ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a reconstruction of the dependency hypothesis outlining both the common threads and main differences among the authors encompassed under such an umbrella. First, the authors present a brief account of the two currents from which it borrowed the most, namely the desarrollista (developmentalist) or estructuralista (structruralist) school that emerged within the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), on the one hand, and the different versions of imperialism argued through a Marxian prism, on the other. Next, they introduce the most important arrangements, general consensuses, central categories, and main debates and internal divisions of the dependency debate. In it, they identify three main groups: the proponents of “dependent-associated development” (Fernando H. Cardoso, Enzo Faletto, José Serra), the “super-exploitation” and “sub-imperialism” camp (Ruy Mauro Marini, Theotonio Dos Santos, Vania Bambirra), and the authors focused mainly on unequal exchange (André Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, although the latter was also an advocate of super-exploitation). Finally, the authors offer a reinterpretation of the thesis of unequal exchange from the vantage point of Marx’s law of value, which attempts to go beyond the straitjackets of circulation and super-exploitation thesis.
