Frank is a professor of economics, little-known in the U.S. Outside
professional, U.N. and left-academic circles, although his study of
Chile and Brazil, Capitalism and Under development in Latin America
was a remarkable contribution. This collection of articles focuses
on twentieth-century political economy rather than Latin American
history: but the historical dimension is very much present. Frank
argues that "the metropolis" incorporated its "satellites" into the
worldwide capitalist system, stealing their wealth and labor for
its own development; it continues to do so, and they remain
decapitalized, unproductive, and ever-poorer. From this point of
view he attacks "dual economy," "takeoff," and other theories of
underdevelopment. Frank is-best at his most polemical (contra
Rostow, Heilbroner) and his most empirical (e.g. central Mexico as
evidence for his claim that the least-developed regions are not
virginal isolates but places formerly most dominated by the
metropolis). His loftier ventures such as "Functionalism and
Dialectics" tend to be turgid and elliptical. His relatively brief
remarks on revolution posit the local bourgeoisies rather than
invisible imperialists as the tactical enemy; but he undertakes
little serious discussion of pre-revolutionary constellations and
co-optations. And his metropolis remains a shadowy spider at the
heart of his synthetic web. His mappings of the outer threads are
exceptionally valuable; his jabs at other models will enrich
students perspectives. (Kirkus Reviews)
In his second book, Andre Gunder Frank expands on the theme
presented in his influential study Capitalism and Underdevelopment
in Latin America. It is the colonial structure of world capitalism,
in his view, which produced and maintains the underdevelopment
characteristic of Latin America and the rest of the Third World.
This colonial structure penetrates everywhere in Latin America,
forming and transforming all its features in obedience to its own
imperatives and thereby imposing upon the region those
characteristic features of poverty and backwardness which are not
primarily the remnants of an ancient "feudal" past but the direct
products of capitalism. This development of underdevelopment will
persist, Frank argues, until the people of Latin America free
themselves from world capitalism by means of revolution.
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