Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment

244 Pages·1978·27.74 MB·English

by  Andre Gunder Frank (auth.)

DEPENDENT ACCUMULATION
AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
By the same author
CAPITALISM AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA
LATIN AMERICA: UNDERDEVELOPMENT OR REVOLUTION
LUMPENBOURGEOISIE: LUMPENDEVELOPMENT
SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
OF SOCIOLOGY
ON CAPITALIST UNDERDEVELOPMENT
WORLD ACCUMULATION 1492-1789
DEPENDENCE AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT: LATIN AMERICA'S
POLITICAL ECONOMY
(with Dale Johnson and James Cockcroft)
MEXICAN AGRICULTURE 1521-1630: TRANSFORMATION OF
THE MODE OF PRODUCTION
REFLEXIONES SOBRE LA CRISIS ECONOMICA
ECONOMIC GENOCIDE IN CHILE
AMERICA LATINA: FEUDALISMO 0 CAPITALISMO?
(with Rodolofo Puiggros and Ernesto Laclau)
ASPECTOS DE LA REALIDAD LATINOAMERICANA
(with Orlando Caputo, Roberto Pizarro and Anibal Q.uijano)
Q.UALE 1984?
(with Samir Amin and Hosea Jaffe)
CRISIS: THE WORLD ECONOMIC SYSTEM TODAY
REFLECTIONS ON THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS
DEPENDENT
ACCUMULATION AND
UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Andre Gunder Frank
© Andre Gunder Frank 1978
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First edition 1978
Reprinted 1981, 1982
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Frank, Andre Gunder
Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment
1. Underdeveloped Areas 2. Underdeveloped
areas - Saving and investment
3. Saving and investment
I. Title
330.9'172'4 HC59.7
ISBN 978-0-333-23951-3 ISBN 978-1-349-16014-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16014-3
The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed on the ~ubsequent purchaser
To the Memory of
nry student, friend and comrade in Chile
DAGOBERTO PEREZ VARGAS
who left our theoretical concerns behind
to fight and die heroically to end
accumulation through dependence, underdevelopment and
exploitation
Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgements XVIII
I Introductory Questions 1
1. The Question of'Internal' v. 'External' Determination 2
2. The Question of Periodisation 7
3· Questions of Production and Exchange IO
2. World Capital Accumulation, Trade Patterns and Modes
of Production, 1500-1770 13
1. Trade Triangles 14
2. Differential Transformation of Modes of Production in
Asia, Africa and Latin America 1 7
3 On the Roots of Development and Underdevelopment in
the New World: Smith and Marx v. the Weberians 25
On the Weber Thesis 25
I.
A. Significance of the Weber Thesis 25
B. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 28
C. Unorthodox Weberian Survivals 30
2. On Adam Smith and the New World 33
3· On Karl Marx and Capital Accumulation 38
4· On World Accumulation, International Exchange,
and the Diversity of Modes of Production in the New
World 43
A. Mining Economies in Mexico and Peru 45
B. Yeoman Farming in the Spanish Possessions 4 7
C. Transformation: The Case of Barbados 50
D. The Plantation System in the Caribbean and Brazil 52
E. The U.S. South: Slave Plantations v. Farming 55
F. The U.S. North-east: Farming v. Foreign Trade 58
G. Epilogue-Delayed by Two Centuries 68
vii
Vlll Contents
4 The Industrial Revolution and Pax Britannica, I no-
I87o 70
I. Metropolitan Capital Accumulation and Industrial
Revolution in Europe 7 I
2. Bourgeois Industrial Policy and the New International
Division of Labour 75
3· North America 79
4· Latin America 82
5· India 87
5 That the Extent of the Internal Market is Limited by the
International Division of Labour and the Relations of
Production 92
I. On Trade 93
A. On Classicals and Reformers 93
B. On Comparative Advantage and Free Trade 94
C. On Deteriorated Terms of Trade IOI
D. On Unequal Exchange I03
2. On Markets IIO
E. On Dualism IIO
F. On Staple Theory II2
G. On Linkages Il3
H. On Developing the Internal Market I2I
I. On Infant Industry and Import Substitution I28
J. On the Division of Labour and Technological Gaps I30
3· On Production and Accumulation I34
K. On Economic Sectors and Classes I34
6 Imperialism and the Transformation of Modes of Pro-
duction in Asia, Africa and Latin America, I870-I930 I40
I. Rosa Luxemburg on Imperialist Struggle against Nat-
ural and Peasant Economy I42
2. Imperialism in Asia I46
3· Imperialism and the Arab World I 54
4· Imperialism and Africa I 57
5· Imperialism in Latin America I64
7 Multilateral Merchandise Trade Imbalances and Uneven
Economic Development I72
I. Patterns of World Trade Imbalances I73
Contents IX
2. Colonial and Semi-Colonial Capital Contributions to
Metropolitan Accumulation and Overseas Investment 189
3· Statistical and Methodological Appendix 199
Bibliography 209
Index 221
Preface
This book is an attempt to approach an explanation of under
development through the analysis of the production and exchange
relations of dependence within the world process of capital
accumulation. Hence the choice of its title.
We distinguish three main stages or periods in this world
embracing process of capital accumulation and capitalist develop
ment: mercantilist (I500-I77o), industrial capitalist (I770-I87o),
and imperialist (I 870-I 930). Each of these periods is examined in a
historical chapter that first sets out important developments in the
world process of capital accumulation, concentrating especially on
the 'exchange' relations between the metropolis and the periphery,
and then goes on to analyse the associated transformation of the
dependent 'internal' relations ofp roduction and the development of
underdevelopment in each of the principal regions of Asia, Africa
and the Americas. Each of these 'historical' chapters is followed by a
'theoretical' one which discusses an important problem of socio
economic theory (and of historical fact) that arises out of each of
these periods: why different parts of the New World of the
Americas -specifically the mining and plantation regions on the
one hand and the north-eastern colonies in North America on the
other-took different paths of underdevelopment and development
during the mercantilist period; why the now underdeveloped
countries did not experience the development of an internal market
similar to that of Western Europe and the new settler regions in
North America and Australia during and since the period of
industrial capitalism; and how the international division oflabour
and specifically the mostly neglected merchandise export surplus
from the now underdeveloped regions-contributed to uneven
world capitalist development and to capital accumulation in
Western Europe and to investment by the latter in the United
States, Canada and Australia.
The bulk ofthe text was written in Chile in I969/70 and most of
the remainder was revised there in I972/73· The following
xi