Dependency critique

1
Dependency critique

• Chilcote, Smith, Evans

2
Back to Weber Marx

• Marx state monolithic
• Weber plurality legitimate state coercion
• Marx theory dynamic
• Weber focus on bureaucratic order

3
Political economy

• Back to Smith, Ricardo, Marx
• Study comparative politics
• state class at national level
• imperialism dependency international
• Economic base and political superstructure

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Economic base

• Mode of production (mix of productive forces)
• Relations of production (division of labour)
• Forces of production (productive CAPACITY)
• Means of production (tools, land, buildings etc.)

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Political superstructure

• State (legal forms and instruments maintaining
  class rule)
• class (groups of people classified according to
  relation to means of prod)
• ideology (false consciousness legal, political,
  religious and philosophical)

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Theory of state and class

• View system as capitalistPluralist conception of
  state challenged (Mosca, Pareto, Dahl, etc.)Dahl
  extended pluralism to socialist economiesRaised
  issue of socialist democracy

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Theory of state and class 2

• Domhof and Miliband see capitalist class using
  state as instrument of rule of unified corporate
  elite
• Structuralist view (Poulantzas) sees state
  serving capitalism best when members do not
  participate actively in state apparatus

8
Underdevelopment

• Gunder Frank et al challenged the possibility of
  development.
• Paul Baran focused on extraction of surplus
• Prebisch divided centre-periphery

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Underdevelopment 2

• Dos Santos on need for change in internal
  structure and external relations
• Emmanuel stressed inequities in international
  exchange
• Amin uneven development because unable to
  challenge foreign monopolies

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criticisms

• No unified theory
• Emphasis on underconsumption externalising
  dynamic
• Few practical solutions
• Incompatibility with Marxist theory

11
Smith Dependency Approach

• not a theory!
• Marxist roots, but many debates
• Latin American origins
• global division of labour chief force shaping
  history of the South

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Capitalism

• global economy
• dependency a subset

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Dependency premise

• one must see change as a function of the power
  of economic imperialism generated by the
  capitalist core of world affairs 119

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Approach

• Studies effects of imperialism
• Focus is on the part not the whole
• explaining logic of capitalist expansion on the
  periphery

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Tools of analysis

• dual economy
• export oriented modern sector
• econ politically part of international
• dependent
• traditional sector
• disintegrates
• marginalized land

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Class formation

• modern sector symbiotic with international
  capitalism
• intermediaries
• compradors
• parasites!!

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Summary

• Division of labour prime social reality
• political activity class based
• bias against ethnicity
• problems of 3W arise from form of growth pursued
  in the North

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Clarifications

• Dual economy not rigid
• some genuine industrial base
• dependent development possible (Evans)
• Role of the state
• more than auxiliary
• backward and forward links
• diversity

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Fight with developmentalism

• easy to criticise
• no economic perspective (even in Political Order)
• dual economy seen as transitional
• task of pol dev to back up diffusion
• speed up disappearance of traditional

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Future of dependency

• Rivalry
• Focus on DFI
• ignore aggregate data
• leave periphery but cant join core
• takes care of Taiwan/Brazil arguments
• Piddling criticism is a waste of time !!

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Effective criticism

• Challenge economic determinism
• Challenge imperialist theory
• Merely a corrective to the developmentalist
  school?
• Marxism does have its own assumed development
  path