Benjamin Selwyn 
The Global Development Crisis 

The central paradox of the contemporary world is the simultaneous
presence of wealth on an unprecedented scale, and mass poverty.
Liberal theory explains the relationship between capitalism and
poverty as one based around the dichotomy of inclusion (into
capitalism) vs exclusion (from capitalism). Within this discourse,
the global capitalist system is portrayed as a sphere of economic
dynamism and as a source of developmental opportunities for less
developed countries and their populations. Development policy
should, therefore, seek to integrate the poor into the global
capitalist system.

The Global Development Crisis challenges this way of
thinking. Through an interrogation of some of the most important
political economists of the last two centuries Friedrich List, Karl
Marx, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Schumpeter, Alexander Gerschenkron, Karl
Polanyi and Amarta Sen, Selwyn argues that class relations are the
central cause of poverty and inequality, within and between
countries. In contrast to much development thinking, which portrays
‚the poor‘ as reliant upon benign assistance, this book
advocates the concept of labour-centred development. Here
‚the poor‘ are the global labouring classes, and their
own collective actions and struggles constitute the basis of an
alternative form of non-elitist, bottom-up human development.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Figures and Tables page vi

Acknowledgements vii

1 The Global Development Crisis 1

2 Friedrich List and the Foundations of Statist Political
Economy 29

3 Karl Marx, Class Struggle and Social Development 53

4 Trotsky, Gerschenkron and the Clash of Marxism and Statist
Political Economy 76

5 Creative Destruction and Global Inequality: From Marx to
Schumpeter, and Back 104

6 Class Struggle or Embedded Markets? Marx, Polanyi and the
Meanings and Possibilities of Socialism 135

7 Development Within or Against Capitalism? A Critique of
Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom 161

8 Towards a Labour-Centred Development 181

References and Further Reading 209

Index 233

Über den Autor

Ben Selwyn is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex, and author of Workers, State and Development in Brazil: Powers of Labour, Chains of Value (2012).