Dependency Theory as Applied Dialectic
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Latin American dependency theory of the 1960s-70s was an implicitly Hegelian analysis of the world economy.[1] It showed that “underdevelopment” is not backwardness but a product of capitalist development. Center and periphery constitute one another - a perfect illustration of the master-servant dialectic.
Raúl Prebisch (1901-1986) and ECLAC (the UN Economic Commission for Latin America) showed in the 1950s that the terms of trade systematically deteriorate to the disadvantage of raw material exporters.[2] This was no accidental market fluctuation, but structural dependency. The industrialized countries needed raw materials, but the raw-material-producing countries needed industrial products even more.
André Gunder Frank (1929-2005) radicalized this analysis in Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967).[3] His thesis of the “development of underdevelopment” was dialectical: the development of the center produces the underdevelopment of the periphery. The more Europe and North America develop, the more Africa, Asia, and Latin America are underdeveloped.
Ruy Mauro Marini (1932-1997) developed the theory of “super-exploitation”.[4]
Dependency theory influenced politics. Salvador Allende in Chile (1970-1973) tried to break dependency through nationalization and import substitution.[5] were also reactions to these attempts. The Chicago Boys implemented neoliberal models - the antithesis of dependency theory.
Dependency theory was criticized: too economistic, too deterministic, blind to internal factors.[6] But its basic insight remains valid: development and underdevelopment are dialectically linked. The First World needs the Third World as a supplier of raw materials and a market for its goods. Global inequality is not accidental, but systemic.
On dependency theory see Cristóbal Kay: Latin American Theories of Development and Underdevelopment (1989); Fernando Henrique Cardoso & Enzo Faletto: Dependency and Development in Latin America (1979). ↩︎
Raúl Prebisch: The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems (1950). On the CEPAL school see Joseph L. Love: “Raúl Prebisch and the Origins of the Doctrine of Unequal Exchange” in: Latin American Research Review 15:3 (1980). ↩︎
André Gunder Frank: Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967). Frank was German but taught in Chile and became a voice of the Latin American left. ↩︎
Ruy Mauro Marini: Dialéctica de la dependencia (1973). On the debate see Jaime Osorio: Teoría marxista de la dependencia (2016). ↩︎
On Allende’s economic policy see Stefan de Vylder: Allende’s Chile: The Political Economy of the Rise and Fall of the Unidad Popular (1976). ↩︎
On the critique see Ernesto Laclau: “Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America” in: New Left Review 67 (1971). ↩︎