Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America: historical studies of Chile and Brazil

by André Gunder Frank

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.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Latin American History, Brazil, Politics

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

André Gunder Frank was Professor of Development Economics and Director of the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies at the University of Amsterdam. His publications include Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967) and Reflections on the World Economic Crisis (1981).

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic anti-imperialist text outlining and applying theories of capitalism's underdevelopment of its former colonial world; 'dependency theory' in a nutshell and a great place to start any exploration of that strand of Marxist thinking.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank leaves no misunderstanding over whether Latin America retained a feudal economic system until relatively recently, or even still does outside its cities. He shows instead that ever since being invaded and conquered by the Spanish, Latin America has been exploited under a mercantilist system, whose structure largely remains intact to this day.

As strong as his argument is over this point, I'm left wondering whether it was a more important debate when this book was written a half century ago. The point does, however, frame the rest of his argument well. A simplified overview: since the Spanish invaded, Latin America has been the periphery of the "metropolis" (meaning dominating economy) and purposely underdeveloped—its civilizations dismantled and its riches sent over seas to such an extent that bare life is all that remains—so that the "metropolis" can develop in comfortable prosperity.

Starting in 1962 Frank lived and worked in South America in order to study its economic history, but was forced to flee twelve years later while living in Chile, because of the outbreak on the Pinochet coup. During his studies he found that even after its major historical turning points Latin America has remained underdeveloped; as the "metropolis" shifted from Spain to the UK after independence, and then to the US after WWI. Each "metropolis" has in turn more or less picked up the reigns left by the previous one and pursued the same practices. Even when Latin America has had periods of relative independence, such as the extended one that started with the Great Depression and ended after the Korean War, their development has been reversed and their economies reduced, once again becoming peripheral raw material exporters dominated by the "metropolis."

Even though today's global economic conditions are quite different than they were in the late sixties, Latin America's historical conditions still remain the same. Though this book has its share of problems (such as, Frank does next to nothing to differentiate mercantilism from what I think could be considered its later stages, so to speak—what usually I think are considered capitalism proper, until the last chapter, which wasn't added until the second edition), I think his insights on global structural inequality are crucial knowledge; this book is definitely a classic of its field.

[Leonardo]

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[Li Isa]

Good