Contesting

Development
Lecture 6
Postcolonial Political Economy
 • Marx, Lenin, DuBois, Claudia Jones,
Malcolm X, Angela Davies: don't see
imperialism in terms of inter-state
relations but as a global system of
exploitation, dispossession &
oppression.
• Reserve army, super-exploitation,
labour aristocracy/wages of whiteness,
Review gender oppression.
• Class divisions within anti-colonial
movements. Debate about how
peasants & workers movements should
relate to anti-colonial elites.
• Link between anticolonial movements
and anti-racist struggles in the core.
Lecture Outline
1. Inter-war period: labour unrest, anti-colonialism &
development as colonial project
2. After WW2: communism, anti-colonialism &
development as imperialist project
3. Anti-colonial revolution, development & counter-
insurgency
4. Lewis & Nkrumah: development or neo-colonialism?
1. Inter-war years: labour unrest,
anti-colonialism & development
as colonial project
World labour unrest &
decolonization

Colonial and semi-colonial world

World labour unrest, 1870–1996

Metropolitan countries
• In wake of Great Depression
• Labour unrest throughout
British Empire
• Trinidad and Jamaica – 1935,
1937, 1938
• Northern Rhodesia – 1935
• Gold Coast (Ghana) – 1939,
1940
• Mombasa – 1939
 William Arthur
Lewis (1915-91)

CLR James (1901–1989)

Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72)

George
Padmore
(1903–59)
Padmore, James, DuBois,
Williams... start to publish
works “about black people
involved in revolution, involved
in making choices, involved in
the real movements of history.”
(Rodney 1990: 15)
Labour unrest &
anticolonial thought
 London: centre of radical politics (Matera
2015)
 Italian invasion of Ethiopia radicalized Afro-
Caribbean diaspora
 Padmore vs. Comintern's switch to popular
front strategy
 CLR James joins Fourth International
 1937: International African Service Bureau
(with Amy Ashwood Garvey, Keniatta ...)
 Goal: building anti-colonial struggle as force
within revolutionary movement vs. both
empire and capital (Getachew 2019)
 Go back to Marx’s analysis of capitalism as
global system; revolutionary role of workers
& farmers.
 W.A. Lewis: A compromise solution?
 ”Leading ideologue of his class & imperialism
at the crucial period in the formation of
modern Caribbean" (Susan Craig 1977: 78)
 Describes his life as "a queer mixture": "some
doors that were supposed to be closed
opened”; "got used to being the first black to
do this or that..." (Lewis in Emmanuel 1994: l)
 “Interest in development was an offshoot of
my anti-imperialism." (Lewis in Emmanuel
1994: xliv): overlooked in literature (Joseph
2009)
 Lewis close to Fabian Society: seeking “more
moral” form of empire (Kumar 2019) against Caribbean Wax Museum
both excessive exploitation as well as against
Labour in the
West Indies (1939)
 Pamphlet published by the Fabian Society
 It heralded birth of organised labour in the
Caribbean
 But for Lewis only most educated workers
& "sober and responsible" trade union
leaders were fit to lead the movement
 Lewis was not aware of this, but his
argument was in line with the Colonial
Office's intention to establish trade unions
and collective bargaining to stifle workers
militancy in the colonies.
Development as
colonial project
• Under pressure from labour unrest
• 1940 Colonial Development & Welfare
Act:
• Some funding for welfare &
services
• Primarily focused on urban
workers (Wolton 2000)
• Trade unions and collective
bargaining
• Development: shared goal / language
for colonial/colonized elites
• Disarm & repress workers’ radical
militancy
 2.
After WW2:
Communism, anti-colonialism
and development
as imperialist project
 • WW2 – imperialist powers redefine spheres of influence, but use colonial &
“There is no new deal Black soldiers (Nkrumah)
• No colonial representation in San Francisco - Churchill, Smuts: UN
for the black man at architecture to cement white rule (Mazower 2012)
San Francisco.” • Africa, Asia: mobilizations of peasants & workers vs colonialism. Truman's
Civil Rights Commission: this is also a domestic issue.
(Azikiwe 1945) • Continent-wide labour strikes from 1940s radicalised Pan-African Congress.
1945 Fifth Congress calls on workers and farmers to use “the Strike and the
Boycott” vs. colonial rule (Padmore 1947).
"Thus, we have witnessed the
greatest awakening ever seen on
this earth of suppressed and
exploited peoples against the
powers that have kept them in
subjection. This, without a doubt,
is the most significant happening of
the twentieth century.” (Nkrumah
1963)
• WW2: shift UK to US hegemony, atomic bomb
• Bretton Woods (1944) marks this shift: USD
international currency & US financial centre
• Conference set up international bodies like:
• International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (now World Bank)
• International Monetary Fund
• GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade –
WTO in 1995): imperial powers establish rules of
trade, keep colonies dependent
• Fixed exchange-rate system hinders free
movement of capital  “full” employment,
internal stability
• USSR needed to rebuild its industrial base:
relationship with colonial world based on
exchange of industrial goods for primary
goods. No International. Cominform.
 No business as usual: social-democracy
 Western powers & USSR think it’s
business as usual with the colonies
 Roosevelt’s Four Freedom speech (1941):
need to solve "the social and economic
problems which are the root cause of the
social revolution which is today a
supreme factor in the world.”
 WW2 good for US capitalism: military
Keynesianism, technological progress &
war's 'creative destruction' allowed US
to overcome great depression
 US ruling class want to break up
communist-radical upsurge of inter-war
and war-time years
 Material concessions to some sections of
working class & anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy, 1950
repression (McCarthyism).
 Problem for the US: Western Europe is
destroyed, communism is on the rise
 US European Recovery Plan, Marshall
Plan (1948-51): 13 billion USD in aid to:
 enable W European reconstruction,
 support big business,
 weaken communist forces,
 and erode Soviet influence.
 Repression of communist forces
(Greece, Turkey, Italy and France)
 To stay in government, communist
parties had to moderate demands and
abandon insurrectionist struggle
 In exchange: unions & political parties
representing working class influence ­
employment & welfare policies.
 No business as usual: development
 Problem for Western powers: communism on the rise,
esp. Asia; colonised want to enjoy “Four Freedoms”
 Western ruling classes: set themselves the goal of
containing communism worldwide (Mazower 226).
 Marshall Plan freed up resources for W European
empires to sustain recovery & arrest communist upsurge
at home while keeping control over and preventing
growth of communist forces in the colonies.
 Preventing growth of communist forces more important
than repressing the pro-independence movement for US
 Late 1940s: focus of Cold War shifts to Asia. Civil War China; 1945-49 Indonesian national
revolution; 1946–54 war Indochina; 1947 Indian independence
 US shifts position and supports formal independence of Indonesia in 1948 to prevent
radicalisation of anti-colonial struggle. Open-up markets to US capital.
 US supports decolonization and ensures protection to countries in exchange for meagre aid,
creation of US military bases, opening up of markets & repression of communist forces.
 Truman’s "Point Four Programme” (20 January 1949):
ideological tool in global war against communism
 At last minute, he adds point 4, on development:
o Oppose communist threat by helping 'peace-loving
peoples' & fostering capital investment in areas needing
development, reduce global poverty and achieve "peace,
plenty and freedom."
o New deal for the world, but only 45/23 million vs 13.6
billion USD for Marshall Plan: keep economies dependent.
o "The old imperialism--exploitation for foreign profit--has
no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of
development based on the concepts of democratic fair-
dealing.”
o New imperialism, based on development
 After WW2: US become major centre of development thought
(Mazower 281).
 Development aimed at maintaining mainly economic control
(‘new imperialism’) and oppose threat of communism.
3. The anti-colonial revolution, development &
counter-insurgency
• China 1949, Korean War 1950-53, 1951 self-government Ghana,
1952 Egypt, Vietnam 1954
• “The victory of the Vietnamese people at Dien Bien Phu is no
longer, strictly speaking, a Vietnamese victory.” (Fanon 55)
• Algerian liberation 1954-62, within 4 years from Ghana’s full
independence, 18 more African nations achieve independence
• “A new type of relations is established in the world. The under-
developed people try to break their chains, and the
extraordinary thing is that they succeed.” Fanon 58
• Different patterns of decolonisation (civil war, China;
negotiated independence, India, much of Africa; anti-colonial
resistance in Indochina and Algeria; Vietnam war 1960–75)
• Overall decolonization was a violent process.
• Even w/o major clashes, colonial powers still sought to
maintain economic and political control by instigating civil
wars (i.e., Congo, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique...).
• Creation of state of Israel - expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in
Anti-colonial revolution
or revolutions?
 Revolution in the singular? Yes, global
system, inter-connected struggles.
 But lack of an international organisation
like Third International, lack of global
coordination and programme.
 Dissolution of empires  creation of
nation-states throughout Third World
 Delegitimization of colonialism as a form of
colonial rule
 Crisis of racial hierarchy as the structuring
principle of world politics.
 Mass movements of peasants and workers --> anti-
colonial revolutions  impetus to overcome social
structures inherited from colonialism
 Postcolonial elites attempt to achieve economic
independence, overcome financial & technological
dependence
 But how to do so if colonial powers didn’t pay back the
wealth they had stolen? No reparations; no technological
transfer; no substantial economic aid; not undoing of
colonial borders
 Imperialists foment divisions to keep control
 Absence of world revolution  framework of national
capitalist development, compromise between ruling classes
and popular classes; demobilisation of popular classes
 National framework becomes predominant, but also idea
that there's a need to create at least continental or inter-
continental alliances
 Nkrumah (1963): African political union "securest safeguard
of our hard-won freedom", basis of development.
• 29 reps newly sovereign Asian African nations
• Contradiction between national framework
and need for coordination
• Sukarno: “We are united by a common
detestation of colonialism in whatever form it
appears. We are united by a common
detestation of racialism. And we are united by
a common determination to preserve and
stabilize peace in the world.”
• Economic cooperation, diversifying economies,
industrialisation. Opposition to GATT.
• No socialism. No clear agenda. Different
international links & economic strategies.
• Stronger on cultural cooperation vs. racialism
as “means of cultural oppression”.
• Important role played by women in liberation
struggles: women’s concerns on agenda 1955 Conference in Bandung, Indonesia
• Despite infights: Bandung produced idea that
Third World had right to govern themselves &
rebuild their societies. Major impact on world
politics, also through renewed UN.
First & Third World
• US had hostile attitude towards
Bandung

• US supported decolonization as a way

of expanding its sphere of influence, but
opposed coordination among Third
World countries

• US was a segregated and racist society,

not keen on Third World’s critique of
racialism (fear of ‘race war’)

• Early 1950s: US government intervenes

directly to prevent attempts to
nationalise production in the South.
1945–1970: about 200 coups in Africa,
Asia, Central and South America*
Second & Third World
• USSR changed attitude after Bandung (Stalin’s
death, 1953)
• USSR adopted concept of Third World and
welcomed the success of the Conference
• Khruschchev looks beyond Europe; supports
nationalist forces & turns a blind eye as they
crush communists.
• USSR allowed allies to sell weapons to
Egyptians (vs. France & Britain)
• Change of position also bc of split with China
• For China, Bandung major chance to overcome
isolation.
• Cold war between USSR & China over aid.
Development &
counter-insurgency
• USSR aid diplomacy  anxiety among US ruling
class (1/5 than US's): strong sense of Soviet threat
• Growth of development programmes and
discourses. Development economics becomes
respectable discipline
• Mix of development programmes involving TW elites
and counter-insurgency
• Rostow 1960 The Stages of Economic Growth: A
Non-Communist Manifesto
• Rostow obsessed with defeating communism in
South East Asia. JF Kennedy: “Air Marshall Rostow.”
• Third World play one side against the other to get as
much aid as possible. But neither aid from USSR or
US helps overcome dependency of the periphery.
4. Lewis & Nkrumah: Development or
neo-colonialism?
 In this period, Lewis moved between academia, UN
& Third World officials.
 1954 article ‘Economic Development with
Unlimited Supplies of Labour’: founding text of
development economics
 Neoclassical framework (capital/labour rich
countries)
 But draws on classical pol economy + Marx to
challenge the assumption of a fixed labour supply
 Reserve army of labour (traditional agriculture,
petty commodity producers, women...) keeps
wages down to subsistence levels in modern
industrial sector
 Low wages are key to accumulation  expansion
of productive sector, industrialisation, and
employment (may require protectionism) 
absorption surplus labour  higher wages.
 Lewis opposed "worst features of imperialism" &
"primary accumulation" (à la Marx), but not
imperialism tout court.
 Model relies on inflow of foreign capital - but
underestimates importance of MNCs, profit
repatriation & foreign political control
 Assumes capital will be reinvested productively
in national economy and benefit workers
 Lewis rejects Marx's analysis of the impact of
technology in the modern sector -
unemployment
 Even after WW2, Lewis seeking compromise
between colonial powers & anti-colonial leaders.
 His two-sector development strategy as
applicable both within colonial empire and in an
independent national economy.
 Only after victory of anti-colonial revolutions,
Lewis model used to pursue development of
newly independent nation states.
• 1957: Lewis - economic adviser to Nkrumah, appointed
by UN, until he resigns in 1958
• Nationalists expected Lewis would help Ghana achieve
economic independence & industrialise
• IMF, WB, UN, British & US elites hoped he would
moderate Nkrumah, keep Ghana in western sphere &
primary exports
• Divergences between Nkrumah and Lewis (Tangor):
• Nkrumah more worried about industrialisation and politically
motivated grand developmental projects;
• Lewis wants to favour foreign investment also through tax cuts;
• Nkrumah wants to Africanise army and the police, increase
military spending;
• Nkrumah wants to support the building of African Union - for
example, by lending £10 million to Guinea.
• But fundamental agreement:
• Restraining prices paid to cocoa farmers in order to be able to
finance services, support industrialisation and mobilise reserve
army of labour into the urban sector (dispossess the farmers).
Nkrumah, Lewis
and Lewis’s two
daughters on a
canoe ride on the
Volta River, Ghana,
1957.
• Nkrumah later coins term neo-colonialism: new stage of
imperialism (1963, 1965)
• Denounces neo-colonial practices of MNCs and co-optation of
African elites (Langan 2017)
• Neo-col. makes African problems worse  need for African unity
• But welcomes foreign investment if promotes local development &
loans esp. from USSR
• Draws on Lenin but
 No idea of socialist revolution led by working class & peasants,
internationalism;
 Not enough emphasis on dispossession and apartheid in settler
colonies (South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia)
 No analysis of contradictions of capitalist accumulation
(technology, unemployment etc)
 Need for totalitarian measures to make development possible (I
speak of freedom)
 Nkrumah starts to suppress civil and workers’ rights. Preventive
Detention Act and use of the state apparatus against rail-workers in
1961  one-party state in 1964
 His popularity plummeted along with cocoa prices. 1966: CIA-
backed coup against him. Exile in Guinea.
5. Conclusions
• Labour unrest  revolutionary movements and anti-colonial thought
• Development: initially project to maintain colonial rule, co-optation political elites (incl. TU leaders)
• WW2: shift of hegemony to US; heightened socio-economic and political crisis of colonial empires,
growth anti-colonial and communism movements
• US & Western powers: reconstruction (Marshall Plan), concessions to working classes & repression
of communist forces at home and abroad
• Cold War focus shifts to Asia. New imperialism based on development; opening-up markets;
containing communist forces
• After USSR supports Bandung and nationalist forces  boom of development discourse, mix of US
technical and financial aid programmes & counter-insurgency
• Lewis's thought: parable of neo-colonialism: emergence of an international discourse shared by
elites in ex-colonies & metropole that reproduces colonial relationship without explicit racism and
direct political control
• Nkrumah's life reflects parable of neo-colonialism; in exile in Guinea: necessity of armed struggle
• From end of 1950s - revival of revolutionary armed struggle, critique of development (next week)