>*Solution*? No comrade, no one wants to stop there, be sure! The
>futility of *solving* capitalism's local and global overaccumulation
>crisis at the scale of the nation-state is where we in the marxian
>camp logically depart from the Keynesians.
Ah, but our besuited betters are way ahead of you, comrade! They read Marx, too y'know! Why not do to Africa what worked so well in Europe 300 years ago. And now we can call it 'the new development economics' (well, 'privatisation' isn't as shiny a tag as it used to be, eh?) ... that bloke Rostow was on the right track, of course, but if you really want that 'take-off', why, you've got to make it happen! 'Development' is an omelette, and 'peasants' are the eggs.
So here's the solution you're after, Patrick; chapter 27 of *Capital* applied in practice:
"In this penetrating study of a problem of global importance, Seavoy insists that development economics is a failed discipline because it does not recognize the revolutionary difference between subsistence and commercial social values. Seavoy demonstrates that commercial labor norms are essential for producing assured food surpluses in all crop years and that an assured food surplus is essential for sustaining the development process. The commercialization of food production is a political process, as in the term political economy. **If peasants have a choice, Seavoy shows through historical case studies, they will not voluntarily adopt commercial labor norms. Central governments must overcome peasant resistance to performing commercial labor norms by various forms of coercion, including what has historically been most effective: depriving peasants of control of land use by foreclosure and eviction for excessive subsistence debts.** Coercion is most effective when it is linked to money rewards for peasants who voluntarily transform themselves into yeoman cultivators or farmers."
(taken from an October 2000 brochure from Praeger Publishers on *Subsistence and Economic Development* by Ronald E. Seavoy, "a Professor in the Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington. In addition, Professor Seavoy is a consulting exploration geologist with extensive experience in the developing world.")
I was tempted to sign off with: 'Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.'
But have opted instead for, 'capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt'.
Yours glad he's not a peasant, Rob,