Making economic order out of disorder: Insights from Karachi. Interview with Laurent Gayer
How can disorder produce order? What is the link between capitalism, globalisation and the private management of public order, and workers? In what ways is Karachi an interesting case study, and does it help us to understand the logic at work elsewhere? To mark the publication of his book Gunpoint Capitalism: Enforcing Industrial Order in Karachi (Hurst & Oxford University Press, 2025), Laurent Gayer answered our questions. He talks about his access to the field, his investigative work, and the evolution of capitalism in Karachi, Pakistan's industrial capital and, more broadly, its ongoing adaptation to globalisation, which sees bosses allying themselves with henchmen to enforce order and ensure profits.
Can you tell us about the industrial zones of Karachi, Pakistan, where you spent some time, and how you worked in an environment where you no doubt encountered a certain amount of resistance?
Karachi, now the economic and financial capital of Pakistan, was industrialised rather late. This port city was primarily a warehouse at the crossroads of the major regional trade routes until the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The industrialisation of the city proceeded apace during the 1950s and 1960s, notably around large industrial areas inspired by the Government Trading Estates developed in the United Kingdom in the 1930s—a prototype of public-private partnership based on the public development of infrastructure, the supply of turnkey factories, and the management of the area’s administrative affairs by a private limited company. Located on the outskirts of Karachi, these industrial zones have historically been organised around the textile industry, the flagship of the national economy and Pakistan's main source of foreign currency. Production has been diversifying since the 2000s, however, with the pharmaceutical industry, another sector I investigated between 2015 and 2022, particularly gaining ground. (...)
