Lineages of Revolt Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East.

• Author: Farasin, Fadi Abdullah
• Position: Book review

Lineages of Revolt Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East

By Adam Hanieh

Chicago Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2013, 273 pages, $19.95, ISBN: 9781608463251.

The Arab spring has wakened enormous interest in the political economy of the Middle East with analysis pouring from a wide spectrum of schools of thought; however, Hanieh disparages most of the analysis as being superficial and focusing on the surface appearance of poverty and inequality rather than engaging with the nature of capitalism as a systematic totality that penetrates every aspect of social life. Hanieh, therefore, feels compelled to throw his hat in the ring and provide us with his own analysis of the Arab spring through the lens of classic Marxist theory.

By utilizing the notion of class, Hanieh attempts to explore the aspects of the intertwined development of class and state in the Middle East, tracing how different classes originated, what their accumulation is based around, how this shifted over time and the ways in which the process of class formation links to the nature and changing attribute of the state. Throughout the book the concepts of: internationalization of class and state, imperialism, and neoliberalism are regularly deployed. According to the book, the internationalizing of class and state in the Middle East has rendered the national state apparatus indispensable in managing the domestic 'capital order' in a manner that contributes to the managing of the international 'capitalist order.' Imperialism is not a feature of colonial age Hanieh reminds us, but an ongoing and present process utilizing financial instruments, such as debt and foreign aid, taking place in interaction with indigenous social and political forces with the ultimate goal of reconstituting patterns of state and class in such a way that allows the penetration of neoliberal reforms. Neoliberalism, which is much more than simply 'free market' economic policies, in turn, represent a radical restructuring of class relations that act to facilitate and reinforce the region's domination by external powers. By utilizing Marxist theory, class notion, and the concepts just described Hanieh implores his readers not to view the Arab spring as a struggle between authoritarian states and people's yearning for liberty (political and economic), rather to view it as an uprising of people against 'free market' policies.

Hanieh's analysis is seriously flawed; the source of this flawed analysis lies...