Worm Development, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 623 639, 1990. Printed in Great Britain.

0305-750X/90 $3.00+ 0.00 1990 Pergamon Press plc

Post-Marxism and Development Studies" Beyond the Impasse

STUART CORBRIDGE*

University of Cambridge
Summary.- - David Booth argues that Marxist development studies cannot escape a metatheoretical commitment to demonstrating the necessity of economic and social patterns, as distinct from explaining them. This paper concurs in respect of neo-Marxism and classical Marxism, each of which suffers from economism, essentialismand epistemologicalfiat. The paper breaks with Booth in seeingthese sins as characteristic also of non-Marxist development studies. It further argues that an emerging post-Marxism is well placed to interpret a world economy itself becoming postmodern. The work of the Regulation School and the postimperialists is outlined as part of this new approach.

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N In an important paper published in WorldDevelopment, David Booth argues that "there is a basic problem with Marxian theory as an input to development sociology that transcends the particular forms in which it has been manifested" (Booth, 1985, p. 773). Booth contends (1) that Marxism has a "metatheoretical commitment to demonstrating that what happens in societies in the era of capitalism is not only explicable, but also in some stronger sense necessary" (p. 773); (2) that this commitment is disclosed in the process of mapping the concept of the capitalist mode of production onto concrete social formations; and (3) that Marxism is unable to recognize the richness of the development experience as it is wrought under shifting systems of culture and class formation. Very wisely, Booth is loathe to define Marxism except in terms of a commitment to a theory of workplace exploitation and to an emphasis upon class struggle. (A similar approach will be taken here.) Nevertheless, Booth insists that his remarks apply to Marxism tout court and not to neo-Marxism or classical Marxism alone. Booth concludes that there is no satisfactory middle position "between the polarized paradigms of the 1970s" (1985, p. 776). If development sociology need not give up an interest in Marxism, it "must be freed... from Marxism's ulterior interest in proving that within given limits the world has to be the way it is" (1985, p. 777; emphasis in the original). Booth's paper is a telling contribution to development studies and to the debate on the crisis of Marxism. It has also sparked an intriguing debate on the way out of the impasse in radical devel-

opment studies. Already in this journal Peter Vandergeest and Fred Buttel have published an incisive commentary on "Marx, Weber and Development Sociology" (Vandergeest and Buttel, 1988) and Leslie Sklair has essayed his thoughts on "Metatheory, Theory and Empirical Research in Development Sociology" (Sklair, 1988). (Related contributions can be found in Bardhan, 1986; Chakravarty, 1987; and Mouzelis, 1988a.) This paper presents a third gloss on the impasse in Marxist development studies (MDS). It aims, first, to place Booth's commentary on MDS in a wider context. Section 2 rehearses the main elements of Booth's thesis and endorses several of its arguments. The paper then proceeds to argue more firmly than does Booth that the crisis in MDS is one moment in a wider crisis of representation in social science. This is the substance of Section 3. The paper argues that the Object of development studies - - the world system - - has been transformed so radically since the late 1960s that it has begun to resist the conventional narratives of the discipline. The rise of the newly industrialized countries (NICs) and of the producer power of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the relative decline of US hegemony, the breakup of the Bretton Woods system, and new developments in the socialist bloc might each be seen as moments in the construction of a world system which some have called "postmodern. ''~ Without endorsing all that this thesis implies, we *I would like to thank John Agnew, David Becker, David Booth, Fred Buttel, Anthony Giddens, Nalani Hennayake, Richard Sklar and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this paper.

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT demonstrating the necessity of economic and social patterns, as distinct from explaining them or exploring how they may be changed" (Booth, 1985, p. 761). It is worth emphasizing how unusual this claim is. In the 1970s, sections of the Left were concerned to distinguish between the impure traditions of neo-Marxism and the more rigorous Marxism of the modes of production school. 4 The neo-Marxist tradition is said to present a quantitative interpretation of the dynamics of the modern world system. For such theorists, development and underdevelopment are constituted as two sides of the same capitalist coin. The world system is structured so that the underconsumptionist logic of metropolitan capitalism is made good by the systematic exploitation of the periphery. This exploitation occurs in a number of guises, each of which describes a system of unequal exchange and surplus transfer. The Third World is then underdeveloped "as a consequence of the polarisation and exploitative contradictions which the metropolis introduces and maintains in the satellites' domestic structure" (Frank, 1972, p. 9). Set against this is classical or structural Marxism. Classical Marxists denounce as eclectic the neo-Smithian Marxism of the Monthly Review School (Brenner, 1977). They argue that capitalism is everywhere a dynamic regime of accumulation, but that capital finds it profitable to reproduce a set of tributary precapitalist modes of production (PCMPs). In the process of articulation there is "a transfer of labour value to the capitalist sector through the maintenance of self-sustaining domestic agriculture ~' (Hoogvelt, 1982, p. 79). The apartheid system provides a case in point (Wolpe, 1980). Under this regime, black South Africans are "encouraged" to live in the homelands on condition that they secure the reproduction of a labor force which can be exploited in the mines and the towns of white South Africa. In South Africa an extreme duality of form is produced not as two sides of one Janus-faced capitalism, but as two planes of a network of articulation which binds together metropolitan capital and a peripheral PCMP. David Booth does not deny that there are important differences between neo-Marxism and its classical rival. At a theoretical level, the classical tradition is committed to a vigorous productionism which can be contrasted with the circulationist logic of the neo-Marxist paradigm. Politically, too, there are departures. Several critics have suggested that autarky and a form of Third Worldism are the logical end points of circulationist thinking. 5 By contrast: "Those writers who focus on imperialist .induced class structures within Third World countries [perceive] great scope for local struggles [and] for articulating

can say that social science is facing a profound crisis of confidence as sections of capital begin to disorganize and as new social movements emerge to challenge the ideology of developmentalism.2 The changing contours of global production and consumption are no more accessible to the accounts of modernization theory and neoclassical economics than theyare to MDS; indeed, a metatheoretical commitment to the logic of diffusion or to freely functioning markets is even less fitted to the task than is a faith in the development of underdevelopment. These points thread their way through to Section 4, which is the core of the paper. The purpose of this section is to argue that a constructive response to the impasse in development studies is now emerging in the guise of a prospective postMarxism. The paper looks in turn at three criticisms commonly put to MDS - - that it is deterministic, economistic and politically corrupting - and explores two new forms of discourse which seek to address these concerns without losing sight of the main strengths of the Marxist tradition. Partly for pedagogic reasons, the work of the Regulation School is discussed in the context of determinism and economism, while the theses of postimperialism are discussed in the context of the politics of capital accumulation and interstate relations. Needless to say, these are not the exclusive concerns of each discourse and they do not exhaust the terrain of post-Marxism. It is significant that questions of gender and ethnicity, of culture and the languages of class, are prominent in the discourse of post-Marxism. 3 Section 5 offers some closing thoughts on postMarxism and the impasse in development studies. We conclude that the particular theses of postMarxism are in need of refinement, but that its conceptual implications are truly liberating. By rejecting the epistemological baggage of classical Marxism, post-Marxism opens the way to an intellectual and practical world view which emphasizes a careful exchange of ideas and a progressive p o l i tics of the possible. More generally, it confirms the view of Joseph Schumpeter that one can be Marxian without being Marxist (Schumpeter, 1942). 2. M A R X I S M A N D DEVELOPMENT STUDIES: BOOTH'S CRITIQUE David Booth has presented a formidable critique of Marxist development studies. Three dimensions of his challenge stand out: his discussion of essentialism, of economism and of epistemology. Booth's main contribution is to insist that all Marxists share a "metatheoretical commitment to

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defensive class alliances which may redefine and in the Third World. Booth also shows how a improve the links of dependency with the world rationalist epistemology can inform an abstencapitalist system and which can construct paths to tionist politics, or a politics which offers the Third socialism" (Hoogvelt, 1982, p. 172). Nevertheless, World a crude choice between socialism and barif Booth is mindful of these differences, his main barism. 8 Say s Booth: "In different but equivalent concern is to "grasp the nettle of metatheory." ways, both structural-functionalist theory and He wants to understand the reason why "a given Marxism reify social institutions of a given type, intellectual tradition articulates problems for placing them further beyond human control than theory in the way that it does" (Booth, 1985, they can be shown to be." In each case, the result p. 767). At this level, Booth sees mainly similari- "is socially and politically corrupting" (Booth, ties in the "two Marxisms." More exactly, he sees 1985, p. 775). common failings. For Booth, the essential premise of Marxism is its commitment to defining capitalism in terms of a set of necessary laws of 3. DEVELOPMENT STUDIES A N D THE CRISIS O F REPRESENTATION motion which together work to produce a fixed set of spatial outcomes. It is difficult not to share Booth's distaste for A second target for Booth is the economism of MDS. The blatant economism of Frank and the formulistic tautologies and teleologies which Warren has been remarked upon with regularity sometimes pass for MDS. Indeed, I am encouraged and need not detain us. 6 But what of the modes that Booth's argument matches so closely the tone of production literature? According to Mouzelis: of my critique of radical development geography. "Althusser's insistence on the relative autonomy In Capitalist Worm Development, I argued that of the political and ideological i n s t a n c e s . . , warns "radical development studies have too often traded the student away from a mere reduction of political dogma and determinism for the real insights that and cultural structures to the economic bases" a radical perspective is capable of offering" (Mouzelis, 1980, p. 198). Booth disagrees: what the (Corbridge, 1986, p. 3). I further suggested that Althusserians have done is filter their economism for "radical development geography to maintain through the concept of relative autonomy. Closer its credibility it must give up four particular inspection reveals that the economy is still deter- failings.., a tendency to oppositionism, a tendency minant in the last instance, thereby giving the lie to determinism, a tendency to spatial overto the claim that we have escaped the clutches of aggregation and a tendency to epistemological teleology. In-the modes of production literature "confrontation" (1986, p. 8). These failings corthere is scant recognition that the process of articu- respond to Booth's assault upon the essentialism, lation is determined as much by political and cul- economism and metatheoretical fiat of Marxist tural actions within the periphery as by the func- development sociology. Finally, both Booth's tional needs of metropolitan capital. 7 The possi- paper and Capitalist Worm Development take bility of development as a contested terrain is much of their inspiration from the writings of the correspondingly downplayed. team of post-Marxists associated with Barry This brings us to the epistemological stance of Hindess and Paul Hirst; a team ritually abused Marxist development theory. Booth's third point on the Left. 9 is that "left-tending social scientists and activists Despite this common background, and despite have seen fit to close their minds to pertinent main- my real affection for Booth's paper, I now want to stream literature" (Booth, 1985, p. 766). Booth argue that Booth's critique of Marxist develattributes this standoff to three moments of the opment studies is unbalanced. In part, this is radical discourse. There is, first, a penchant for because the Marxian tradition has begun to theoretical arbitrariness. Booth illustrates this respond to many of the criticisms made by Booth. point with reference to concepts of super- In part, it is because Booth fails to locate the exploitation and unequal exchange. This is com- impasse of Marxist development sociology in the pounded by the strategy of "bluff" - - a term used context of a wider crisis of representation. on several occasions in Booth's paper. Roughly In the case of development studies this crisis is defined, bluff involves an attempt to mystify a pro- linked to the restructuring of the world economy cess or an empirical observation by cloaking it in post-1945. Circa 1950, it was common to refer to an unnecessary pseudoscience (see Booth, 1985, p. three major blocs in the world economy. In North 771). Finally, there is the attendant rationalism of America and Western Europe (and including, permuch modern Marxism. Booth illustrates how the haps, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) were the epistemological closure of MDS helps guard it countries of the First World. This group of nationagainst contrary evidence - - for example on the states was characterized by high per capita facts of industrialization or on the role of the state incomes, strong manufacturing bases, low birth

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT and monetary regulations and an apparent decline in the position of a once hegemonic power. The emergence of a debt crisis and the crises of national sovereignty follow in its wake. After a short American Century, we look out into a world of interdependent and yet rival regional capitals and into a system where a multiplicity of players and transactions is leading us from certainty and toward entropy] The foregoing is no more than a thumbnail sketch of some few developments in the postwar world economy, and a crude one at that. But it does point out one of the dilemmas facing modern social science; namely, our rapid, if uneven, drift toward becoming "p0stmodern. '' Social theorists are now tracing through new patterns of flexible accumulation, while others talk of the disorganization of late capitalism. For Claus Offe, the social and political systems of welfare capitalism are fast disorganizing as their central actors - - the trade unions and business associations-- lose their power to organize a corporatist labor market and to impose an authentic work ethic. 1~ Meanwhile, in development studies, scholars are lauding (or are left bemused by) "the end of the Third World" (Harris, 1987). In place of the known and the f i x e d - - core versus periphery, North and S o u t h - we are now urged to embrace the developing countries as "a very heterogeneous group" (Haberler, 1987, p. 62); a group of winners and losers. Even politicians are keen to have their say, with Mrs. Thatcher chiding the Brandt Report for its outdated typology of North and South.~2 These developments have been especially disturbing to scholars and activists on the Left, a point Booth captures very well. Booth suggests that the rapid but selective industrialization of the Third World, post-1960, is quite at odds with the stagnationist theses of underdevelopment theory, with relocation theories which find no room for state policies within the Third World, and with the overoptimistic "classicalism" of Bill Warren. Booth also notes that "dependency theory was the child of its time, in both a passive and an active sense" (Booth, 1985, p. 764). Dependency theorists "assumed unquestioningly either one or both of the theories influential for a short time in the 1960s, to the effect that participation in world trade was likely to be secularly impoverishing for less developed countries (qua primary producers, or as low-wage areas)" (Booth, 1985, p. 764). Dependency theory also "took over and transformed in a more active w a y . . , the View that the causes ofthe apparently multiplying difficulties of the national development process were located outside rather than inside the national society" (p. 764). (Similar arguments can be made of classical Marxism. Booth implies that the accounts of modes of pro-

and death rates, high levels of literacy and educational provision, and by positive attitudes toward growth and entrepreneurship. A Second World was found in Eastern Europe (and later, less certainly, in China and Cuba). The economies of this bloc were organized according to nonmarket principles and were thought to be less developed than their First World counterparts. Finally, there was a residual category: a Third World. Describing itself as a Tiers Monde to be distinguished by its political nonalignment, this bloc of Latin American, African and Asian nations more often appeared to others as one scarred by poverty, where predominantly agricultural economies were worked by ill-fed, ill-clothed, illeducated, but highly fertile ',backward households." Quite explicitly, the Third World was measured against the First World and as a bloc found wanting. By the 1960s, and more so the 1970s and 1980s, this stark trinity was less easily recognized. The World Bank's WorM Development Report for 1988 presents statistics not on the First, Second and Third Worlds, but on low-income economies, lower middle-income economies, upper middleincome economies, high-income oil exporters, industrial market economies and non-market economies. Standing behind this fragmentation of core and periphery has been the complex, uneven, and above all changing, "process of development." In 1950, the world system exhibited a seemingly simple order and division of labors. Capitals were still largely national or regional, financial institutions obeyed the regulations of national governments, national regimes of accumulation adjusted to one another through a system of fixed exchange rates, and the core countries of metropolitan capitalism prospered under local systems of Fordism (see Section 4) which themselves were supported by the disbursement of the US trade surplus. At this time the role of the Third World was marginal. Pump-primed by foreign aid and foreign direct investment, the less developed countries (LDCs) sought slowly to escape a position as primary commodity exporters through a strategy of importsubstitution industrialization (ISI). In the late 1980s, the situation is very different. In the so-called Third World we observe newly industrialized countries, oil-exporting powers and famine-riven populations. We observe nationstates with regional geopolitical ambitions alongside others which remain open to imperialist intervention. Against a background of overaccumulation and falling profits (at least in the "core"), we observe the construction of a truly internationalized economy in which trillions of dollars are transferred around the globe every day. We observe, too, an absence of effective banking

POST-MARXISM AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES duction theory owe as much to the disputes with neo-Marxism as to a concern rigorously to theorize concrete instances of articulation.) Yet Booth's argument is strangely one-sided. Booth might have noted that dependency theory was a child of its time in a third respect. Dependency theorists did not only respond to transient intellectual and political influences; they built their models at a time when the dynamics of the world economy were so thoroughly dominated by the United States and Western Europe that the Third World did appear to be standing still (see Lipietz, 1987, pp. 48-55). More crucially, a tendency to erect models on the assumption that the past and the present will continue into the future is not confined to the Left. It also characterizes orthodox (Keynesian-interventionist) and neoclassical accounts of the development process. Consider the structure of an ideal-typical discourse within the modernization paradigm. The process of development is here conceived in terms of copying the West. Development is defined as a process of structural transformation, wherein labor is transferred from the agricultural sector to the nonagricultural sector. The speed of this transformation depends on the rate of savings in an economy and upon allied capital inflows. It also depends upon the scale and effectiveness of government intervention. The state plays its role where the market fails and in order to underwrite the "big push" that development demands. It is also called upon to prevent that duality of the labor market "which has been accentuated in many developing countries by a population growing too rapidly to be absorbed in the high-productivity sectors of the economy" (Chenery, Robinson and Syrquin, 1986, p. 15). And from where does this typology of development come? From whence the distinction between tradition and modernity and the emphasis upon "takeoff"? Why, from Great Britain in the 18th century and from the experience of the already developed countries. Development is conceived in linear stages fashion, so that the Third World follows an inevitable route to modernity, so long as it abjures a left-turn to communism. (Recall Rostow's book: The Stages

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of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto

[Rostow, 1960].) 13 Other elements of the model draw upon the experience of the Great Depression of the 1930s. It Was at this time, says Haberler (1987), that economics came to embrace a philosophy of dirigisme for development. It also assumed a profound mistrust both of the market and of a primary-export led road to development. As synthesized by Lewis, Nurske and Rosenstein-Rodan, and as informed by the Harrod-Domar model, 14 orthodox development economics proposed a strategy of ISI

which assumed that the conditions of the 1930s would prevail after the war was over; that persistent unemployment was the norm under mature capitalism and that the terms of trade were forever set against primary commodities. Quite as much as Paul Baran and Andr6 Gunder Frank, orthodox development studies proposed a static model of development which enshrined the near-past as an eternal future. The main difference is that ideas of trickle-down and of aid-led growth substitute for the neo-Marxian emphasis upon surplus transfer and unequal exchange. What of neoclassical economics? Deepak Lal is scathing in his critique of "the poverty of [orthodox] development economics" (Lal, 1983), and World Bank publications now praise a return to "monoeconomics. ''15 But this new-found confidence is not without its problems. In the first place, it strains credulity to cite as exemplars of a market logic the recent experience of South Korea and Taiwan. The growth of each country is clearly indebted to economic planning, fiscal interventionism, protectionism and export subsidies) 6 More importantly, the neoclassical discourse depends (as per MDS) upon a relentless essentialism, an explicit economism and an implicit teleology. On economism we need not comment. The essentialism of neoclassical economics is evident in its conceptual points of entry. In this discourse: "Individual wants and productive abilities exist as the essential or absolute forces that generate all other economic events, such as demands, supplies and prices" (Wolff and Resnick, 1987, p. 46). As Margaret Thatcher might put it, "there is no such thing as society." Finally, the teleology of market economics is implicit in its promotion of the market as developmental panacea. Having refused the concept of one Third World (Bauer, 1984), the counterrevolution installs its own conception of a monolithic market. Although we are told that this market, undisturbed, will everywhere perform as per the tenets of perfect competition theory, the evidence for this proposition is weak. In the real world there is no Market, only markets constituted according to asymmetrical, and necessarily "disturbing," power relations. To refuse this conclusion is to allow one's theory of development to be guided by political wish-fulfillment; which is precisely the charge that critics put to Marxian theory.

4. POST-MARXISM A N D DEVELOPMENT STUDIES By pointing to these flaws of omission and commission I do not mean to lessen the problems facing

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT (a) Causality, determination and conditions of

radical development studies. Nor do I wish to imply that a dialogue with orthodox and neoclassical theorists is not vital to the construction of more robust radical theories. Nor even do I want to suggest that orthodox development theory has not progressed beyond Rostow (albeit within a similar framework), 17 or that there are not divisions within the counterrevolution in development studies (see Toye, 1987, on the subtraditions of European~ liberalism and Benthamite utilitarianism). My purpose is simpler and comprises two points. First, if there is an impasse in radical development studies, it may not be solved by opting for non-Marxian development theory. The grass there is not much greener. Second, to the extent that each development paradigm is a child of its time, it is unreasonable to suppose that Marxism alone is unable to learn from its mistakes, or is wedded forever to an unhelpful determinism. The strength of Booth's paper is that it suggests a series of rules against which an emerging post-Marxism might be judged. A future post-Marxist account of development must be sensitive (1) to the constant but shifting production of space under the rule of capital; (2)to the changing sites and temporalities of capital accumulation and crisis formation in the world economy; and (3) to the fragile economic and noneconomic conditions of existence of national and international regimes of accumulation. Such an account would need also (1) to develop a clutch of meso-concepts (Booth's middleposition) which split open the determinism of those theories which seek to read off particular empirical developments from the "logic of capitalism"; and (2) to eschew forms of reasoning which conceive of capitalism as a totality with functional requirements and necessary laws of motion. The weakness of Booth's paper is its failure to recognize that an effective post-Marxism i s emerging in and through a reworking of three key debates: (1) on concepts of causality, determination and the conditions of existence of social and economic formations; (2) on the economy, its temporalities and spatial configurations; and (3) on agency, power and politics. The rest of this paper offers a brief review of each of these debates. Its purpose is to set before the reader the main concepts and conclusions associated with two moments of a prospective post-Marxist development studies: the work of the Regulation School and of the postimperialists. Before doing so, however, it is necessary to step sideways into a swelling debate on the very possibility of a "post-Marxism." Some on the Left are not disposed to wish it well and it is right that we attend to their objections.

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Questions of causality and determination are never far from the surface in social science and they lie at the heart of an emerging debate on Marxism, post-Marxism and development studies. The nub of the debate is as follows: if Marxism stands accused of a metatheoretical commitment to determinism, post-Marxism is accused, in turn, of deserting historical materialism for a caqse-less eclecticism. The critique of post-Marxism embraces three moments, each of which refers back to Marxism "proper." First, it is pointed out that Marxism is a good deal more textured and open-ended than its critics allow (Geras, 1987). In respect of MDS it might be argued that Booth has marginalized those traditions within Marxism which have set themselves against epistemological closure; the traditions of Marxism as moral economy and of Gramsci, for example. Second, there is a rehabilitation of what Watts has called "the theoretical heart of Marxism": the labor theory of value, class analysis, the theory of alienation and so on (Watts, 1988; see also Callinicos, 1982, 1987; Elliott, 1987). Third, in the case of post-Marxism, it is suggested that the main critics of a Marxist approach (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985, explicitly; Booth implicitly) are indebted to the work of Hindess and Hirst and have followed those authors down a path of intellectual relativism and political nihilism. Much like the postmodernists, they are said to have embraced the absolutization of language (Anderson, P., 1983). This is very much the view of Ellen Meiksins Wood (Wood, 1986) and it is the position taken by Geras in his important articles on post-Marxism (Geras, 1987, 1988; see also Elliott, 1986). Beneath the personal abuse, the charge is that Hindess and Hirst have surrendered to a vacuous formalism. Having once removed Marxism from concepts of determination and relative autonomy, these postMarxists are left floundering in a world of absolute contingency and theoretical sophistry. The world of the post-Marxists is a world without a vantage point. Theirs is a social science without rhyme or reason, a history without cause or narrative. This debate is of fundamental significance. If post-Marxism is to make any headway in development studies, its proponents must first show that their map of the world is not an ex-Marxism without substance (Geras, 1988), but is rather a social scientific vision which is wedded to concepts of causality and determination and which is rooted in Marx. In my vie'w, post-Marxism can pass this test. The main target of post-Marxism is Marxism as a closed and mechanistic discourse. Where Marxism exhibits these traits it is a legitimate target

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(pace Booth, Laclau and Mouffe), where it does not (pace Geras) it must be called to account in other terms. Similarly, the main purpose of Hindess and Hirst is not to dismiss all notions of causality, nor do they invoke a world without a vantage point. Their target is a general concept of causality which is guaranteed by epistemological protocols (Cutler, Hindess, Hirst and Hussain, 1977-78, p. 128). Their quarrel is not with an empirical proposition such that the economy tends to be determining under the rule of capital; their objection is to concepts of the necessary primacy of the economy at the level of discourse. Their target is a world with one, privileged, vantage point. This reading of Hindess and Hirst is in keeping with Booth's paper and suggests a bridge to the accounts of structuration theory and theoretical realism. In each case, attention is drawn to the necessary and contingent conditions of social structures and to the recursive dimensions of everyday life. We are also pointed forward. The work of Hindess and Hirst is proving attractive to postMarxism because it offers a social scientific discourse which is wedded to causality and determination even as it opposes teleology and determinism. In place of a mode of production as totality, Hindess and Hirst direct attention to the relations of production which constitute a social formation and to their various and diverse conditions of existence. Hindess and Hirst accept that the reproduction of capitalist relations of production must presuppose the existence of private property rights and free wage labor, and that these institutions in turn depend upon particular forms of labor discipline, accounting mechanisms, legal practice and so on. These are the definite conditions of existence which speak to the ontological realism of Hindess and Hirst (Cutler et al., 197778, p. 172). At the same time, Hindess and Hirst deny that such conditions of existence must be produced for capitalism, or are produced in forms which are determined by the relations of production. They leave open the possibility that capitalist relations of production may be reproduced or undermined by a set of opposing and unhelpful actions associated with (say) religion or demography.

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(b) The economy The debate on causality and determination is linked to a debate on the economy sensus strictus. Marxism has been charged not just with economism, but with reducing the several circuits of the economy to a narrow productionism based on the logic of capital accumulation. Marxists respond to this charge in several ways. Some will deny that

the economy can be described sensus strictus. The economy, for Marx, is said to be linked relationally to other instances of the social formation; in Althusserian parlance, it is overdetermined. Others have embarked on an ambitious reworking of Das Kapital. In geography, David Harvey has provided an extraordinary account of The Limits to Capital which, if apocalyptic in its conclusions, is richly suggestive in its theory of crisis formation and displacement under the rule of capital (Harvey, 1982; see also Smith, 1984). Harvey's comments on fictitious capital and on the devalorization of capital through internationally transmitted inflation are of great value to development geographers struggling to understand the crises of international credit money (Corbridge, 1988a; 1988b). Still others have sought to combine the insights of Marxism with those of mainstream micro and macroeconomics, as in the work of analytical Marxism and the Regulation School respectively. The work of the Regulation School may offer the clearest example of an economics informed by Marxism which yet avoids an unhappy essentialism and teleology. As one more instance of a prospective post-Marxism, the work of Aglietta and Lipietz and their colleagues at Cepremap (Paris) sits comfortably with the stance on causality taken by Hindess and Hirst and their followers/8 Its value in respect to development studies lies in three main areas. The work of the Regulation School is distinguished, first, by the challenge it presents to various ideologies of globalism (Aglietta, 1985). For Aglietta, the national dimension is primary and the world economy is theorized as a system of intersecting national social formations. This is an important point. Clearly, only a fool or a knave would deny that we live today in an interdependent world, and that the power of nation-states is being slowly eroded and transferred to the markets and to circuits of international capital. 19 Nevertheless, what Petras and Brill (1985) call the "tyranny of globalism" can be pressed too far, with the result that the changing constitution and dynamics of the "world system" are lost amid a welter of platitudes about core and periphery. As Lipietz puts it: Something which "forms a system" and which we intellectually identify as a system precisely because it is provisionally stable must n o t . . , be seen as an intentional structure or inevitable destiny because of its coherence . . . . Its coherence is simply the effect of the interaction between several relatively autonomous processes, of the provisionally stabilized complementarity and antagonism that exists between various national regimes of accumulation (Lipietz, 1987, pp. 24-25). The regulation account is marked, secondly, by its understanding of the processes of accumulation and crisis formation under capitalism. In place of

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT nation-states this mode of regulation "incorporated both productivity rises and a corresponding rise in popular consumption into the determination of wages and nominal profits a priori" (Lipietz, 1987, p. 35). Internationally, a system of regulation emerged which acknowledged the United States as the new hegemon and which installed the dollar as the accepted intex'national unit of account. This system proved stable so long as the Americans had a trade surplus with Europe and Japan and so long as Europe and Japanl were dependent upon American producer goods (Triffin, 1960). Since the mid-1960s, this equation has become less assured and we are living now through a second "major crisis" in 20th-century capitalism. The difference this time is that demand is holding up well - - thanks to the international credit economy (Strange, 1986) - - but profits have fallen amid generalized inflation and/or stagttation. According to Aglietta (1985), the origins of the present crisis are to be found in a crisis of intensive accumulation itself - - the profits squeeze - - and in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system which was the embodiment of monopolistic regulation at the international level. Increasingly, the financial power of the United States is at odds with its declining real economy, and this state of noncorrespondence has encouraged the Americans to pursue monetary policies which now threaten the process of capital accumulation throughout the world system (Corbridge, 1984). The Third W o r l d has borne the brunt of this onslaught, with the tentative expansion of a regime of global Fordism for the present being curtailed by a US-inspired debt crisis. The model of capital accumulation and crisis formation proposed by the Regulation School is enhanced, finally, by the philosophical stance of this school. Lipietz, especially, is scathing in his critique of theoretical "finalism and functionalism." Regarding regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation, he insists that: Whilst no immanent destiny condemns a particular nation to a particular place within the international division of labour, a provisional solution for the immanent contradictions of capitalism can at times be found (and I insist that it is a matter of chance discovery) in deviations and differences between regimes of accumulation in different national social formations. In such periods, a field of positive positions . . . does exist, but positions within it are not allocated in advance (Lipietz, 1987, p. 24; emphasis in the original). Put bluntly, the emergence of Fordism, and its extension as global Fordism, must not be seen as preordained solutions to capitalist crisis, neatly identified and invented by a controlling class of capitalists. They are rather - - and as Hindess and Hirst might say - - one of many experiments

more orthodox Marxist formulations which stress the continuity of these processes, the Regulation School offers a set of "meso-concepts" which help us to see the history of capitalism in terms of a theory of discontinuous equilibria (and within which the regime of accumulation and the site of crisis change periodically). A little detail is unavoidable here. In the work of Lipietz and Aglietta we are introduced to the concepts of a regime of aceumulation,and a mode of regulation. A regime of accumulation "describes the fairly long-term stabilization of the allocation of social production between consumption and accumulation... [both] within a national economic and social formation and between the social and economic formation under consideration and its outside world" (Lipietz, 1987, p. 14). A mode of regulation "describes a set of internalized rules and social procedures" which ensure the unity of a given regime of accumulation and which "guarantee that its agents conform more or less to the schema of reproduction in their day-to-day behaviour and struggles" (1987, p. 14). These concepts can be put to work to build a four-stage model of capitalist development and crisis formation in the 20th century. (Needless tO say, much is lost in this simple schema: see Aglietta, 1982; Boyer and Mistral, 1983; Lipietz, 1985; Noel, 1987.) Until the early 20th century, the dominant regime of accumulation in the advanced capitalist countries was "extensive." This regime centered upon the expanded reproduction of means of production and involved both a sharp international division of labor and a relative orientation to external markets. The corresponding mode of regulation was "competitive," which means, in part, that national regimes of accumulation were forced to adjust to one another through their balance of payments (and ultimately in response to interest rates for short-term capital set in London, the financial center of the hegemonic power). By the 1920s, this combination of extensive accumulation and competitive regulation had entered a period of "major crisis." According to Lipietz, the dominant regime of accumulation now shifted to a system of Fordism - - centered upon the United States - which sponsored a growth in output beyond that which could be realized under a competitive mode of regulation.Put simply, a system of competitive regulation demands "the a posteriori adjustment of the output of the various branches to price m o v e m e n t s . . , and of wages to price movements" (Lipietz, 1987, p.-34). Accordingly, wages are able to rise only slowly, if at all, and capitalism falls into a crisis of overaccumulation. After World War II, a regime of Fordist, or "intensive," accumulation came to be matched by a "monopolistic" mode of regulation. Within

POST-MARXISM AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES thrown up by capitalism, and survive only as successful mutants on probation. (c) Agency, power and politics The sentiments of Lipietz take us far beyond a deterministic and teleological Marxism. By presenting "capitalism" as a system which presupposes certain rules and conditions of existence, but which cannot ensure that these conditions are made good (or ensure the forms in which they are made flesh), Lipietz confirms that "history has infinitely more imagination than we have" (Lipietz, 1987, p. 10; after Lenin). Lipietz also takes up a position close to Cardoso. Both theorists recognize the partiality of those accounts confined to an analysis of core-periphery relationships, or which theorize the interplay of internal and external factors so that the former are considered as mere "concrete effects produced by the latter" (Cardoso, 1977, as summarized by Palma, 1978, p. 910). More positively, they each allow the "Third World" a role in (re)making its own historical geography. In the case of the debt crisis, the Regulation School provides us with a conceptual grid which allows us to discriminate between, say, South Korea and Brazil, not just in terms of their capacity to repay debt, but also in terms of their very different modes of incorporation into the world economy (respectively, inclusionary and exclusionary)) The Regulation School directs our attention to the diverse political (and other) conditions of existence of national and international regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation. What has not yet emerged from the Regulation School is a detailed account of the political opportunities and closures associated with global Fordism. It is here that a dialogue may be forged with theorists of postimperialism, and, indeed, with Mouzelis (1988a, 1988b) and Vandergeest and Buttel (1988), each of whom has argued that Marxist-influenced development sociology has been weak in building an understanding of the Third World state, and each of whom would trace this weakness to an analysis of power as derived through economic advantage (after Vandergeest and Buttel, 1988, pp. 689-690). 21 The post-imperialism school revolves around Richard Sklar and David Becker, although several of its theses find favor with Jeff Frieden and Sayre Schatz and with a wider audience beyond. 22 The beginnings of a postimperial world view can be traced back to the mid-1970s and to Bill Warren's critique of neo-Marxism. To see postimperialism only as a reaction to dependency theories, however, would be a mistake. Becker and Sklar define postimperialism as "an idea about the

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political and social organization of international capitalism" (Becker and Sklar, 1987a, p. ix). It is an idea that grew out of two bodies of thought: political theories of the modern business corporation, and class analyses of political power in .the "Third World." Along with Adolf A. Berle, postimperialist thinkers affirm that business corporations are political institutions.., they rival and check statist political power both within societies and increasingly in world politics (Becker and Sktar, 1987a, p. ix). This stark summary gives a clue both to the genealogy of postimperialism and to its major claims and contributions. More so than the work of Lipietz and Aglietta, the theses of Becker and Sklar can seem vehemently anti-Marxist. The work of Cardoso, of Faletto, of Frank and of Warren, is by turns brought before the court of postimperialism and denounced as "arbitrary" or "populist" or as indicative "of the depths to which 'radical' scholars and movement romantics have plummeted in their flights of revolutionary fancy" (Becker and Sklar, 1987a, pp. 3-4). F o r all this, postimperialism has not turned to the utility maximization framework of the counterrevolution. F a r less does it focus upon the economic agent as atomistic individual. On the contrary: postimperialism "is unusual . . . in its focus upon differentiated classes in place of undifferentiated nations" (Frieden, 1987a, p. 180). A major contribution of postimperialism is to insist that politics remains primarily a national matter. "The all-too-common assumption that economic integration at the international level has eliminated the possibility of national-level political action clearly is refuted by theoretical and case-study work undertaken from a postimperialist standpoint" (Frieden, 1987a, p. 180). These claims can be considered in more detail. The starting point of postimperialism is the proposition that the world economy is beyond imperialism. This claim embraces two moments. Becker and Sklar first distance themselves from Leninist theories of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. They reject the suggestion that there is "a need for business to expand into foreign markets in order to deflect the threatened b r e a k d o w n . . , of a domestic enterprise system" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 1). Becker and Sklar also resist the suggestion that international capitalism is systematically imperialist; that it entails an inherently coercive relationship between nation-states. "In their judgment, this conception is at odds with the facts of decolonization and with the postwar diffusion and rationale of transnational corporations. A first conclusion of postimperialism is that "global corporations function to promote the integration of diverse national interests on a new

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT despite its constitution as an alliance of privileged host-country capital and corporate foreign capital. It may also follow that the corporate bourgeoisie, in the Third World, can project a brand of nationalism even as it embraces a "transnationalized cosmopolitanism" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 8). The circle is squared by the politics of populism. Thus, "national leaders proclaim the political unity of the whole people [even as] they repress dissent in the name of defense against the threat of foreign domination" (Becker .and Sklar, 1987b, p. 8). An important undercurrent of Becker's work is the claim that constitutional governance is most often kept alive in the periphery by the emerging international wing of the corporate bourgeoisie. Becker is clear that this class has no positive preference for authoritarian rule. This conclusion informs the political message of postimperialism, which points in three directions. A first lesson concerns the reduction of political choices to "capitalism versus socialism." Becket and Sklar accept the Marxist claim that "the capitalist system is driven by a basic contradiction between the social character of production and the private, anarchic character of the regulation of production" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, pp. 11-12). Hence their continued emphasis upon class and the politics of class. At the same time, Becker and Sklar believe that this contradiction is "displaced" by a continuing process of conflict management or "socializing adaptation." Following Schatz, they suggest that in "mature capitalism" this mechanism of adaptation, though imperfect, is working to promote transnational institutions and an international working-class movement which may yet balance the power of the corporate bourgeoisie. Second, the likely survival of capitalism poses a dilemma for the nonpossessing classes. Although Becker and Sklar acknowledge "the irreducible conflict of class interest between bourgeoisie and proletariat" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 13), they doubt whether the living standards of the Third World poor will be improved by aggressive state action against foreign capital. On balance, the system must be worked within. The doctrine of domicile directs attention to the variability of state/ capital relations in the Third World. As such, it places a particular emphasis upon the politics of the "bargaining process". Finally, the postimperialist thesis contains within it a bias against the politics of nationalism. Despite an emphasis upon the nation-state, and despite Becker's distaste for "Warrenism," it is significant that postimperialism presents "itself as "a theory of international oligarchy" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 13). Ironically, this puts it in line with the theses of ultra-imperialism promoted by some sections of

transnational basis" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 6). Insofar as transnational corporations (TNCs) offer the Third World "access to capital resources, dependable markets, essential technologies and other services," it follows that there is "a mutuality of interest between politically autonomous countries at different stages of economic development" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 6). This is a radical conclusion, for it subverts the Third Worldism o f much Leftist thinking. It also encourages Becker and Sklar to develop a particular version of the thesis of transnationalization (or of the internationalization of capital). Becker and Sklar contend that "the spread of industrialization to all regions of the world" (Becker and Sklar, 1987a, p. ix) has brought into being a "corporate national bourgeoisie." The corporate national bourgeoisie is not to be equated with a cluster of managers or with a state elite. It rather defines "a socially comprehensive category encompassing the entrepreneurial elite, managers of firms, senior state functionaries, leading politicians, members of the learned professions, and persons of similar standing in all spheres of society" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 7). The corporate national bourgeoisie is a class for two reasons. It is, first, "because its members share a common situation of socioeconomic privilege and a common class interest in the relations of political power and social control that are intrinsic to the capitalist mode of production" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 7). The corporate national bourgeoisie runs both public and private large-scale industrial units in the world economy, where it faces, as a class, the workers who perform labor in these enterprises. Second, the corporate national bourgeoisie is a class because it defends a position against-- indeed has displaced - - the "'oligarchic' landed-financial-commercial dominant classes of yore" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 7). Beeker and Sklar speak also of the rise to power of a corporate international bourgeoisie which is breaking forever the cast of imperialism. In place of "the d o m i nation of one people by another [there is now] transnational class domination of the world as a whole" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 14). The concept of a corporate national bourgeoisie has been developed with specific reference to Latin America. In this context, too, it is linked to Sklar's concept of the "doctrine of domicile" (Sklar, 1975, 1976) and to a new account of the political process in a fragmenting periphery. The doctrine of domicile suggests that '.'transnational business groups should and do undertake to adapt, to operate in accordance with the policies of states in which the subsidiaries are domiciled" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 9). Where this holds true, it follows that the corporate bourgeoisie can stand together

POST-MARXISM AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES the Left in the early 1970s. 23 Both versions of "post"-imperialism suggest that nationalism and "nationalistic vendettas" (Becker and Sklar, 1987b, p. 13) will fade away as the domain of politics expands to match the formation of transnational economic classes. 5. CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE IMPASSE The discourse of postimperialism is less developed than that of the Regulation School and in its present form it raises many questions. Jeff Frieden offers three critical comments. He notes, first, that the Becker and Sklar model assumes "that the managerial bourgeoisie necessarily will continue to grow in importance and hegemony... while other strata of the national bourgeoisie decline relatively" (Frieden, 1987a, p. 182; emphasis in the original). Frieden rejects this contention and asks that more attention be paid to conflicts within the managerial bourgeoisie. Frieden's second point concerns the constitution of classes in the postimperialist approach. Frieden points to the dangers of a political determinism substituting for economic determinism, so that "all social developments [are] explained by the political actions of politically conscious groups" (Frieden, 1987a, p. 183). This danger is present in the importance Becket attaches to the TNC-state bargaining process and to the doctrine of domicile. Frieden's last point takes up the question of democracy versus authoritarianism. Frieden resists the tendency to suppose that authoritarianism is on the wane because it lacks the support of international capital. Once again, Frieden is unhappy with the implicit teleology of this conception and with the political complacency it may induce. These criticisms do not disturb the wider conclusions of this paper (see also Becker, 1987, for a telling response). My reason for dealing with postimperialism is that it forms one moment of an emerging autocritique of Marxist development studies. By contributing to a new theorization of the politics of the world economy, and of the role of actors and institutions within that broader structure, postimperialism is helping to form a postMarxian development studies which can transcend the impasse in MDS in four key respects. There is, first, the question of the metatheoretical commitments of modern Marxism. David Booth is right to bemoan the teleology built into neoMarxism and its classical "successor." To see the world system as fixed forever into a frozen set of haves and have-nots is both pessimistic and empirically ill-founded. What Booth fails to detect is that many Marxists are now giving up this epis-

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temological baggage. There is a growing tendency to follow Hindess and Hirst in talking of capitalist relations of production and their diverse (and fragile) conditions of existence. The work of the Regulation School provides a case in point. Regulation School theorists are developing a theory of capitalist dynam!cswhich measures up to the immense variety of forms and processes which are consistent with the logic of capital accumulation (or not, as the case may be). To this end, Lipietz declares: Beware of labels. Beware of the International Division of labour. Look at how each country "works," at what it produces and for whom it produces it. Look at how and why specific forms of wage relations and regimes of accumulation developed. And be very careful about casting a net over the world in an attempt to grasp relations between regimes of accumulation in different national social formations (Lipietz, 1987, p. 28). Other branches of post-Marxism work to a similar conclusion. Postimperialism rejects outright "the teleology and stasis of system-maintenance ideas" (Becker, 1984, p. 418). Becker and Sklar insist that, if capitalism produces winners and losers, those positions are not occupied forever by the same sets of players. In analytical Marxism, too, a discourse is being developed which questions, rather than accepts, the epistemological premises of classical Marxism. The concept of exploitation is being rethought and new work is emerging on the relationship between socialism and democracy, and on questions of citizenship and the moral bases of Marxism. z4 And so on the story goes. There is ever a danger of attempting to synthesize a post-Marxism where none exists; but there is, undeniably, a powerful trend in post-Marxist circles toward theories of capitalist development which emphasize contingency, disorganization and structuration. In place of a topheavy structuralism, there is a new emphasis upon human agency and upon the provisional and highly skilled task of reproducing social relations. Sideby-side with this, post-Marxism is proving more sensitive to questions of gender, ethnicity and ideology. 25 Once Marxism is removed from its epistemological moorings, a space is cleared for a much-needed dialogue within the social sciences. For too long, some Marxists have refused this dia10gue on the grounds that they alone are privileged to produce real science (as opposed to mere ideology). 26Now this position is exposed as arrant furldamentalism. There is a growing acceptance that "what is distinctive in Marxian theory is substantive, not methodological; and that as a science of society the methodology adopted by Marxists ought to be just good scientific methodology" (Levine, Sober and Wright, 1987, p. 68). This Con-

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT gressives can work within the system in the knowledge that the system itself is changed by less than revolutionary political actions. If this sounds cryptic, consider two examples. Consider, first, the politics of "democracy" versus "authoritarianism." One virtue of the postimperialist approach is that it resists a conception of capitalist authoritarianism (or fascism) as necessary in Latin America. Becker's work shows clearly that the international wing of the corporate bourgeoisie has no need of state repression, although it will ,work with it when necessary. F o r this reason, progressives must ignore the charge of reformism and work instead for the fragile cause of democracy. Consider, second, the issue of health care delivery (or of educational provision). The National Health Service in the United Kingdom offers an example of the delivery of health care according to socialist principles - - free at the point of delivery - - in a supposedly capitalist country. The point here is that a conception of capitalism and socialism as implacable opposites places out of reach a monolithic and utopian socialism (Nove, 1983). In place of a feasible politics which takes seriously the case for markets within socialism, and of socialist systems within capitalism, we are shunted toward a politics of despair and hopelessness. In still wider terms, the logic of classical Marxism has been to argue for a direct link between Marxist analysis and revolutionary socialism. The post-Marxist project is rather different. PostMarxism suggests both an intellectual tolerance of non-Marxism, and a recognition (pace Schumpeter) that Marxism functions best as a critique of capitalism and not as a blueprint for socialism. More exactly, post-Marxism accepts that regimes of accumulation under capital are contradictory, are founded on asymmetry and are prone to crisis; but it denies that these contradictions work to a consistent set of spatial outcomes or lead to some form of apocalyptic denouement. Post-Marxism encourages us to see differences as well as uniformities; it returns to radical development studies a sense of time and a sense of place.

cluslon is truly liberating. F o r a start, it frees postMarxism from a defense of the indefensible. There is no longer a need to argue that peripheral capitalism must promote authoritarianism, or de-industrialization, or relative overpopulation, because to argue otherwise is somehow "bourgeois". For another, it means that the corpus of "Marxism" can be strengthened by judicious borrowing from related subfields. Again, the Regulation School may be prototypical. Several of its members are engaged in research projects which seek to combine the insights of Marxism, post-Keynesian economics, and institutionalism (see Noel, 1987). In more general terms, the delivery of Marxism from metatheory means that attention is turned to Marxian theories of class, exploitation and value. These may now receive the scrutiny they deserve. A third dimension of post-Marxian discourse concerns politics. It is significant that post-Marxism retains a conception of power which emphasizes force and asymmetry and which is linked always to class and the economy. This puts it at some remove from the studiously apolitical discourse of neoclassical economics and from the emphasis upon mutuality to be found in the publications of the Brandt CommissionY Even so, post-Marxism breaks cleanly with the projects of revolutionary socialism and Third Worldism. From the vantage point of post-Marxism both projects disguise an abstentionist politics. Moreover, they depend upon three unlikely propositions: (1) that the motive force of late capitalism depends upon a fixed pattern of core-periphery exploitation; (2) that a monolithic capitalism is driven inexorably to collapse by its internal contradictions; and (3) that to work within the capitalist system is hopelessly reformist. Post-Marxism offers a more nuanced political agenda. It recognizes that "capitalism" is neither unitary nor without appeal, but is rather a variegated set of social relations of production and conditions of existence with some prospect of longevity. This being so, the political agenda for progressives will continue to vary with respect t time and place. More specifically, it means that pro-

NOTES 1. Postmodern is a term open to abuse and bowdlerization. According to Gregory, "One of the distinguishing features of post-modern culture is its sensitivity to heterogeneity, particularity and uniqueness" (Gregory, 1986, p. "3). It is in this most basic sense that "postmodern" is used here. By postmodern, I refer to those new landscapes of accumulation and development which resist a simplistic typology of North and South and which are produced, in part, by new strategies of assertive industrialization and flexible accumulation. On the former, see Grieco (1984); on the latter, see Scott and Storper (1986) and Harvey (1987) - - for a critique, see Williams et aL (1987). 2. The possibility that capitalism is disorganizing is discussed later in the paper. The challenge posed to developmentalism by new social mdvements is most obvious in the case of peripheral nationalisms and the rise of a "radical Islamism." On the former, see B. Anderson (1983); on the latter, see Hunter (1988), Roberts (1988).

POST-MARXISM AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES 3. At this point it may be useful to essay a definition of post-Marxism. There are, first, the links to Marxism. Post-Marxism shares with Marx a materialist ontology and a commitment to causal analysis and a concept of determination; it also accepts that people make history, but not under circumstances of their own choosing, and that the "economy" is structured by a systematically unequal distribution of assets and powers which leads to contradictions in the process of accumulation. PostMarxism departs from some traditions of Marxism (a) by opposing a methodological exclusivism born of the epistemological privileging of certain concepts; (b) by opposing propositions which speak of the necessary primacy of the economy (as an epistemological protocol); (c) by attaching itself to a generalized theory of exploitation and class which is at some remove from the labor theory of value; (d) by opposing functionalist accounts of power, the state and civil society; and (e) by resisting those dualisms which oppose capitalism-in-general to socialism-in-general and by lending support to a less certain politics tied (in part) to concepts of moral justice and feasibility. There are two points to note about this definition. First, it is not my intention to label or falsely divide. Many Marxists will feel comfortable with this definition, as will some non-Marxists. Second, I do not suggest that post-Marxism is "better" than Marxism or has taken its place in history; the suggestion is that post-Marxism is indebted to Marxism and yet is critical of many of its organizing concepts. This suggestion is in keeping, I believe, with the tone of Booth's paper. There are pointers to post-Marxism in the later writings of Marx himself (see Shanin, 1983). On questions of gender and the languages of class and power, see respectively Carney (1988), Moore (1988) and Stedman Jones (1983). On the question of discourse and power ~ the power to script, to oppress, to create identities - - see Said (1978, 1986); Escobar (1984-85). 4. For example, CuUey (1977); Laclau (1979); Mouzelis (1978); Taylor (1979). 5. 6. Bernstein (1982); Brenner (1977); Forbes (1984). Palma (1978); Slater (1987); Lipietz (1987).

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tiques have been essayed by Thompson (1984); Laclau and Mouffe (1985) and Callinicos (1987). 10. There is a growing literature on this topic. See especially, Aglietta (1982); Calleo (1987); Davis (1986) and Harvey (1982). See also Snidal (1985) and Strange (1987). 11. Offe (1985). See also Lash and Urry (1987). It is not clear that "disorganized" capitalism is an appropriate term for what these theorists have in mind. In most respects, "late capitalism" is highly organized, but the principles of its organization are now centered upon opaque and complex interdependencies which can create massive system instabilities if they break down. The 1987 stock market(s) crash is a case in point; so, potentially, is the crisis of fictitious capital. 12. Thatcher (1981). 13. The reader might object that this is a caricature of modernization theory and that the discourse of "orthodox" development theory has moved on since the late 1950s. This is true enough, but the structure of recent key texts in this genre (for example, Johnston and Kilby, 1975; Chenery et al., 1986) does remind one of the idealtypical discourse described in the text. As Booth remarks of Frankian underdevelopment theory, such a discourse may be of limited interest in itself, but it "exemplifies perfectly a form of analysis in common use" (Booth, 1985, p. 762). 14. Lewis (1955); Nurske (1959); Rosenstein-Rodan (1943). 15. The term belongs to Hirschman (1982). See also World Bank (1986; 1988). 16. For contrasting interpretations see, Krueger (1978) and Balassa (1982); Lamb (1981) and Hamilton (1987). 17. See note 13.

7. This is not to deny the very real contribution made by theorists of articulation; nor do I want to suggest that this literature cannot be refined further and made less functionalist: see Berger (1988). 8. Frank (1967); Wallerstein (1974). See also John Browett: "a benevolent c a p i t a l i s m . . , does not, never will, constitute a panacea which provides a middle route between barbarism and socialism" (Browett, 1981, p. 160). 9. Hindess and Hirst (1976); Cutler, Hindess, Hirst and Hussain (1977-78); which are not of the same cloth as Hindess and Hirst (1975). The work of Hindess and Hirst continues, separately, to be of great import: see Hindess (1983); Hindess (1984); Hirst (1985). The ritual abuse continues also: see Elliot (1986). More telling cri-

18. Like all schools of thought, the Regulation School has its divisions, and its concepts continue to be refined. When Michel Aglietta first coined the vocabulary of regulation theory he did so within the problematique of structural Marxism (Aglietta, 1979). In the 1980s, and in the work of Lipietz especially (compare Lipietz, 1979, 1985, 1987), the legacy of Althusser has faded and a new concern with contingency has taken its place. See also Mazier et al. (1984); Aglietta and Brender (1984). Useful commentaries can be found in de Vroey (1984) and Noel (1987). 19. Thrift (1986); Hamilton (1986); Coakley and Harris (1983). 20. Inclusionary, in the sense that a majority of the working population of South Korea has gained (albeit very unequally) from that country's increased participation in world trade, despite a political system which excludes most of the population from full citizenship rights.

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WORLD DEVELOPMENT Richard Sklar and to David Becker for clarification on these issues. 23. See Murray (1971); Kidron (1971). See also Kautsky (1983). 24. Important contributions to analytical Marxism include Roemer (1982, 1988) and Elster (1985). For an excellent review, see Carling (1986), On analytical Marxism and methodological individualism - - its Achilles' heel - - see Hindess (1984) and Levine et al. (1987). On Marxism and morality, see Lukes (1984). On socialism and democracy, see Bobbio (1987). 25. Giddens (1981). Note also the influence of Edward Thompson, Raymond Williams and Antonio Gramsci. 26. See Peet (1978).

21. In this paper I have chosen to focus on those elements within post-Marxism which draw directly upon Marxian political economy. It should be noted, however, that post-Marxism as I conceive it is fundamentally disposed to an effective (that is, well thought-out) marriage between elements of Marxism and Weberian sociology, or between Marxism and feminism. I adhere to the term post-Marxism for two main reasons: to signpost a common point of departure for a growing number of scholars engaged in critical social science; and to signal a belief that Marxian political economy must remain central to this project. Implicit in this last point is a disquiet in the face of those critical social theories which are radically relativist and which Geras has denounced as "ex-Marxist" (Geras, t988). I am grateful to Fred Buttel and to David Booth for comments on this issue. 22. Becker and Sklar (1987a,b); Frieden (1987b); Schatz (1987); Schiffer (1981). I should record that the discourse of postimperialism was first fashioned by Richard Sklar (1975, 1976), whose concept of a "managerial bourgeoisie" was developed with explicit reference to state structures, in Africa. David Becker has developed the theses of postimperialism and uses the term "corporate national bourgeoisie" to define certain class structures and state projects in Latin America. I am grateful to

27. "Studiously apolitical" because neoclassical economics tries hard to define economics as a technical discourse without political antecedents. For an excellent critique, see Wolff and Resnick (1987). The international Keynesianism of the Brandt Commission is well exemplified in Brandt (1980), chapter 4.

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