Dispossession and Development in the Neoliberal ERA

Özet

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.