New Light on Dependency and Dependant Development

Abstract

In stressing the way imperialism has perverted economic life in the poor parts of the world, Marxists have often argued that economic development would not take place in the capitalist periphery. Paul Baran, in laying the foundations for much modern Marxist analysis of development and underdevelopment, pointed out that imperialism created a class structure which blocked the development process in the periphery. He argued that the domination of society in the poor parts of the world by an alliance between local elites and international capital assured that the economic surplus would not be used to promote accumulation in those areas; instead, the surplus would either be squandered unproductively (by the local elites) or directed abroad and used to further accumulation in the already advanced capitalist nations.

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