The dispossession of agricultural producers from
the land has long been considered a condition of successful capitalist
development. The main contention of this paper is that such dispossession has
in fact become the source of major developmental handicaps for at least some and
possibly many countries of the global South. We develop our argument by
focusing on the South(ern) African experience as a paradigmatic outlier case of
accumulation by dispossession—that is, as one of its extreme instances capable
of highlighting in almost ideo-typical fashion its nature and limits. After
reconstructing interpretations of capitalist development in Southern Africa
that in the early 1970s established the region as a paradigm of accumulation by
dispossession, we discuss how useful these interpretations are for
understanding the more recent developmental trajectory of South Africa. We then
suggest ways in which these interpretations from the 1970s should be
reformulated in light of subsequent developments. We conclude by briefly
examining the theoretical and policy implications of the analysis.
Click here to download this paper in pdf.
