ABSTRACT
Seen in this light, it becomes apparent that a basic feature of the process of economic
development thus far has been exclusion: exclusion from control over assets; exclusion
from the benefits of economic growth; exclusion from the impact of physical and social
infrastructure expansion; and exclusion from education and from income-generating
opportunities. This exclusion has been along class or income lines, by geographical loca-
tion, by caste and community, and by gender. However, exclusion from these benefits has
not meant exclusion from the system as such rather, those who are supposedly marginalised or excluded have been affected precisely because they have been incorporated into
market systems. We, therefore, have a process of exclusion through incorporation, a pro-
cess that has actually been typical of capitalist accumulation across the world, especially
in its more dynamic phases. Thus, peasants facing a crisis of viability of cultivation have
been integrated into a market system that has made them more reliant on purchased inputs
in deregulated markets while becoming more dependent upon volatile output markets in
which state protection is completely inadequate. The growing army of ‘self-employed’
workers, who now account for more than half of our work force, has been excluded from
paid employment because of the sheer difficulty of finding jobs, but is nevertheless
heavily involved in commercial activity and exposed to market uncertainties in the search
for livelihood. Those who have been displaced by developmental projects or other pro-
cesses, and subsequently have not found adequate livelihood in other activities, are vic-
tims of the process of economic integration, though excluded from the benefits.
