| Abstract: | This afterword places the long essay “Capitalist Development in Hostile Environments” in the context of Giovanni Arrighi's overall intellectual trajectory. It highlights several crucial theoretical and methodological contributions to debates, including on the relationship between proletarianization and capitalist development, and between labour migration, class formation, and class conflict; on the interrelationship between “internal” and “external” processes in the explanation of social change; and on the distinction between economic progress, “catching‐up” development, and popular welfare. It concludes with a brief discussion of ways in which Arrighi's later theorization of the longue durée evolution of historical capitalism provides a robust conceptual framework for ongoing studies of proletarianization and capitalist development. |
