ABSTRACT
The subject of this chapter is the phenomenon of state-led capitalist development and natural resources extraction. It highlights the collapse of the ‘colonial slave mode of production’ and its replacement with center-periphery capitalist relations. The colonial state led the push to expand capitalist relations through natural resources extraction. The focus is on Guyana where the natural resources sector really began to take hold in the economy in the historical period between 1834 and 1953. This period was characterized by ‘the colonial slave mode of production,’ when the phenomenon described as neoextractivism in Latin America, emerged in Guyana. Whereas, Latin American scholars argue that neoextractivism arrived on the South American continent in a post-neoliberal period. It is demonstrated however that the foundations for the emergence of a similar phenomenon in Guyana was laid in a much earlier period with the advent of the natural resources sector after the colonial slave mode of production collapsed.
