Compressed Capitalism, Globalisation and the Fate of Indian Development

Abstract

India’s economic turnaround since the 1980s and especially since 1991 has been widely credited as a result of economic reforms. Gradual and systematic deregulation at home and increased international integration promises even better economic performance. While this may be only partly true since a good part of India is untouched by economic growth in any meaningful way, even if official reports of declining poverty are to be believed. The question this paper poses is why, despite envious economic growth rates, India’s development seems elusive. This is a complex issue and could be addressed variously but the reasons are all likely to resort to “nation-centric” explanations. I take an alternative perspective, to position India in the wider capitalist dynamic of the late twentieth century, articulating the national with the global. Late capitalism in India and for that matter other select developing countries has meant new technologies, mature capitalists and a relatively well-developed state. All three cumulatively stand for economic growth, industrialisation, urbanisation and some politically negotiated redistribution. However, as I would like to argue that the workings of compressed capitalism, that is, primitive accumulation, which is historically complete elsewhere, is an ongoing feature in India, dispossessing and displacing people thereby jeopardising future development. Furthermore, the persistence of petty commodity production due to displacement and exclusion due to technology-led and enclave-based economic production adds to the development conundrum. The resulting inequality in India in an expanding economy is thus not an anomaly but a reflection of systemic capitalist dynamics.