Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
ability of advanced capitalist, core countries to maintain traditional
systems of surplus extraction and ensured the periphery's domestic
resources would be continuously available. By such means, they made
economic development unlikely, since any surplus generated was
appropriated by these client elites. This would then enable core coun-
tries to keep their own monopoly-power over cheap primary resources
(Baran and Sweezy, 1966).
Notably, these alternative 'anti-capitalism' ideas on uneven exchange,
surplus redistribution and expropriation would be developed further by
a chorus of 'voices from below': Latin American political-economy schol-
ars, collectively known as ECLA structuralists and later as
dependistas
or the Dependency School. They included Argentinian Raúl Prebisch,
Brazilians Paul Singer and Celso Furtado and Chilean Osvaldo Sunkel,
among their spokesmen. Although their neo-Marxist critiques differed in
theoretical detail, all argued that Latin America's historical marginaliza-
tion and resultant underdevelopment was perpetuated by such unequal
commercial arrangements with core countries, particularly the United
States, benefitting at the expense of Latin America.
German-American André Gunder Frank (1967, 1979) soon became
the
dependistas
main advocate. Focusing upon the dependent character
of peripheral Latin American economies, Frank coined the notion of the
'development of underdevelopment' to characterize the capitalist
dynamics that developed core countries while at the same time causing
greater levels of underdevelopment and dependency within Latin
American countries. Frank's conceptual framework, therefore, explained
the dualistic capitalist relations which had occurred, and which he felt
would continue to occur between Latin American and core countries. In
line with other anti-capitalism critiques, Frank (1969) argued that any
change for the better would only be possible through revolutionary
action which would install socialist ideals within the political systems
of Latin America's dependent countries and usurp the client elites' spe-
cial relationships.
Equally persuasive, and also in line with the
dependistas
' assessment
of Latin American underdevelopment, Guyana's Walter Rodney
depicted the historical underdevelopment of the African continent and
its peoples as a consequence of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism
in
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
(1974). Another highly influen-
tial and passionate 'Third World voice', Egyptian-born Samir Amin,
also expanded upon the notion of
dependencia
in his critical examina-
tions of the dependent economic relations of Africa since European
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