The invisible hand the visible foot - Araghi The invisible ...
The invisible hand the visible foot - Araghi The invisible hand means that if left alone markets will balance themselves. The visible foot derives from politically constructed global agrarian relations. Araghi takes a world historical viewpoint. He looks at three central themes that the visible foot causes. Depeasantization, deruralization and hyper urbanization. He divides history into three main stages; (1) colonial liberal globalism from the discovery of the new world until the early 20th century (2) long national developmentalism 1917-1973 (reformist phase) (3) post colonial neoliberal globalism. The first and third stages are closely associated with economy liberalism, anti-welfarism, free market fetishism and designs for constructing a truly global division of labour. The 2nd stage was the retreat of the 1st due to socialism and anti-colonial nationalism. The current phase, the 3rd is an extension of the 1st phase. In phase 1 and 3 there is a dispossession of the peasantry in 2 ways. This means power shifts in the hands of the few, mostly by exploiting the peasantry. The first occurs though different areas of national protectionism of the home market. (as touched by Clara in the Bate’s article we observed the government exploiting peasants for purely developmentalist means through price controls and export restrictions) The second occurs by displacement in eras of world market hegemony through the establishment of global food regimes of capital. The global food regime is the value based global division of labour, we saw it’s establishment during the 1st phase, colonial liberal globalism, where global pools of peasants and wage labours emerge at the expense of domestic sources, creating the dispossession of the peasantry from abroad through foreign power relations The 2nd phase, termed “long national developmentalism,” was a reformist phase, with the ackownledgement of the postcolonial peasantry as a political force and the accommodation of their demands and needs – economic orientation is domestic, either by: a) socialist means, b) market-led national development – two key themes dominated the latter: i) import-subsituting indutrilization policies, meant the appease the urban populations, ii) US-sponsored land reform policies, meant to pacify the needs of the peasantry but also eliminate any moves to socialist tendencies (proposed as a political motives by the US during the Cold War against the Russians and extension of the visible food in action) – family farms promoted to create individuality, cheerisment of freedom and democracy; establishment of subsistence farming, some of which were able to accumulate capital but others mostly failing – emergence of the world market substantially undercut and derailed home market formation and nation-based division of labour – US surpluses of food aid depressed world prices and encouraged third world food imports/ dependency; dependency of imports emerges – contradicted the liberal idea that stressed national development and small scale expansion of capitalism towards industrialization – overall we see the goal of peasantization/ development being curtailed due to external trends that lead to their collapse and depansantization to the urban setting The 3rd phase, postcolonial neoliberal globalism, seeks to reverse protectionist measures of society towards markets – policy lending from the developed world under the rubric of
rural development and poverty reduction paved the way for the rise of the agro-inductrial export model – food became an important tool towards altering nation state division of labor in the third world rather than purely aid – disposal of surpluses in the West creating dependencies in the developing world – in the mean time interventionist institutions established through the World Bank that advocated privatization, deregulation, trade market liberalization and currency devaluation in order for developing nations to receive capital – debt regime established as the political maneuverings of the West resestablished global enclosures as market liberalizations meant that the ability for developing peasants to compete failed and their service costs were lowered – thus the dispossession of the pesantry and the global food regime reemerged, with the developing world providing cheap labour and materials for export/ value adding processing in the North. The peasantry will always be exploited and displaced by the select few in order for a society to be able to fulfill national needs and to emerge in the global market.
rural development and poverty reduction paved the way for the rise of the agro-inductrial export model – food became an important tool towards altering nation state division of labor in the third world rather than purely aid – disposal of surpluses in the West creating dependencies in the developing world – in the mean time interventionist institutions established through the World Bank that advocated privatization, deregulation, trade market liberalization and currency devaluation in order for developing nations to receive capital – debt regime established as the political maneuverings of the West resestablished global enclosures as market liberalizations meant that the ability for developing peasants to compete failed and their service costs were lowered – thus the dispossession of the pesantry and the global food regime reemerged, with the developing world providing cheap labour and materials for export/ value adding processing in the North. The peasantry will always be exploited and displaced by the select few in order for a society to be able to fulfill national needs and to emerge in the global market.
