ABSTRACT
Just as there is no single modernization theory, there is no one Marxist approach to development. Instead, there is a variety of approaches, originating in classical Marxism and leading to a broad-based ‘school’ of neo-Marxists, whose collective work has come to be known, at various times, as dependency theory, world systems theory and underdevelopment theory. Nevertheless, although these terms are often used synonymously, it is preferable to use ‘dependency theory’ to refer to the body of thought concerning ‘development’ which emanated from Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s, and which was later to lead to a more general view of development, and its opposite, underdevelopment, as key features of the world capitalist system. Dependency theory and world systems theory, despite considerable overlap, can then be seen as constituting underdevelopment theory, which is a reference to all neo-Marxist perspectives which, unlike classical Marxism, regard ‘underdevelopment’, and not ‘development’, as the direct result of the spread of international capitalism.
