Critical Analysis of Human Development in Vietnam - Alienation & Commodity Fetishism by Duong Duc Dai

Human development in the increasingly commodified society in Vietnam: A critical view building on the concepts of alienation and commodity fetishism A Research Paper presented by: Duong Duc Dai (Vietnam) in partial fulfillment of the requirements for obtaining the degree of MASTERS OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES Specialization: Development Research (DRES) Members of the examining committee: Dr. John Cameron Dr. Howard Nicholas The Hague, The Netherlands November, 2011 Disclaimer: This document represents part of the author‟s study programme while at the Institute of Social Studies. The views stated therein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute.

Inquiries: Postal address: Institute of Social Studies P. Box 29776 2502 LT The Hague The Netherlands Location: Kortenaerkade 12 2518 AX The Hague The Netherlands Telephone: +31 70 426 0460 Fax: +31 70 426 0799 ii Contents List of Tables v List of Figures v List of Acronyms vi Acknowledgement vii Abstract viii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Statement of problems 1 1.4 Research objects and scope 3 1.5 Background of a commodified society in Vietnam 4 Chapter 2 Theoretical framework 6 2.1 Marx‟s conceptualization as the theoretical departure 6 2.2 Alienation and Commodity Fetishism in a commodified society 7 2.1 Alienation from Marx‟s conceptualization 7 2.2 Commodity fetishism as a kind of alienation in commodity production 10 2.3 Key effects of Alienation and Commodity Fetishism on human beings 12 2.3 Human Development in the light of Alienation and Commodity Fetishism 15 2.1 Human Development and capability approach 15 2.2 Understanding Human Development as capabilities expansion in the light of Alienation and Commodity Fetishism 17 2.3 Human Development under the effects of Alienation and Commodity Fetishism 18 2.4 Human Development in situation of troubles at the enterprise level 19 Chapter 3 Research Methodology 20 3.2 Requirements for research locations 21 3.3 Specific research location 21 3.4 Organizing group discussion as the main method to collect data 22 3.5 Limitation of field data 23 3.1 Data collected from group discussion 23 iii 3.2 Data analysis of Ethnographical observation 29 Chapter 4: Findings and discussions 31 4.1 Reflected in employment, consumption, time use, and relations with others, capability to choose is narrowed when commodity production falls in trouble 31 4.2 Difference in adaptations of workers, managers, and owners and their Human Development 32 4.3 Trend of commodification and Human Development 34 4.4 Implications of such changes for critiquing Human Development as envisioned by the UNDP 36 Chapter 5: Conclusions 38 Appendices 40 References 43 iv List of Tables Table 4.1 32 Difference in adaptation of workers, managers, and owners 32 List of Figures Figure 4.1 35 Interactions between Alienation, Commodity Fetishism and Human Development 35 v List of Acronyms FDI Foreign Direct Investment GDP Gross Domestic Product GNI Gross National Income HDI Human Development Index HDR Human Development Report ODA Official Development Assistance PPP Purchasing Power Parity UNDP United Nations Development Programme vi Acknowledgement This research analyses Human development in the increasingly commodified society in Vietnam from a critical view building on the concepts of alienation and commodity fetishism. The results are not able to be made without great contributions from my lecturers, my friends, my colleagues, and my family. First of all, I would like to thank sincerely to Dr.John Cameron and Dr.Howard Nicholas for their excellent guidance, friendly and professional attitudes.

It is a good opportunity for me working under their supervision. From them, I have learned not only academic knowledge and scientific research skills but also critical questioning to the reality. Those are helpful for my future career. I grateful thank to my friends in ISS, my classmates in specialization of Development Research, my colleagues in Vietnam, especially Nguyen Thi Dien, Ngo Trung Thanh, Nguyen Thi Minh Khue, Eunjung Koo, Nguyen Cam Van, Ngo Hoang Minh.

Their comments, criticism, and encouragement brought me out of incorrect tracks, and gave me more energy to complete this research. I would thank to all workers, managers, and owners I met in my fieldwork. Thanks for their great cooperation which results in productive discussions in my research. Particularly, I would express my thanks to my brother Nguyen Ba Minh, my sister Nguyen Thi Nguyet Thu, Phan Duc Binh, Nguyen Danh, Nguyen Duc Hiep, Le Quang Thang, Nguyen Thi Thuong, Pham Van Huong, Nguyen Thi Thu Ha for their effective bridging me to the fieldwork.

Last but not least, I would send deepest gratitude to my parents, my dear sister for their unconditional love, great care, and countless supports. vii Abstract Based on capability approach, UNDP‟s concept of human development needs to be challenged by critical view from Marx‟ theory of alienation and commodity fetishism. Created from latter processes, insecurity of commodified life and commodity illusions affect strongly to capability to choose what people value. Interactions among those processes require crossing reference from alienation and commodity fetishism in evaluating human development.

Particularly, alienation and commodity fetishism create fluctuation in the human development so that the latter is hardly sustained. To overcome this matter, it is necessary to replace the domination of circumstances and of chance over individuals by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances. This means that human development envisioned by UNDP should be expanded to the meaning advocated by Marx. Above points are drawn from fieldwork conducted in troubling enterprises in Vietnam.

In which, the research identify adaptation of workers, managers, and owners against troubles of enterprises. Relevance to Development Studies Human development, alienation and commodity fetishism stand in central fields of development studies because these issues relate to human emancipation, development of society in general and of each single individual in particular. The research challenges UNDP‟s concept of human development from critical view of alienation and commodity fetishism. By doing that, the research not only provides better and more comprehensive understanding about human development but also indicates a suggestion in which human development can be sustained.

The research is an interesting combination between developmental visions from Marx (a classical epistemologist) and Sen (a contemporary thinker). Keywords Alienation, commodity fetishism, human development, Marxism, capability, freedom, commodification, commodity production, labour division. viii Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Statement of problems In the current development discourse, UNDP defines Human Development1 as a process of enlarging people‟s choice (UNDP 1990: 10). Based on Sen‟s capability approach, human development is considered as a process of achieving well-being (Alkire 2010b: 2).

In spirit of development as freedom, human development as capability expansion means that people have capabilities, or freedom to choose set of functionings which people value. Hence, removal of various type of unfreedom is the most significant factor to achieve human development (Sen 2001: xii). However, in a more commodified society based on high specialization of labour, people are more dependent on each other because they cannot produce all products. Accordingly, producing commodities becomes the main means for their lives, and exchanging commodities becomes the main process to meet needs.

Commodities play essential role to the lives of human beings (Lysandrou 2005). For Marx, commodity is an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another, and is then exchanged for something else (Marx 2007: 41). In other words, commodity is produced by labour, satisfies human wants through exchanging on the market. The universality of exchanging commodity put human life in special living condition which included alienation and commodity fetishism.

In such a society, labours power is also a commodity and is alienated from its owner. In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts Marx described: “The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. It means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien” (Struik and Marx 1964: 108). Penetrating structurally into the social production, Alienation2 becomes universal, not a personal or psychological problem.

Due to that alienation, Marx argues that human relation is hidden in the relations between commodities so that commodities appear as if they have their own lives, enter naturally to the relations with other ones and with human beings. That is Commodity Fetishism3 in which commodities become alien things to people who produced them (Özel 2008, Marx 1974). Consequently, 1 “Human Development” (with upper case) as the concept associated with Sen and UNDP is distinguished from “human development” (with lower case) as a more general concept open to wider interpretation. 2 “Alienation‟‟ (with upper case) as the concept introduced by Marx is distinguished from “alienation” as a general concept which is debated broadly among theorists.

3 “Commodity Fetishism” (with upper case) as the concept introduced by Karl Marx is distinguished from other “commodity fetishism” given by other authors. 1 human beings depend increasingly on the processes of producing and exchanging commodities. Commodity production rises and falls following specific economic laws, especially the crises. In which, expanding period is always followed by a contracting period, and vice versa.

Each adjustment of those processes could affect directly and indirectly to human development. For instance, the late 2000s global crisis and its enormous consequences have interrupted such processes, specifically happened to enterprises. Many aspects of human life are hit strongly through changes in workplaces and the labour market (Economic and Financial Affairs 2009: 35), food security (Stacey and Shahla 2009), environment (Anbumozhi and Bauer 2010), health (Kwon et al. Alienation and commodity fetishism mean human lives depend highly on changes in markets in both advanced and developing economies even in the context of progress in technology, high labour productivity, and economic achievements.

For example, losses of 2.6 million jobs in the United States in 2008 pushes massive number of people falling into hard living conditions despite the high index in Human Development of the United States (Goldman 2009). Similarly, after a severe earthquake in Japan in March 2011, the radioactive contaminated water worries international consumers about Japan seafood quality lead to a range of international bans on those commodities, thus fisher peoples‟ livelihoods are threatened because they are dependent on exchanging fish internationally as well as locally and nationally (Foster and Nakashima 2011). Thus Human Development may be damaged gravely when their commodities are not exchangeable. Connection between troubles in commodity production and troubles in human life indicates that alienation and commodity fetishism interact with Human Development.

Given that the latter is goal of progression in society while alienation and commodity fetishism are inevitable, it is necessary to understand connection between such processes. Specifically, it is Human Development under influences of Alienation and Commodity Fetishism. At enterprise level, the above relations appear in connection between enterprise‟s production and lives of related people included workers, managers, and owners. Each group engages differently in Alienation and Commodity fetishism due to differences of positions and possession in production.

Also, their capabilities are diversified owing to various living conditions. Hence, if an enterprise falls into trouble, all workers, managers, and owners are affected differently. Interestingly, their adaptations to that trouble will reveal interaction among Alienation, Commodity Fetishism and Human Development. Particularly, these adaptations are changes in key aspects of life which included time use, consumption, relations with others, and employment.

Four aspects of life are valid to represent human life due to several justifications. Employment denotes working activity – the most important one in human life. Consumption and time use reveal well-beings because, in commodity production, achieving well-beings always requires commodity and time. Relations to others indicate how a person connects to society.

These aspects cover all living and working activities. 2 Briefly, it is possible to examine interactions of Alienation, Commodity Fetishism and Human Development through three groups‟ adaptations on four above aspects. With high economic growth in recent decades, Vietnam society is increasingly commodified.