The Encounter Between Marxism and Developmentalism

We have moved from classifying societies as 'third world and first world' to 'developing and developed.' Today, the 'third world' sees itself as 'developing,' or, the 'proletariat' sees himself as someone who is a part of a population with a low but improving literacy rate. Within this movement of observing societies and oneself differently, two trends can be noted: the marginalization of Marxism as a body of knowledge and the rise of what can be termed a 'neo-imperialist' body of knowledge, called 'developmentalism.' In the educational institutions of our societies, and particularly in the social science disciplines, we have moved from Marxist ways of analyzing (based on the words 'bourgeoisie' and 'proletarian' etc) to more contemporary modes of analyzing ('infant mortality rates', 'death rates', 'literacy rates' etc). It appears that developmentalism, as a body of knowledge, is contesting with Marxism in appealing to the student who is concerned about society.However, it may be the case that, if not already, we are in the cusp of the emergence of a 'developmentalist Marxism':  a Marxist analysis based on the new terminologies that neo-imperial thought has created. This claim that we are at the cusp of a developmentalist Marxism can be supported by real life examples, such as the potential interactions between China and the UN in Africa. 

We must first understand that the movement from Marxism to developmentalism is not wholesale or total, that there is plenty of room for both viewpoints. It seems that certain locations, particularly in the developing world, become places where there is an intermingling and competition between these two ways of looking at one's world. It is a competition between these two types of knowledge which is at stake, and we need to look at these two bodies of knowledge with proper historical context of the current moment: why is Marxism on the decline and what are the problems of developmentalism, which is on the rise? The developing world is full of examples where Marxist leaning political activists resist developmentalist actors such as the UN. And although Marxism seems to come out second best in this encounter, developmentalism has its own serious problems. Why was the movement from Marxism to developmentalism necessary? What are the consequences of developmentalism in the developing world today? What have been the consequences of developmentalism as a body of knowledge in the developed world in the past?

Marxist analysis as a way of viewing the population had its 'golden age' in the first world, both in its intellectual formations in the Western European nations and its political manifestations in the 'second' (but still 'first) world Soviet Union. In these societies, the concepts of proletarian and bourgeoisie made sense. That was because these societies tended to have stability and homogeneity: the population could be collectivized under the heading proletarian because it tended to live in similar places, work in similar places and had similar quality of life. Their relative wealth and relative quality of life with respect to the rest of the population was also stable for long amounts of time. But, the same terms, the same Marxist analysis, did not apply to the third world population. This is not necessarily always because of the incompatibility of third world populations to Marxist analysis, but rather because the export of Marxism did not occur till quite recently in history. One of the reasons was that the third world was not implicated in Marxist analysis because it had yet to be recognized by Marxism influenced social sciences. The third world was not a part of the political agenda of Marxism either. 

At the same time, and ongoing till today, the third world began to gain prominence and needed to be reckoned with by the bodies of knowledge in the first world. Marxism, like any dominant Western body of thought, needed to address the growing prominence of the third world. Indeed, it seemed quite easy to apply Marxist terminology to the third world, for the third world was full of exploited, poor people. But, at the same time, unlike the first world, the third world is more unpredictable, smaller, unstable politically, poorer etc. For instance, there may be periods of rapid social mobility in the third world (with a significant portion of the population going abroad for employment), so a sustained proletarian struggle does not seem possible, and hence, the term proletarian as a term denoting political urgency and romantic appeal cannot be applied.

But the most important problem is that Marxism, although a body of knowledge seemingly dedicated to the poor and the oppressed, is in fact a euro-centric, dominant body of knowledge in its own right. The amount of attention it pays to the populations of the developed world is seldom afforded to the populations of the developing world, precisely because the final analysis of Marxism still occurs in the developed world and therefore to gain itself legitimay the developed world must critique its own population rather than foreign societies. To put it bluntly, Marxism seems to point to what can be called 'first world problems': a population preoccupied with itself and therefore erecting romanticized terms such as proletarian and bourgeoisie to characterize itself. The terms speak of a large degree of narcissism mediated by bodies of knowledge, something which is not afforded in the developing world. 

Today, through the influence of the UN, World Bank and others, the developing world is rather a place of numbers, a place for 'developmental' activities. Developmentalism is the body of knowledge constructed in such a way as to be relevant more to the developing world than to the developed world. The concern ceases to be for a revolutionary struggle but becomes more of a mission based on certain concrete goals, such as reducing the infant mortality. There are what seem to be realistic ideals and goals, such as the UN Millennium Development Goals, which can, on the face of it, quite rapidly increase one's quality of life. The apparent objective of these development indicators is to provide any nation or region with data in order to facilitate the progress towards meeting the development goals.

In actual fact, however, the indicators do not really facilitate development at all, but have instead facilitated a way of observing the population which seems to take the collective to be more important than the individual, and the data more important than reality. Developing countries' governments are more and more likely to see their population today as numbers, as something that can be manipulated, rather than as real people. They are therefore ready to kill and beat their populations quite easily. As such, 'neo-imperialism' is not about an external superpower directly and physically intervening in a more weaker state, but it is about the stronger state providing the fodder and incentive to the weaker state to control and police its own subjects by itself. Through these numbers and rates, proper and efficient knowledge for state-level control has been made readily available to the governments of developing countries. In Foucauldian terms, these objective numbers and precise rates signify the 'science of government.' 

Meeting the development goals is so important that strands of 'undeveloped' thought are ruthlessly weeded out. Further, if there is a problem with the population, it is no longer considered a crisis for the state, rather, it becomes an international, humanitarian crisis, which gives the state itself a degree of autonomy to ignore the population, thinking the UN will take care of the problem eventually. In the future, a population may be ignored because of its high infant mortality rate rather than being persecuted because of its race or class identity. Homogeneity of populations, so desired by state power, will be articulated on the new numbers and rates rather than on old concepts of identity. When class  is no longer relevant in policies that exclude, Marxist analysis itself will begin to lose its appeal. 

What this problem with developmentalism shows is the truth regarding the history and politics behind development in the world today. The historical myth supporting developmentalism is entirely fabricated and faulty. In a bid to display the ideals of equality, democracy and freedom, the developed world appears as if it included all populations in its development work (we are assuming that the 'developed' states were at one point in time themselves 'developing' states). For instance, it paints a picture which says that it treated everyone equally in trying to eradicate child mortality. However, countries in the developed world have themselves excluded populations throughout their history from their activities of development. What is eradicated is not child mortality but the population with a high child mortality rate, just as there is the Foucauldian 'construct live,' (where the word 'construct' really implies the scientific ways of making life possible) there is the 'policy' of 'let die'. The object of concern for states is 'population' as a flexible number/entity, a number which can be increased or reduced, rather than assuming a static, fixed, real population which must be developed at all costs. This is how 'development' worked in the developed societies, but these societies today unsuccessfully preach an alternative mode of development to the rest of the world. (Development itself, as a concept that we traditionally associate with the UN and the World Bank, in fact has been going on in the developed world for a long time, since the beginning of the histories of nations there have been developmental activities and organizations dedicated to social welfare; development is a new concept only for the developing world.) Developmentalism works not by attempting to develop everyone, but by excluding certain 'others' from the projects of development. Development is a prioritized activity for certain populations that have important roles to play in the world order rather than being open for all marginalized populations. 

In the world today, in the contest between Marxism and Developmentalism, we are at an interesting juncture: we have China which is investing in Africa in infrastructure in an old style state-sponsored Marxism (without the revolutionary fervor at the official level, without the terms proletariat and capitalism in use), and we have the United States using developmental bodies such as the UN to attempt to eradicate poverty, AIDS etc in the same continent, often sending its 'actors' to portray the US as a good state itself with a positive history of developmental work. In any case, what becomes clear is that American developmentalism will not go unimpeded by China's own ambitions and body of knowledge. The smooth, apolitical state desired by developmentalism may in fact face a stern test from the Marxist political actors in Africa. On the other hand, developmentalism may ignite a revolutionary fervor among Africans that the Marxists in China do not want to see. That is why the US and China attempt to be aware of each other's moves, and they will try to avoid the 'battle' between their two bodies of knowledge as much as possible.