Scarcity-induced domestic controls spawn further stagnation and graft in revolutions

Evidence

The extreme kinds of scarcity and destitution which had required the most far-reaching domestic controls gave rise, inevitably, to further stagnation, even to some degree of nepotism, graft, the black market, mutual competition for the smallest quantity of goods, ethnic animosities over resources and markets. Literal devastation of the land meant that agricultural production was barely enough to feed the surviving population, bur lack of development resources for a country reduced to rubble meant ·also that no dramatic improvement in production was possible. American imperialism had made sure that the material dimensions of the Vietnamese Revolution would collapse utterly, with nor even When this material devastation brought in its train the inevitable disorientations in the social and political domains, those who believe in the moral grandeur of revolutions but not in the brute reality of the material conditions in which people actually build their lives and their revolutions were thoroughly disillusioned. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 133

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Frankfurt School materialist analyses in the reader’s prior work on scarcity shaping social character and institutions. — connects to: Austerity-bred consensus sustains further austerity in a self-reinforcing loop — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 235; Taxation-driven manure scarcity trapped French peasants in soil exhaustion cycles — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 275

Broader Connections

• Austerity-bred consensus sustains further austerity in a self-reinforcing loop #complicates (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 235