WP-06: Swimming against the current: Social relations and self-subsistence in the market economy

The market-centric development is driven on the belief that social orders can be most efficiently achieved by individuals pursuing self-interest in a self-regulated economy (Gill 1995: 55). This paper challenges this belief by contending that individuals are not strictly self-interested and the self-regulated economy is actually regulated by corporations instead of the state. In reaction to the dominant narrow view of economic development, social struggles have taken the form of everyday self-subsisting activities, altruistic and non-monetised reciprocity behaviours driven by social relations, as well as international movements that aim to transfer the market regulation power from corporations to small and medium-sized farmers. These struggles that alternative ways to development besides the market mechanism are possible and, to many people, may prove better than the current concentration of resources.

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