INDUSTRIALIZATION AND CLASS STRUCTURE IN ALGERIA

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between industrialization and class in Algeria during the 1967-77 period. The purpose of the analysis is to show that while industrialization was initiated by specific classes in power, it, in fact, restructured these classes by establishing a new dominant class. The study analyzes the concept of class (defined in terms of control over economic ownership and possession) as applied to the Algerian industrial structure comprising the state and private sectors. It is argued that the two sectors are characterized by the same relations of production, capitalist relations, and that they are controlled by the same class: the industrial bourgeoisie. The approaches of dependency, noncapitalist path and state capitalism are rejected as inadequate in explaining the character of the Algerian social formation because they neglect the real class relations in the state and private sectors. It is argued instead that a newly formed dominant class, the industrial bourgeoisie, is leading a course of independent capitalist development.