Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One Stocktaking and Assessment
- Chapter Two De-development and Conventional Policies
- Chapter Three Class Politics Masquerading as Democracy
- Chapter Four The Stillborn and Decomposing Arab State
- Chapter Five Wars and Oil Control
- Chapter Six Dislocation under Imperialist Assault
- Chapter Seven Arab Disintegration and the Rising Power of Imperialism
- Chapter Eight Commodification of Labour
- Chapter Nine Coming to Conclusion in Times of Socialist Ideological Retreat
- References
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One Stocktaking and Assessment
- Chapter Two De-development and Conventional Policies
- Chapter Three Class Politics Masquerading as Democracy
- Chapter Four The Stillborn and Decomposing Arab State
- Chapter Five Wars and Oil Control
- Chapter Six Dislocation under Imperialist Assault
- Chapter Seven Arab Disintegration and the Rising Power of Imperialism
- Chapter Eight Commodification of Labour
- Chapter Nine Coming to Conclusion in Times of Socialist Ideological Retreat
- References
- Index
Summary
Over the last three decades, the Arab world (hereafter referred to as the AW, as per the definition of the Arab League) has undergone a process of reverse development. It has de-developed. The quality of its capital stock has depreciated, median incomes have plummeted, unemployment has soared, and restrictions on already constrained civil liberties have tightened. When wars and civil wars in Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria are considered, the scale of humanitarian disasters could possibly compete with those of the Congo. In short, the AW has failed the test of development, broadly defined as a process of economic growth, with expanding output and employment, technological progress and institutional transformation that steadily improve the well-being of working classes (ESCCHR 2004). That the Arab ruling classes would bring about development was the lie that their bought intellectuals peddled. Instead of development, or ‘the realisation of the right to development and the fulfilment of a set of claims by people, principally on their state but also on the society at large, including the international community, in a process that enables them to realise the rights set forth in the International Bill of Human Rights’, working classes in the AW have experienced the reverse (ESCCHR 2004).
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- Information
- Arab Development DeniedDynamics of Accumulation by Wars of Encroachment, pp. 1 - 26Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2014