Originally published: London: C.Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 2013.

This study makes three propositions. First, the mode of production of pre-colonial South Asia was qualitatively distinct from European feudalism. Instead, Marx's notion of the Asiatic mode of production is more consistent with the historical evidence. Second, the colonial path of capitalist development of South Asia resulted in a socio-economic formation that combined features of the Asiatic and capitalist modes of production, which this study terms Asiatic capitalism. Empirical analysis of agrarian relations in Pakistan reveals the relative absence of wage labour and the continuing existence of various forms of pre-capitalist economic relations within the overall framework of a capitalist economy. Third, the vast majority of the non-agricultural working population of Pakistan today is engaged in handicraft and manufacture. However, manufacturing and services are dominated by petty commodity production and small-scale capitalism. Hence, while being significant in terms of output, the formal large-scale industrial sector, which was developed along the model of state-corporate capitalism, remains relatively small in terms of employment. In sum, the class structure of Pakistan is characterized by this study as Asiatic capitalism.

Pakistan’s presence in the outside world is dominated by images of religious extremism and violence. These images—and the narratives that interpret them—inform events in the international realm, but they also twist back around to shape local class politics. In The New Pakistani Middle Class, Ammara Maqsood focuses on life in contemporary Lahore, where she unravels these narratives to show how central they are for understanding competition and the quest for identity among middle-class groups. Lahore’s traditional middle class has asserted its position in the socioeconomic hierarchy by wielding significant social capital and dominating the politics and economics of urban life. For this traditional middle class, a Muslim identity is about being modern, global, and on the same footing as the West. Recently, however, a more visibly religious, upwardly mobile social group has struggled to distinguish itself against this backdrop of conventional middle-class modernity, by embracing Islamic culture and values. The religious sensibilities of this new middle-class group are often portrayed as Saudi-inspired and Wahhabi. Through a focus on religious study gatherings and also on consumption in middle-class circles—ranging from the choice of religious music and home décor to debit cards and the cut of a woman’s burkha—The New Pakistani Middle Class untangles current trends in piety that both aspire toward, and contest, prevailing ideas of modernity. Maqsood probes how the politics of modernity meets the practices of piety in the struggle among different middle-class groups for social recognition and legitimacy.