Capitalism – Debating Development Research

23/08/202325/08/2023

Water, accumulation, and the space in-between

By Basile Boulay

Droughts, floods, shrinking water tables and growing competition to access what is becoming the new gold bring water governance at the centre of the global discourse. While evidently crucial, the governance question cannot be disentangled from the broader issue of the neoliberal agenda seeking the commodification of life, including water. Can sound resource management be achieved when states openly support private accumulation at the expense of nature and people? Madelaine Moore’s new book on Water struggles as resistance to neoliberal capitalism comes in handy to help us make sense of these questions by bringing insights from Australia and Ireland.

28/09/202223/01/2023

Marx and Colonialism

By Lucia Pradella

It is widely believed that Marx did not systematically consider the role of colonialism within the process of capital accumulation. According to David Harvey, Marx concentrated on a self-closed national economy in his main work. Although he did mention colonialism in Part 8 of Capital Volume 1 on the so-called primitive accumulation, this would only belong to a pre-history of capital, not to its everyday development. Based on a similar assumption, some postcolonial scholars criticise Marx for being Eurocentric, even a complicit supporter of Western imperialism, who ignored the agency of non-Western people.