Dispossession and Development in the Neoliberal ERA
Öz
Based on a detailed review of the existing literature, this article makes four arguments regarding the
dispossessory effects of development projects in the neoliberal era. First, it redefines “accumulation by
dispossession” as the state’s transfer of lower-class people’s small-scale private property or common property
over land, water, and other resources to capital through extra-economic and/or economic coercion. In doing so,
the paper stresses the need to clearly distinguish the state’s deliberate manipulation of the market for
dispossessory purposes from the centralization of capital through market competition. Second, it suggests that
while the goal of expanding capitalist production shaped dispossessory practices in the era of national
developmentalism, the link between production and dispossession has been less direct and relatively weaker in
the neoliberal era. Hence, due to the rapid development of labor-saving technology and increasing significance
of the real estate sector, capital prioritizes the land and natural resources of the lower-class people over the
exploitation of their labor. Third, international development institutions like the World Bank depoliticize
development in order to naturalize and legitimize dispossession. Finally, this paper points to the potentials of
and challenges to possible alliances of workers’ movements and popular struggles against dispossession.
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Referans 1
Anievas, Alexander and Kerem Nişancıoğlu. (2015), How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism
(London: Pluto Press).