Development and globalization : a Marxian class analysis / David F. Ruccio.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-395) and index.

Introduction -- 1. Rethinking Planning, Globalization, and Development from a Marxian Perspective Planning -- 2. Essentialism and Socialist Economic Planning: A Methodological Critique of Optimal Planning Theory -- 3. Planning and Class in Transitional Societies -- 4. The State and Planning in Nicaragua -- 5. Nicaragua: The State, Class, and Transition Development -- 6. Radical Theories of Development: Frank, the Modes of Production School, and Amin -- 7. The Costs of Austerity in Nicaragua: The Worker-Peasant Alliance, 1979-1987 -- 8. When Failure Becomes Success: Class and the Debate over Stabilization and Adjustment -- 9. Power and Class: The Contribution of Radical Approaches to Debt and Development -- 10. Capitalism and Industrialization in the Third World: Recognizing the Costs and Imagining Alternatives -- 11. 'After' Development: Reimagining Economy and Class -- 12. Reading Harold: Class Analysis, Capital Accumulation, and the Role of the Intellectual Globalization -- 13. Fordism on a World Scale: International Dimensions of Regulation -- 14. Class Beyond the Nation-State -- 15. Global Fragments: Subjectivity and Class Politics in Discourses of Globalization -- 16. Globalization and Imperialism.

Development and Globalization is antiessentialist social theory at its very best. Whether re-reading socialist planning debates, economic and social development struggles in the global South, or capitalist and alter-capitalist theories of globalization, David Ruccio engages the contemporary conjuncture in fresh and exciting ways, demonstrating throughout the successes of the rethinking Marxism project and the immense potential and range of contemporary Marxian analysis. What Maurice Dobb did for twentieth-century critiques of socialist planning, capitalist development, and imperialist expansion, Ruccio redoubles for a new age of post-Communist and globalized political economy.

John Pickles, Earl N. Phillips Distinguished Professor of International Studies and Chair of the Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping, and the Geo-Coded World.

David Ruccio is a central figure in the exciting and innovative "postmodern" school of Marxian thought. Through his own writing and his stewardship of the journal Rethinking Marxism he has contributed immensely to this tradition. In this collection, Ruccio draws together, sharpens, and extends central insights from that school of thought and applies them to debates over socialist planning, economic development, and globalization. The essays demonstrate the depth of Ruccio's intellect and the range of his expertise, to be sure, while also conveying the power of the postmodern Marxian tradition in helping us to overcome the malaise that now affects much contemporary left scholarship about prospects for radical reform in the Global South. In Ruccio's hands, Marxism emerges as a vibrant tradition that continues to generate new avenues of scholarship and practical politics in pursuit of a more just world.

George DeMartino, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and author of Global Economy, Global Justice: Theoretical and Policy Alternatives to Neoliberalism.

Since the mid-1980s, David F. Ruccio has been developing a new framework of Marxian class analysis and applying it to various issues in socialist planning, Third World development, and capitalist globalization. The aim of this collection is to show, through a series of concrete examples, how Marxian class analysis can be used to challenge existing modes of thought and to produce new insights about the problems of capitalist development and the possibilities of imagining and creating noncapitalist economies.

The book consists of fifteen essays, plus an introductory chapter situating the author's work in a larger intellectual and political context, and a foreword by Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff. The topics covered range from planning theory to the role of the state in the Nicaraguan Revolution, from radical theories of underdevelopment to the Third World debt crisis, and from a critical engagement with regulation theory to contemporary discussions of globalization and imperialism.

Ruccio demonstrates that, in the current crises of capitalism, a rethinking of Marxian theory serves both to challenge the existing terms of economic debate and to contribute to the project of fostering noncapitalist alternatives. As such, it makes an invaluable contribution to the literature in this field and will prove useful to both researchers and professionals alike. --Book Jacket.