Capital, Non-Capital and Transformative Politics in Contemporary India

Deepankar Basu ()
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Deepankar Basu: Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers from University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics

Abstract: Kalyal Sanayal’s work on postcolonial capitalism has been influential in many strands of critical social theory. In this brief note, I investigate three key components of his argument and find them wanting. In particular, I show that the evolution of land ownership in India does not support the claim that the primitive accumulation of capital is one of the important processes in operation in contemporary India. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that the process of primitive accumulation has been arrested or significantly slowed down. In addition to the critical comments on Sanyal (2007), I indicate towards an alternative framework that is better able to explain the key features of contemporary India.

Keywords: postcolonial; capitalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B24 O29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hme
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