Dependency, Nationalism and the State in Latin America

Abstract

This article introduces the issue by analyzing trends within theories associated with the ideas of dependency and the relationship between dependency and Marxist theories. It then focuses on dependency theories used as an ideology of the nationalist bourgeoisie. The article serves as a link between the dependency debate to date, and the new contributions to this discussion presented in the articles in this issue.There is no such thing as a single unified body of thought called dependency theory, and any common ground between those who share the terminology of dependency tends to dissolve as the importance of the differences between them become greater. The earliest writers who used dependency concepts in the early 1960s (Chilcote and Edelstein, 1974;Chilcote, 1974) began revising the desarrollista concepts associated with the UN Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA) primarily on the questions of import-substitution industrialization as the primary technique of overcoming underdevelopment. The ECLA ideas were representative of the national bourgeois attempt to achieve independence and development, but they played right into the hands of foreign capital in the form of multinational corporations which were moving rapidly into Latin America and taking over the new industrialization. This new industrialization resulted in severe economic problems and a weakening of the very national bourgeoisie which had originally promoted it. Dependency ideas were then initially a defensive response on the part of the national bourgeoisie. At the same time dependency theorists were reacting to and criticizing the political theories of Latin American communist parties erroneously referred to as &dquo;traditional Marxism.&dquo; In view of the development of the revolutions in Cuba, China, Vietnam, and Algeria, the communist analysis was found to be Downloaded from 4 sterile in providing revolutionary direction. The communists had long held to a position of two-stage revolution based on the assumption that Latin America was primarily feudal and that bourgeois revolutions (the first stage) led by a nationalist bourgeoisie had to be supported by the working class so that capitalism could be built, leading to the second stage of socialist revolution sometime in the future (Lowy, 1975). This led to postponing a struggle for socialism and a very reformist policy of allying with bourgeois regimes which repeatedly betrayed the interests of the working class. The dependentistas were returning to the Marxist view set forth by Lenin and Trotsky which analyzed imperialism as having spread capitalism throughout the world, but not permitting the local bourgeoisie to develop strength in the underdeveloped areas. Imperialism had thus created a situation requiring a socialist revolution in underdeveloped countries led by the working class, with the peasantry playing a crucial role in the revolutionary process. Both Marxists and non-Marxists within the broad spectrum of thought encompassed by the dependency framework engaged in a kind of dialogue...

Expropriations of Foreign Property and Political Alliances: A Business Historical Approach

“…as the main driver for expropriation only applies for the mass expropriations resulting from state takeovers led by Communists. 12 Another justification for expropriation may be based on the unwillingness of Kobrin, 1980Rood, 1976Jodice, 1980Against: Morgenstern et al, 2011Symbolic power Jodice, 1980Unfair deal Akinsanya, 1980Mahdavi, 2014Opportunity and capability Guriev et al, 2011Mahdavi, 2014Medina et al, 2019Effort to break dependency Dos Santos, 1970Dos Santos, 1978Evans, 1979Harding, 1976 Bucheli and Aguilera, 2010 Where? Natural resource seeking, or sector-specific explanations Kobrin, 1980Jodice, 1980 Institutional quality/authoritarian states Henisz, 2000Jensen, 2006Li, 2009Mahdavi, 2014Guriev, Kolotilin, and Sonin, 2011Waelde, 1999Against: Duncan, 2006Semi-peripheral countries Evans, 1979Dos Santos, 1978 When?…”

Theorizing the Relationship Between Social Law and Markets in Regional Integration Projects

“…Emerging from, yet offering a critique of structuralism, in particular, the structuralism of the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America under Prebisch, dependency theory built on the notion of uneven terms of trade between the centre and the periphery – but did so more overtly in terms of a critique of imperialism. While there may be ‘no such thing as a single unified body of thought called dependency theory’ (Harding, 1976), nevertheless a core concern of this approach is that if some countries today are underdeveloped, it is arguably due to the operation of predatory capitalism in its colonial and postcolonial (more accurately, perhaps, neocolonial) forms. As Bernstein (1979: 83) puts it:The countries of the Third World were actively underdeveloped in the process of the emergence and consolidation of capitalism as a world system.…”

Latin American Studies in the Twenty-first Century

“…Johnson (1958) and the critique of their work and other perspectives by Rodolfo Stavenhagen (1968). It continues with the pioneering critical work by Susanne Jonas (1970) and Andre Gunder Frank (1970) on U.S. social science approaches and goes on to examine corporatist and authoritarian theorizing (Schmitter, 1974;Horowitz and Trimberger, 1976) and dependency theory (Chilcote and Edelstein, 1974;Sunkel, 1972) and its Marxist critics (Bollinger, 1977;Harding, 1976;Cuevas, 1976;Chinchilla and Dietz, 1981). Students also read articles about the history of capitalism (Weaver, 1992), the possibility of socialism, and the role of democracy (Vilas, 1990;Petras andFitzgerald, 1988a, 1988b;Haynes, 1988).…”