City, Class and Trade : Social and Economic Change in the Third World

The emergence of a single world economy in the late 20th century has shifted economic management from the state to a global system that subordinates an increasing array of activities to market criteria with profound implications for the less developed countries. These essays, published in association with the Development Planning Unit, University College, London, are concerned with the practical and theoretical issues involved in this change. They cover a range of subjects including future patterns of urbanization; problems of urban planning; the emergence of new bourgeoisies in Asian and Latin American countries; the new international labour proletariat of labour migrants; theories of unequal exchange; and the flows of trade, capital and labour on the Pacific rim. The essays challenge many of the orthodoxies of development theory, and argue towards the reconstruction of a socialist position.