Some off the cuff remarks inserted below:
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Associate Professor
Comparative International Development
University of Washington Campus Box 358436
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax : (253) 692-5718
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On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Louis Proyect wrote:
> One of the advantages of working at Columbia University is that it gives me
> access to one of the most superb research libraries in the world. As Mine
> Doyran had recommended Ronald Chilcote's recent books on imperialism, I
> checked the card catalog to see what was available. Besides the titles on
> imperialism, I noticed something that seemed very relevant to my recent
> investigations, namely "Dependency and Marxism: Toward a resolution of the
> Debate", edited by Chilcote. These were articles that appeared in the
> mid-70s in Latin American Perspectives, a journal that Chilcote edited.
> Latin American Perspectives appears to be more scholarly and more Marxist
> than NACLA and I will probably take out a subscription if it is still in
> business.
I still have my copy of Chilcote.
>
> >From what I can gather most of the articles in the book are written as
> polemics against Frank, whose replies are not included. Some of the better
> known critics include David Barkin, who is based in Mexico and writes
> frequently for NACLA, John Weeks, the bumbling professor I brought to NYC
> to debate Paul Berman--one of the worst mistakes in my life considering
> that Michael Moore was available, and James Petras, the irascible ultraleft
> retired sociology professor.
>
> As I have mentioned previously, the two countries in the third world that
> never bought into the dependency school were Mexico and India. About India,
> I have no explanation. With respect to Mexico, it appears to be the result
> of the intellectual hegemony of exiles from Spain, who brought with them
> the kind of Kautskyism that had characterized the Comintern of the Popular
> Front era.
I suspect that Indian marxism was of the nationlist sort. This is
understandable, given the political importance of getting rid of
colonialism. Interestingly some of the early kernels of dependency
theory is also found among Indian authors -- the so called "drain
theory". You will find that in an edited volume something like
"neomarxism ...." by Limqueco. Can give you a cite if you want it.
Jairus Banaji has written on it, who is also a frequent contributor to
the Journal of Contemporary Asia (a marxist journal that comes out of the
Philippines or Australia). The national question was an important one
for India (perhaps less so for Latin America because of its earlier
independence (somewhat nominal, given the hegemony of Britain over Lat
Am). This earlier independence along with settler population plus near
complete insertion to the world economy provided a very fertile ground
for dependency analysis. In India on the other hand a national
bourgeoisie was in the making, subordinate initially no doubt, but of
inceasing importance at the beginning of the 20th century. The
bourgeoisie played an imporant role in the nationalist struggle as well. I
also believe that today Indian capitalists are quite mature. One other
connection between India and Mexico in this context is M.N. Roy, who I
believe was responsible in some way for creating the Mexican CP.
>
> In any case, there is an article in this collection titled "Dependency
> Theory and the Processes of Capitalism and Socialism" by Carlos Johnson, a
> professor at the UNAM in Mexico that encapsulates most of the themes in
> this anti-dependency trend.
>
> Johnson says that dependency theorists have no explanation for the vigorous
> industrial growth in places like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Mexico City
> where "some levels of consumption...far outweigh even those that in some
> regions of the United States," thus establishing the claim that development
> in Latin America can never take place to be a "myth". Although I doubt that
> there is a reply to this specific point in Chilcote's collection, it
> appears to me that such cities are typical third world nightmares with
> shanties surrounding ultra-luxurious downtowns and a vast informal economy.
> They grow like out-of-control tumors, swelled by the influx of landless
> peasants. To compare them to the cities of the industrialized North is
> invidious, to say the least.
This is true in national terms but in terms of generating wealth these
countries have accumulated quite a bit. I might have mentioned this
before on another occasion, a Brazilian steel bureaucrat told me that
if four Brazilian states were to secede it could be in the league of
Western European nations. One of the states is Parana and Curitiba is
unlike any Latin American city. I did not see any shanties. It is a
planned, people friendly city. Quite a bit has been written on the city
in terms of urban planning.
>
> Another important goal of Johnson and others is to establish dependency
> theory as "idealist", which means that claims about "core" and "periphery"
> are not rooted in a scientific class analysis. Johnson is at least honest
> enough to admit that these categories existed in Lenin, but he gives Lenin
> permission to use them because the Russian revolutionary was using them in
> the context of class relations, as he--a sociology professor--does. How
> generous.
>
> Not only is the dependency analysis "idealist", it is also of the same sort
> found in the Narodniks who complained about capitalist backwardness and
> inequality between Russia and the West, but who lacked a materialist
> perspective to understand the need for proletarian revolution as the
> Bolsheviks did. When capitalism progressed throughout Russia, it "ripened"
> the objective conditions necessary for socialism. It is only possible for
> Johnson to make this claim by omitting any reference to Marx's late
> writings on Russia which urged revolution based on peasant communes, whose
> success would inspire Western Europe. Contrary to Johnson, once Lenin's
> party was victorious in Russia, it tended not to worry too much about
> "ripening." It declared that the conditions for socialist revolution were
> rotten-ripe all over the world and encouraged the formation of peasant
> soviets in the most backward countries, where there was no industry nor a
> classic proletariat.
>
> As Johnson puts it, "Contrary to this understanding of social relations,
> some dependency theorists argue in favor of socialism and revolution as
> though they were mere alternatives to capitalism and not specific products
> of class struggle itself." Well, yeah. What's wrong with that? Which group
> exemplified this kind of "unscientific" and Narodnik attitude? Johnson
> points to the MIR in Chile, which was based "to a large extent on
> dependency theses of rejecting alliances with the local bourgeoisies."
>
> There you have it, comrades. This is what riles Carlos Johnson: the MIR
> rejected alliances with the local bourgeoisies. I myself will take my stand
> with the MIR's of this world.
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
>
>
