Growth against Democracy (English, H. L. T. Quan)

Product description Review Growth Against Democracy is an outstanding contribution to the scholarly literature on global capitalism and its effects. I don’t know of any other work that shows in such a thorough way the connections between the larger processes and practices of globalized capitalism and the increased tendency in U.S. law to privilege corporate over what Quan calls bio-personhood. The practical and political significance of this contemporary debate about corporations’ legal rights is demonstrated with careful attention to the important legal details. -- Jackie Smith, University of PittsburghThis excellent book is a radical critique of unfettered neoliberal developmentalism and its devastating impact on hundreds of millions of people in the Global South living in absolute poverty. It argues that "savage developmentalism" involves a commitment to three priorities: expansionism (including wars), "social stability," and anti-democracy. Quan (Arizona State Univ.) does a superb job of unpacking the "basic mythologies" of capitalism, including the belief in the self-regulating market. Quan argues that the mainstream debate on development neglects the issue of whether capitalist development is desirable or undesirable. He criticizes both modernization theory and neo-Marxist dependency theory, suggesting that they share a similar epistemological commitment to "progress" and "modernity." However, he does not explain why genuinely democratic and substantively fair development as modernization and progress would be undesirable for the Global South. The book illustrates the way "savage development" operates in the modern world with three excellent case studies: Brazilian-Japanese trade and financial relations in Brazil (1964-85), China's expansionist strategy in Africa, and the neoliberal economic order imposed on Iraq after the 2003 US invasion and occupation. This well-researched book would have benefited from a glossar. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. ― CHOICE About the Author H. L. T. Quan is a political theorist, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and assistant professor in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University.