DECOLONISING POLITICAL ECONOMY: READING CAPITAL AND IMPERIALISM AT NEOLIBERALISM’S CRISIS CONJUNCTURE

This Viewpoint article considers the importance of decolonising political economy in the current context of neoliberalism’s crisis conjuncture. The discussion centres around a major new work in critical-decolonial political economy, Capital and Imperialism: Theory History and the Present, by Prabhat and Utsa Patnaik. This work revisits ‘colonial drain theory’, explaining how colonialism, imperialism and the North-South divide were necessary adjuncts to capitalism as a ‘money-using’ system, operating through mechanisms of colonial taxation, trade and financing. Capital and Imperialism is discussed in the context of the challenge to ‘decolonise economics’, to suggest that colonial drain analysis needs better integration with intersectional struggles against structural injustice. A broader analysis is required to meet the challenges of nationalism, neo-fascism and environmental limitations.