On What's New and What's Old in the Theory of Imperialism

Abstract

The debate over the validity of dependency theory was initiated because of the importance of the question for the future of the Latin American people. It has become necessary to respond to Andre Gunder Frank's comments in Latin American Perspectives, (1974: 99-102) in order to clarify for the reader the most important points in the debate. The article that I co-authored with Raul Fernindez was partly a response to the political conviction that Marxist revolutionary intellectuals in Latin America must take a stand against the unprincipled opportunists who put their rhetoric and terroristic vanguardism at the service of imperialism and reaction. Some of these revolutionary phrase-mongersas Lenin called them -take refuge behind an unconditional support of the Cuban revolution. My response is certainly not motivated by any illusions that Andre Gunder Frank is ready to accept Marxist arguments or that it may be possible for him to enter into a meaningful dialogue, but because he has made a political response to our article.Marxism is a guide to revolutionary action. Both the first exponents of Marxism as well as its great practitioners -Lenin, Stalin, Mao -have defended it as the ideology of the proletariat, as the proletarian conception of the world and world history, and as the fundamental weapon for the definitive defeat of the bourgeoisie. The function of the bourgeois attack upon Marxism is to deprive Marxism of its intrinsically revolutionary character and to transform it into yet another &dquo;vision&dquo; of the eclectic, skeptical and relativistic world of the academics. The advance of the world revolutionary movement has caused many sociologists, anthropologists and economists (especially in Latin America) such as Cardoso to hide behind &dquo;Marxism&dquo; in order to mask their reactionary and counter-revolutionary stands which would otherwise appear grossly out of fashion given the explosive situation in this area. This is, of course, not a new phenomenon: the struggles of Marx and Engels against Bakunin and Lasalle, of Lenin against Kautsky, Plekhanov, Kievsky, Trotsky and others were part of the struggle of Marxism against right-and left-opportunism: against revisionism and anarchism.To favor the revolution theoretically it is not sufficient to shout in all directions that one welcomes the revolution. Is it not the case that sometimes the most ultra-leftist positions are the ones that least favor the revolution, objectively, at a given moment? The abstract defense of either violent revolution or guerrilla activity is not necessarily an indication of the Marxist revolutionary. Anarchism, for instance, proclaims the immediate destruction of the state, the impossibility of any conciliation and of any alliance, the rejection of the utilization of any type of bourgeois structures, the use of violence at all costs and the total rejection and abomination of all bourgeois politics. These ultra-radical positions do not make anarchists any more revolutionary than revisionists. Revisionism proclaims the peaceful t...

An Introduction to Marxist Theories of Under-Development

“…The dependency paradigm approaches , particularly that of Frank , were seen to be insufficiently Marxist in orientation ( Kay , 1975 ) , and this is the primary source of their confusion and weakness ( Roxborough , 1976 : 116 ) , especially in their lack of conceptual rigour and in their theoretical vagueness ( Taylor , 1974 ) . Ocampo , 1974 ; Ocampo , 1975 ) .…”

Dependency, Nationalism and the State in Latin America

“…The debate within dependency was between those whose primary objective was the defense of the national bourgeoisie against imperialism and those whose objective was a socialist revolution led by the working class. The instability of the bourgeois-working-class alliance against imperialism was reflected in the debate as well as the confusion within dependency theory (Cueva, this issue, Fernandez and Ocampo, 1974;Laclau, 1971;Ocampo, 1975;Frank, 1974).…”

“…This nationalist dependency view looks to the state or grouping of states as the instrument of struggle against dependency (Fernandez and Ocampo, 1975). Examples of such instruments include the Andean Pact, the Caribbean Free Trade Association, the Peruvian and Bolivian (under Ovando) oil nationalizations, Juan Peron's policies on his return to power in 1973, the attempt of Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez through the Sistema Econ6mico Latino Americano (SELA) to lead a Latin American movement to renegotiate terms with the United States, the attempt to build raw material export cartels like OPEC for oil, and the pressure to expand the state sector and reduce the role of multinational corporations.…”

“…The result is that government enterprises in credit, extraction, or manufacturing directly exploit the worker, and profit is returned to the foreign corporation through repayment on loans, licensing fees, management contracts, etc. (Fernandez and Ocampo, 1975). This gives the foreign corporation more security against expropriation, but the state is then transformed from a defensive mechanism against foreign capital into a disguised instrument of foreign control, with the private and international banks acting as intermediary instruments (Girling, this issue, and Hayter, 1971).…”