economies are in flux, destabilized by the low carbon transition (LCT) and post-Ukraine energy shock. How are states responding to this instability? This article contributes to emerging environmentally focused Comparative Capitalisms (CC) scholarship by developing a novel framework for analysing how state action is shaped by the demand-competitiveness-energy nexus. We comparatively examine the cases of France and Germany since 2022, drawing upon 19 elite interviews and documentary analysis of stakeholder accounts, to advance three arguments. First, it is essential for CC frameworks to integrate energy supply dynamics to understand state action and processes of capitalist development. Second, the asymmetric impact of the LCT on France and Germany has shaped distinct state-led capitalist restructuring designed to protect and extend national competitive advantages. For Germany, this has primarily involved ‘greening’ its existing export-led model of growth, whereas French state actors are attempting to advance its interests via the ‘strategic autonomy’ (SA) agenda at the domestic and regional levels. Finally, the energy shock has initiated more interventionist state action in Germany that exposes critical instabilities in its export-led growth model. This analysis has significant implications for CC scholarship and its understanding of capitalist development by illustrating the significance of energy supply dynamics and advancing understanding of how disequilibrium can be theorized within the literature.

Introduction to the Review Dossier on The Digital Factory: Continuing a Long-Standing Debate

Abstract Theories about the impact of digital technology on society and the development of capitalism and debates about the influence of digital information technologies on the future of work have been abundant since the end of the twentieth century. Most of the academic debate has taken place outside labour history, leaving the actual effects of digital technologies on human work and labour relations often overlooked. Moritz Altenried's The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation focuses precisely on these effects, and as such provides a good opportunity to engage with these debates from a labour history perspective. This Review Dossier includes four comments on Altenried's book, by Bridget Kenny, Nico Pizzolato, Görkem Akgöz, and Greg Downey, to which the author responds. The contributors focus on different aspects of The Digital Factory depending on their own perspective on recent developments in the digital economy in the larger context of global capitalism.

Philosophical Interpretation of “God Is Dead”: Retreat, Disruption, and Judgment

Nietzsche’s declaration of “God is dead” signifies not only the collapse of classical metaphysical systems in philosophy but also shifts in the psychological structure of individuals and society after the secularization of Christianity. A philosophical reading is crucial to understanding its whole process and real-world ramifications. We first delineate the fundamental meanings and historical context of the term “God” or “Absolute” and expound upon the mechanisms of spiritual functioning under it, highlighting the significance of God, or the Absolute, as the highest object of spiritual operation. Next, we analyze the death of God, i.e., the retreat of the Absolute, in the realms of reason and faith, exploring its causes and repercussions, particularly the disruption of the operation of the spirit. Then, building upon this analysis, we conclude that the metaphysical life supported by Kant and Hegel faces failure in the present age, because the Absolute has ceased to be the foundation. The roots of spiritual operation are no longer secure; the return to the Absolute points to emptiness, and exit without return creates disruptive division between subject and substance, essence and phenomenon, reason and reality. Meanwhile, the departure of God and the development of capitalism are intertwined, calling for a resurgence in the form of secularization, heralding a renewed human judgment of God.

The agrarian question of climate change

The agrarian question of the twenty-first century is the agrarian question of climate change. The classical agrarian question asked how capitalist development was reshaping fin de siècle agriculture and with what consequences. The answers often contradicted predictions, and thereby teleological notions of development. Today, we must ask how climate change adaptation and mitigation, alongside and through other ongoing processes of capitalist development, are reshaping agrarian lives, livelihoods, landscapes, and politics, and with what consequences. We argue that attention to the agrarian question is essential to understanding social, political, and economic transformation broadly in the time of climate change.

James O 'Connor's Ecological Thought and its Practical Enlightenment

James O 'Connor's ecological thought was born in the middle and late 20th century. By using the unique theory of double contradiction and double crisis of capitalism, James O 'Connor revealed the global ecological crisis caused by the development of capitalism, outlined a new model of ecological socialism, and tried to find a feasible path to solve the global ecological crisis. To mitigate the adverse effects of the ecological crisis on the capitalist world. James O 'Connor's ecological thought has been widely discussed by the academic community since it was put forward. Subsequently, many scholars in the field of ecology have analyzed and studied James O 'Connor's thought. Through the organic combination with the current actual situation and practical experience, they began to apply James O 'Connor's ecological thought to the management of ecological problems. The construction of ecological civilization in our country is also developing continuously, and O 'Connor's ecological thought has a very positive enlightening and instructive significance to the construction of ecological civilization in our country.

Circuits of capital, the socio-ecological fix and power relations in a rural area. The genealogy of socio-ecological transformations of the upper Saône valley (France)

Although the circuits of capital model emphasizes the part played by the overaccumulation of capital at the core of capitalistic development, scientific research has seldom used this framework for analysing rural dynamics. After proposing a theoretical approach involving circuits of capital, rural areas and the socio-ecological fix, we draw on different historical sources, semi-directive interviews and press articles to understand how circuits of capital largely altered the socio-ecosystem of France’s upper Saône valley until the mid-nineteenth century before being directed instead towards other more urban areas. The marginalizing of this rural space by the third circuit of capital tended to reduce the socio-ecological transformations expected of capitalistic development in the twentieth century. Political actors at all levels then played a decisive role in the circulation of capital and the shaping of the river and its floodplain. Inclusion in the fourth circuit of capital is an objective for some political actors today who are developing strategies for branding and marketing the local area. If it develops successfully, this fourth circuit of capital will make a sizeable impact on the urbanization of this rural area, setting it on a new trajectory in terms of transformations of the river. It seems that each generation of circuit of capital involves greater socio-ecological impacts than the previous one, forming a palimpsest of capitalistic development.

Accumulation by contamination: Worldwide cost-shifting strategies of capital in waste management

With this article, we propose an analytical and conceptual tool to illuminate connections between capital development and environmental injustices. The research examines how capital-driven industrial policies foster changes in social metabolisms and cause new socio-environmental impacts, leading to ecological distribution conflicts. It also explores why diverse actors mobilise and resist these changes. Building on Kapp’s ecological economics theory of social costs and David Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession, we highlight the role of capital accumulation in environmental injustices through cost-shifting strategies, terming it “Accumulation by Contamination” (AbC). In this context, AbC refers to the process wherein capital socialises the costs of contamination, degrading the means of existence and bodies of human beings who oppose these processes of capital valorisation and engage in environmental conflicts. We make a compelling case for AbC by exploring waste-related conflicts at various industrial developmental stages. Waste, viewed as a ’common bad,’ emerges as a strategic realm for capitalists seeking to expand the scale and scope of accumulation. The intricacies of waste management, its market potential, and guaranteed profitability through subsidies and processes of financialisation attract significant investments globally. Quantitative and qualitative waste management assessments demonstrate that waste policies often favour businesses, leading to cost-shifting of waste management to society (in Naples, Italy; and Delhi, in India) and the dispossession of waste-pickers (in Delhi). More broadly, we emphasise the importance of integrating ecological economics and Marxist critical geography to address environmental challenges. We also analytically study the diverse actors responding to various capital strategies, fostering transformative political actions for a sustainable future. Climate change is arguably the most significant waste disposal conflict due to excessive carbon dioxide production, representing a quintessential example of Accumulation by Contamination (AbC).

Contemporary Turkish and Western historiography on post-secularisation processes in Turkey

The assessment of secularisation and post-secularisation processes that took place in Turkey in the 20th century are associated by scholars with internal and global socio-political processes such as collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the course towards Westernisation, the development of capitalism, the confrontation between the West and the USSR, etc. This issue was preferred as the subject of the study as it is topical due to the revival of religious values, despite the secularisation processes that engulfed many countries worldwide. This article examines the representation of post-secularisation processes in Turkey through assessing the works of Western and Turkish scholars. The analysis of these works provides an understanding of the consequences of historical events in the form of the phenomenon of “religious revival”.

A new multipolar order: combined development, state forms and new business classes

Abstract What are the key social forces and interests that underpin an emerging multipolar world? Existing research oscillates between the retreat of the liberal international order and the rise of the rest, which remains trapped in a form of geopolitical fetishism. These explanations tell us little about the kinds of forces that are driving a more fragmented and disordered global order. In this article, we suggest going beyond this by fleshing out the underlying social class relations that this new emerging order is based on. At the core of it is the emergence of a new business class—fraction of capital—that in turn sustains what we call competing regulatory geographies. The latter are internalized within state institutions and policies and have reconsolidated a combination of state and market-led industrial policy. Empirically, we also show how these dynamics unfold in key non-core states. In highlighting this particularly potent dynamic of the contemporary global order, this article calls for policy-makers to better recognize the internal contestation within states that shapes and is shaped by combined capitalist development.

Fragmented Life: "Death of the Subject" in Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five is a quintessential American postmodernist novel. Based on Fredric Jamesons postmodern cultural theories, the text will analyze the characteristic of death of the subject. With the development of capitalism, the religion gradually lost its absolute voice in society and was replaced by extreme individualism. However, after the devastation of the two world wars, people finally realized the dangers of individualism, and the status of the subject went into extinction. In the late capitalist society, Billy Pilgrim, the main character, was hard to gain a sense of belonging from the heroism and wealth, and gradually lost the subjectivity captured from the religion. Facing the crisis of death of the subject, Billy had tried to save himself by pastiche, but he failed in the end. By telling Billys personal experience, the novel not only amply demonstrates the spiritual dilemmas prevalent in post-war society but also expresses profound humanistic concern.

Defining geoeconomics amid shifts in global hegemony: Critical geographies of new international conjunctures

Recent shifts in global hegemony make the need for critical geographical accounts of geoeconomics and geopolitics that much more critical. They underline that we need to come to terms with their dialectical relationships and tensions, doing so in relation to both underlying struggles over international hegemony and uneven capitalist development as well as in relation to all sorts of complex overlying socio-cultural formations. Critical geographers can combine their diverse approaches more effectively to do this analytical work by adapting recent forms of conjunctural analysis in urban, economic and regional geography.

Global Governance and Sustainable Development: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

This manuscript explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global governance, highlighting the significant weaknesses in both democratic and authoritarian regimes. The crisis exacerbated social inequalities and exposed the limitations of the current capitalist development model. Democratic countries faced challenges in balancing public health measures with individual freedoms, while authoritarian regimes used the crisis to consolidate power. The pandemic also intensified discrimination against minority groups and widened wealth disparities. This commentary advocates for a shift towards a sustainable development model that prioritizes social equity and environmental sustainability, addressing the ecological impact of current consumption patterns and the necessity for systemic change.

<i>Terra em Transe</i>. A Marxist Poetics and Aesthetics as a Critique of Capitalist Development

This article examines the film Terra em Transe (Glauber Rocha, 1967), framed in the Brazilian “Cinema Novo” movement. The analysis revolves around the constitution of a cinematographic poetics linked to a Marxist aesthetic. The principle of movie montage is the essential component of his cinematographic poetics. The Marxist aesthetic falls on what Alberto Híjar Serrano called rough communism, and some techniques of the Brechtian theory of distancing can also be appreciated. These elements constitute the cinematographic formula that is configured in a kind of critique of capitalist development, that industrializing meta-narrative that became hegemonic from the second half of the twentieth century.

“The Sea Has Waves, The Fula Has Cows”: Moving Waters, Labour and Capital in Anthropocene Senegal

In times of climate crisis, water has become a crucial resource of environmental justice and geopolitics, but its scarcity is socially constructed. It depends on socio-economic structures, cultural politics, and the sciences that are mobilized to manage its fluid processes. This essay argues for the necessity of a hydrosociological approach that integrates the current Anthropocene debates on the technological transformation of planet Earth with more reflection on waterscapes, especially in the Global South. Drawing on a recent publication by Maura Benegiamo, Capitalist developments in the Senegal Delta are here considered as exemplary of global investment strategies that produce brutal forms of extractivism, while displacing money, water, land, and people. Waterscapes reengineering of the Senegal flows, for the monocrop production of agrofuel, is alienating the Fula people of the Sahel the grazing land for their cattle. Such case calls for a political reassessment of the hydrosocial question of the Anthropocene along complementary lines of inquiry: socio-economic, cultural-political, ideological, and epistemological.

Towards a digital zemiology

Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019) represents an unprecedented shift in modes and asymmetries of power. Operating within and through the digital sphere, this new era of capitalism has drastic implications for our understandings of modern surveillance, corporate power, and social control. The digital, in its diffuse simultaneously online and offline form, represents the spatialisation of control within which the user and the data they produce are commodified and their identities consolidated and dissected into knowable, marketable demographics which, once reassembled, no longer represent the human being once behind them (Hammond, 2016; Brusseau, 2020). The digital represents a new frontier of harm production, as user-generated data is exploited to serve corporate interests and the normalisation of digital surveillance has given way to user apathy and technological reliance, undermining user autonomy and opportunities for resistance, while commodifying not only our identities but the entirety of the human experience. Within this context an opportunity emerges to develop a zemiology informed by the digital context that can confront the deepening harms of technologisation and consider the future of resistance. By interrogating the intersection between developments in digital technology and harm production, this article aims to acknowledge the proliferation of normalised corporate surveillance through a development in capitalism (Zuboff, 2015; 2019), and to outline opportunities for theoretical development presented by the digital context, drawing upon works within zemiology (Pemberton, 2016), surveillance studies (Murakami Wood, 2007; Murakami Wood and Ball, 2013), postphenomenology (Ihde, 1990; Verbeek, 2011; Wood, 2021; 2022), and disconnection studies (Kuntsman and Miyake, 2022), to present an invitation to both a unique theoretical orientation and an emerging field of study: digital zemiology.

China’s ‘state capitalism’ in comparative and historical perspectives

The persistent and increasing domination of the state in China’s contemporary capitalist development leads many to apply the vague concept of state capitalism to China’s economic model. Comparing China with the earlier Asian developmental states, I discuss the distinctiveness of China’s state capitalism, underlined by the state’s paternalistic disposition toward capital and the weakness in private property protection. I argue that the subordination of capital to the political imperative of the Communist party-state, as well as the party-state elite’s explicit reference to the state’s paternalistic discipline of capital in the Qing dynasty, illustrates a connection between today’s statist economic model and Qing dynasty’s familial statism, under which the Manchu state conceptualized and governed the empire as an imagined hierarchal-communalist patrilineage. Comparing and connecting state-capital relations in China's past and present will help us better understand the nature of economic governance in China today.