Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile and Brazil [Paperback]

Andre Gunder Frank (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0853450935 | ISBN-13: 978-0853450931 | Publication Date: January 1, 1967 | Edition: Rev Enl

The four essays in this book offer a sweeping reinterpretation of Latin American history as an aspect of the world-wide spread of capitalism in its commercial and industrial phases. Dr. Frank lays to rest the myth of Latin American feudalism, demonstrating in the process the impossibility of a bourgeois revolution in a part of the world which is already part and parcel of the capitalist system.

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press; Rev Enl edition (January 1, 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0853450935
• ISBN-13: 978-0853450931
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Chile
  • #89 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Brazil

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crucial Introduction to Underdevelopment Theory, January 26, 2007

By 

James R. Maclean (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America; Historical Studies of Chile and Brazil (Paperback)

This book is structured into four essays. The first addresses the development of globalized capitalism within Chile; the second, very briefly, addresses the "Indian Problem" (quotes used by Frank as well as me); the third is on the development of globalized capitalism in Brazil, and the last is on the role of foreign aid generally.

This is one of the more prominent authors on the subject of underdevelopment theory, and I give the book four stars because it is fairly essential to any student of alternative economic theory.

The two shorter essays, on American Indians of Latin America and on foreign aid to Latin America by the rich countries, were generally unsatisfactory to me. In particular, the first did not address the challenges posed by American Indian populations to conventional populist politics, and generally avoided specific case analysis--Frank's principle strength as an economic thinker. The second, on the foreign aid, was vital since this book was published just around the time that a large foreign aid package to Latin America was in its early stages--the Alliance for Progress. Unfortunately, the book scarcely mentions the Alliance for Progress, and instead merely discusses foreign direct investment (FDA) as if it were not structurally distinct from civil aid programs like US AID. Considering that an impartial history of the Alliance (such as *The Alliance that Lost its Way*) is extremely supportive of Frank's thesis, this is disappointing and a missed opportunity.

The longer essays--on the cases of Chile and Brazil--are concerned with the early years. For Chile, Frank's story is pretty much about the years 1541-1826, when the country was a part of the presidency of Peru. The essay on Brazil is more thematic, and extends up to the 1964 military junta. A core theme in Frank's analysis is that Brazil and Chile--as well as the other countries of Latin America--were never feudalist at all, but rather, from the very beginning, were exemplary capitalist economies. The institution of slavery (as practiced in the Americas) was perfectly compatible with modern conceptions of capitalism, and was only abolished when more powerful industrial interests prevailed.

Frank introduces the ideas of capitalism as an inherently global system, involving a hierarchy of centers (metropoles) and peripheries (regions of underdevelopment). The center is served by a large number of subordinate "centers," as, for example, Madrid was served by Lima, which was served by Santiago, which then had subordinate centers of capitalist expropriation in the countryside. Each of these subordinate centers was both a focal point of accumulation, and a target of exploitation by the one higher up. At the same time, the process of capital accumulation creates underdevelopment by draining each region of the means of production.

Frank argued that the calamity of underdevelopment, exploitation, and the racial violence that characterized the history of the Americas was an inherent outcome of capitalism. Frank was very much aware of the philosophical controversy this position aroused: if he claimed that capitalism was identical to all the negative things that coexisted in space and time with it as a system, he later conceded, then it ceased to have any analytical value. The socialist system was later acknowledged by him and others on the hard left as having been in reality another distortion of capitalism; which meant that no control group existed, except perhaps extremely tiny isolated societies in Africa or the South Pacific.

He was also aware of the more urgent controversy of equating a system of economic organization that was virtually inescapable with certain large historical events that occurred in societies that hosted it. It's rather like saying the use of SQL relational database management--now universal--is to blame for the late invasion of Iraq and global climate change. While a technical feature of computer software may not be as significant as capitalism, they both require some distinction from contemporary events if they are to have any usefulness as conceptions. Otherwise they become merely lamentations of the human condition. Unfortunately, this awareness came later than the book itself, and I was never convinced that it was capitalism per se that was underdeveloping Latin America, and not the outcome of historical struggles peculiar to the European and North American metropoles.