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State Capitalism, Class Structure, and Social Transformation in the Third World: The Case of Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Mark N. Cooper
Mark N. Cooper
Affiliation:
Consumer Energy Council of America
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Extract

One of the most dramatic developments in the social structures of third-world societies in the post-World War II era has been the expanding role of the state. While the extent and precise form of the state's involvement in economic, political, and social activities has varied from place to place, the trend toward a more important role for the state has been pervasive and the basic pattern in which this role has expanded seems to have been repeated in nation after nation. As a result, a growing number of scholars have begun to speak of a generalized form of political/economic organization in the third world—state capitalism. They seem to agree on a number of characteristics of state capitalism at the descriptive/ empirical level.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , November 1983 , pp. 451 - 469
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

NOTES

1 Petras, James, “State Capitalism and the Third World”, Developmeni and Change, 8:1 (1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar provides a basic summary. Country-specific studies are plentiful, with special attention being focussed on Peru (Molinari, Baltazar Carvedo, “The State and the Bourgeoisie in the Peruvian Fishmeal Industry”, Latin American Perspectives, 4:3, 1977;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDore, Elizabeth, “Crisis and Accumulation in the Peruvian Mining Industry”, Latin American Perspectives, 4:3, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Colombia (Fernandez, Raul and Ocampo, Jose, “The Andean Pact and State Capitalism in Colombia”, Latin American Perspectives, 2:3, 1975;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWright, Philip, “The Role of the State and the Politics of Capital Accumulation in Colombia”, Development and Change, II, 1980)Google Scholar in Latin America; Algeria (Farsoun, Karen, “State Capitalism in Algeria”. Middle East Research and Information Project, no. 35, 1975)Google Scholar; Tanzania (Shivji, Issa, Class Struggles in Tanzania [London: Heinemann, 1976)Google Scholar, and Zambia (Turok, Ben, “Zambia's System of State Capitalism”, Development and Change, II, 1980) in Africa.Google Scholar

2 Critical articles which argue that the conceptualization of state capitalism is, essentially, too shallow and that state capitalism should not be accorded such a major theoretical status as a form of political/economic organization include Dupuy, Alex and Truchil, Barry, “Problems in the Theory of State Capitalism”, Theory and Society, 7, 1979;Google ScholarSainz, J. P. Perez, “Toward a Conceptualization of State Capitalism in the Periphery”. Insurgent Sociologist, 9:4, 1980;Google Scholar and the debates that have followed in the wake of Petras' argument (New Left Review, 101–102, 1977, Development and Change, 8:4, 1977).Google Scholar

3 Theda Skocpol's framework (“State and Revolution”, Theory and Society, 7, 1979, p. 15), although focussing on a different historical phenomenon, is particularly helpful in understanding the intricate relationship between economy, class structure, and the polity: “We must look not merely at the activities of social groups alone, but rather at the points of intersection between international conditions and pressures, on the one hand, and class-structured economies and politically organized interests, on the other hand”.Google Scholar

4 There are a number of class maps of Egypt. See Wassef, Ceres Wissa, “Le Proletariat et le Sous Proletariat Industriel et Agricole en Republic Arab Unie”, Orient, 1969;Google ScholarShafir, T., The Issue of National Liberation and the Socialist Revolution in Egypt (Beirut, 1977) (Arabic)Google Scholar; Hussein, Mahmoud, Class Conflict in Egypt: 1945–1970 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973);Google ScholarRiad, Hassan, L'Egypt Nasserienne (Paris: Editions Minuit, 1964).Google Scholar

5 Marx argued that there were four moments in the economic process: “The conclusion that we reach is not that production, distribution, exchange and consumption are identical, but that they all form the members of a totality, distinctions within a unity”. (The Grundrisse, Nicolaus, Martin [trans. [New York: Vintage, 1973, P. 99).Google Scholar There is a rough correspondence between these four moments and the four dimensions I have chosen for empirical analysis as follows:

6 Springborg, Robert, The Ties that Bind: Association and Policy Making in Egypt (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1974); Mahmoud Mahmoud Razak, “Studies of the Proposed Changed System of Ownership for the Development of New Land Resources in the U.A.R.”, Institute of National Planning (INP) memo 985 (Arabic).Google Scholar

7 Hifagy, Shams al-Din, Agricultural Cooperation: Thought and Law (Cairo: 1973) (Arabic);Google ScholarBasyuni, Sayyid, Agricultural Ownership: Between Fact and Law (Cairo: 1976) (Arabic);Google ScholarAbdullah, Ismael Sabry, The Organization of the Public Sector, (Cairo: 1969) (Arabic).Google Scholar

8 Fadil, Mahmoud Abdel, Development. Income Distribution and Social Change in Rural Egypt (1952–1970), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

9 Hansen, Bent and Nashishibi, K., Egypt: Foreign Exchange Regimes and Economic Development (New York: NBER and Columbia University Press, 1976);Google ScholarRu'uf, Mohammed Mahmud Abdel, “Principle Agricultural Advancement in the Egyptian Arab Republic of the Period 1952/53–1969/70,” INP memo 1029 (Arabic);Google ScholarIbrahim, Abdul Rahman Zaki, “Price Incentives in the Development of Egyptian Agriculture”, L'Egypt Contemporaine, 355:1971.Google Scholar

10 Saab, Gabriel, The Egyptian Agrarian Reform: 1952–1962 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967);Google ScholarMotorisation et Development Agricole au Proche Orient (Paris: Sedes, 1960).Google Scholar

11 Radwan, Samir, The Impact of Agrarian Reform on Rural Egypt, (Geneva: International Labor Office Working Paper, 1977).Google Scholar

12 Gweida, Faruk, Egypt's Capital: How Was it Wasted? (Cairo: 1976) (Arabic);Google ScholarMursi, Fuad, This is the Economic Liberalization (Cairo: 1976) (Arabic).Google Scholar

13 Mabro, Robert and Radwan, Samir, The Industrialization of Egypt, 1933–73 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).Google Scholar

14 Official Gazette, Legislative Section, Minutes of the National Assembly (Arabic), April 17, 18, 1976.Google Scholar

15 Cooper, Mark, “State Capitalism and Class Structure in the Third World: The Case of Egypt”, 49th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society (1979) contains a full set of quantitative estimates of consumption relations.Google Scholar

16 Vatikiotis, P. J.. The Egyptian Army in Politics: Patterns for New Nations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961)Google Scholar spoke of the Statocratization of Egyptian society, an obvious early parallel to the expansion of the state concepts used here. See also Ayubi, Nazih, Bureaucratic Evolution and Political Development: Egypt 1952–1970 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, St. Anthony's College, Oxford, 1976);Google ScholarMalek, Anwar Abdel, Egypt: Military Society (New York: Random House, 1968).Google Scholar

17 Schumpeter, Joseph, Imperialism and Social Class (New York: Meridian, 1951) pp. 137 … 160.Google Scholar

18 See Cooper, Mark, “Egyptian State Capitalism in Crisis: Economic Policy and Political Interests, 1967–1971”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 10:4 (1979).Google Scholar

19 Hansen and Nashishibi, op. cit. p. 127.Google Scholar

20 Schumpeter, op. cit., p. 151.Google Scholar