Ben Fine

The second of two volumes written “in and against development” meticulously criticizes the World Bank’s scholarship and assesses alternative approaches to development studies.  Long self-proclaimed as the “Knowledge Bank”, the World Bank is as active it is criticized for being in its endeavors to promote US interests in the the age of globalization, neoliberalism and financialization across its scholarship, ideology and policy in practice. Its analytical framing draws upon economics imperialism in general, and its evolution through three phases. Corresponding phases of new, newer and newest development economics are identified, with the World Bank taking a leading role in each, with implications for the expanding scope of development economics and its contestations with development studies.

South Africa’s post-apartheid transition has proven disastrous. But what caused this unfortunate trajector? oday, the country is marked by the emergence of a black elite of enriched capitalists who have benefitted from the globalization, neoliberalization and financialization of the economy in general, and from its Minerals-Energy and Financial Complex in particular. By contrast, inequalities, poverty and failing social provision have persisted. Recent attention has shifted to how this trajectory was initiated, with some suggesting a lack of available alternative policy options at the time of transition. The Political Economy of South Africa’s Post-apartheid Transition shows this to be false. In fact, a full range of progressive alternatives were rejected, leading to corresponding consequences from “state capture” to electoral defeat.