Social Formation in Bangladesh: Political Economy of State, Class, and Capitalism

Flashcards covering the political economy, class structures, and historical evolution of social formation in Bangladesh from the pre-British era to the modern day.

Social Formation

A theoretical discussion of the historical dynamics in Bangladesh involving the state, social classes, and capitalism, tracing back from the pre-British period to the present.

Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP)

A societal typology discussed by Karl Marx characterized by a hydraulic economy, despotic government, rigid caste system, and the absence of private property.

British Raj ($1757 \text{--} 1947$)

A colonial period where Indian socio-economic structures were reshaped through exploitation and plundering, producing a British industrial bourgeoisie but no indigenous ones.

Pakistan Period ($1947 \text{--} 1971$)

A time when West Pakistan acted as a colonial ruler over East Pakistan, accumulating capital by plundering resources and exploiting surpluses from the eastern wing.

Businessmen-politician oligarchy

A ruling group that creates a "political mode of production" to determine state-class relationships and dominate capitalist relations.

Political mode of production

A system where politics serves as the means by which individuals from different class categories make money or gain a livelihood.

Primitive capital accumulation

The phase of gathering capital through methods such as plundering, which Marx notes the English bourgeoisie performed in India while destroying local industries like the muslin trade.

Overdeveloped state

A concept by Hamza Alavi describing post-colonial societies that inherit a powerful bureaucratic-military apparatus designed for colonial exploitation.

Military-bureaucratic oligarchy

The real elite in certain post-colonial states that participates in politics to mediate competing interests of propertied classes.

Comprador bourgeoisie

A term used by Mao Zedong to describe a native class that acts as a passive tool for foreign industry and commerce interests.

Lumpenbourgeoisie

A concept by Andre Gunder Frank referring to colonial and neocolonial elites who manipulate the capitalist system through illegal means and plundering.

Administrative state

A term used by Serajul Islam to describe the regime during the post-Mujib period ($1975 \text{--} 1981$) dominated by civil and military bureaucrats.

Cultural lag

A theory by William Ogburn applied to Bangladesh to explain the gap between underdeveloped political culture and formal political institutions.

Peripheral formations theory

A theory by Samir Amin identifying characteristics of social formation in developing nations, such as the predominance of agrarian capitalism and the advent of local merchant bourgeoisie under foreign capital.

Rent seekers

Individuals who shape state, class, and capitalism through wealth extraction rather than production; estimated to be $2$ million people in Bangladesh as of $2014$.

Finance Department

One of the three main tasks of pre-British and colonial government focused on the plunder of the interior for capital accumulation.

War Department

A government department in the pre-British and colonial eras that focused on capital accumulation through external plundering.

Public Works Department

A task of the pre-British state responsible for infrastructure like irrigation, which the British Raj neglected to the detriment of local agriculture.

Lumpen proletariat

Described by Marx as the "refuse of all classes," this group acts as musclemen, terrorists, or extortionists for the dominant lumpen bourgeoisie.

Neoliberal economic policies

Market-driven practices, such as privatization, initiated in Bangladesh during the industrial policies of $1982$ and $1984$ under General Ershad.

Twenty-two business families ($22$)

A super-rich class in West Pakistan that accumulated enormous wealth through state-led development from $1947$ to the $1960s$.

Authoritarian democracy

A term characterizing the contradictory nature of recent Bangladesh politics where democratic forms exist alongside authoritarian practices and political repression.