Dependency critique

Chilcote, Smith, Evans

Back to Weber & Marx

• Marx: state monolithic

• Weber: plurality & legitimate state coercion

• Marx theory dynamic

• Weber: focus on bureaucratic order

Political economy

• Back to Smith, Ricardo, Marx

• Study comparative politics– state & class at national level– imperialism & dependency international

• Economic base and political superstructure

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.)

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)

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

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

Underdevelopment

• Gunder Frank et al challenged the possibility of development.

• Paul Baran focused on extraction of surplus

• Prebisch divided centre-periphery

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”

criticisms

– No unified theory– Emphasis on underconsumption [externalising

dynamic]– Few practical solutions– Incompatibility with Marxist theory

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

Capitalism

• global economy

• dependency a subset

Dependency premise

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

Approach

• Studies effects of imperialism

• Focus is on the part not the whole

• explaining “logic of capitalist expansion on the periphery”

Tools of analysis

• dual economy

• export oriented modern sector– econ & politically part of international– dependent

• traditional sector– disintegrates– marginalized land

Class formation

• modern sector symbiotic with international capitalism

• intermediaries

• “compradors”

• parasites!!

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

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

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

Future of dependency

• Rivalry

• Focus on DFI– ignore aggregate data

• leave periphery but can’t join core

• [takes care of Taiwan/Brazil arguments]

• “Piddling criticism is a waste of time” !!

Effective criticism

• Challenge economic determinism

• Challenge imperialist theory

• Merely a corrective to the developmentalist school?– Marxism does have its own assumed

development path