And another, if it doesn't insult comrades' anti-commercial
sensibilities...
(Oh, the day this debuted at the Harare book fair, on Monday this
week, the Zim currency dropped 12% due to rampant speculation.
Dialectically, what more could one want, a confirmation of financial
parasatism, at the same time putting the book out of reach of all but
perhaps a couple of dozen local readers!)
Uneven Zimbabwe
A Study of Finance, Development and Underdevelopment
by Patrick Bond
Africa World Press, Trenton (New Jersey)
(PO Box 1892, Trenton, NJ 08607; http:\\www.africanworld.com\)
ISBN 0-86543-538-3 (cloth), 515pp.
CONTENTS
Preface
Part One
Theories of Finance and Uneven Development
1 Finance, accumulation and uneven development
Part Two
Finance, Settler-Colonial Development
and African Underdevelopment in Rhodesia
2 Finance and imperial accumulation
3 Growth, crisis and financial regulation
4 Finance and uneven development in city and countryside
5 The rise and fall of the UDI economy
Part Three
Finance and Uneven Development in Zimbabwe
6 Post-independence "socialism," nationalism and capitalist
stagnation
7 Financiers and bureaucrats
8 The fortunes of speculators
9 Housing finance and uneven urban development
10 Farm finance and uneven rural development
11 Premonitions of adjustment
12 Eternal Suffering for the African People (ESAP)
Part Four
Zimbabwe's Lessons
13 Conclusion: Financial power and progressive resistance
BACK COVER:
Robert Mugabe once complained, "There exists among the
membership of the new ZANU(PF) a minority, but very
powerful bourgeois group which champions the cause of
international finance and national private capital,
whose interests thus stand opposed to the development
and growth of a socialist and egalitarian society in
Zimbabwe."
Uneven Zimbabwe examines the influence of domestic
and international financial markets and financiers on
uneven development in Zimbabwe, using -- and
contributing to -- the tools of radical political
economy.
Theoretically, Bond begins with criticism of the
classical Marxist concept of "finance capital" for
focusing on institutional characteristics and failing to
grasp underlying dynamics. Instead, as economic crisis
tendencies emerge, the power of finance periodically
intensifies, temporarily displacing crisis through time
and space and across geographical scales. But the limits
of the financial solution become evident when paper
assets delink from the productive assets they are meant
to represent, as well as in the role that finance plays
in amplifying uneven development across different
economic sectors, spaces and scales.
BLURBS:
"Patrick Bond's Uneven Zimbabwe strikes me as timely,
thoroughly researched and stimulating. Anyone interested
in the role of finance capital in processes of
development/underdevelopment should read it." --
Giovanni Arrighi
"This book is a sweeping survey of Zimbabwe, of the
intertwining of capital and citizenry, of the power of
global and local finance, and of the shaping of the
political and policy terrain. It is a fresh and honest
analysis and certainly for many Zimbabweans, the most
important book on economics and politics to date." --
Tendai Biti
