Chapter Three - Class Politics Masquerading as Democracy

Summary

Development, as defined in the introduction, captures the terms by which human potentialities are unleashed and the welfare gains afforded to the working classes are broadened. Development in this sense ensues not as a result of an atomised human agency realised in the state, but rather as a result of political struggle mediated in forms of working-class organization that improve living standards. Development may be further defined as a balanced outcome that combines civil liberties and ‘freedom’ from serious want for all (Sen 1999). This notion of development does not preclude freedom from hunger, oppression and anything else that stands in the way of working classes participating fully in shaping their collective future; it is simply a concretisation on Sen's definition; one is free by realising the necessity to be free from want for the whole of the working class. On a less qualitative note, development combines the infusion of knowledge in production, incremental growth in capital and progressive institutional change. Hence, development is both improved living standards wrought in the class struggle and growth in capital stock. It is the realisation of the subject of history as it interacts with the totality of the social condition, the object. Development therefore becomes the articulation of the social forces that shape the outcome of capital accumulation. How does this expanded view of development tally with Arab conditions?