The New International Division of Labour and the Relative Autonomy of the State: Notes for a Reappraisal of Classical Dependency

Abstract

It is not a productive exercise to wander into the mire of self-proclaimed 'dependency writing' in the last two decades; quite apart from the convincing critiques of recent years (Palma 1978), the simple dependency model had already been superseded in Latin America before being 'discovered' in the USA and Europe (Cardoso 1977b), and the underlying idea is better expressed in the 'world system' approach (Wallerstein 1974). Today, broadly, it is suggested that the changing international division of labour is almost entirely imposed by multinational corporations in response to developments within metropolitan capitalism. In contrast, this paper will address itself to what might be called 'classical' dependency which bases its analysis on the dynamics of peripheral accumulation and its articulation to the process of metropolitan accumulation which dominates the world economy. By 'classical dependency' can be understood that view of the peripheral economy which has, on the one hand, roots in the classical political economy tradition and in particular a standpoint which places produced means of production, profits and accumulation at the centre of the analysis, combined with an explicit role for state intervention; and which has, on the other hand, roots in the Latin American tradition of ECLA though as a theory of production rather than exchange, with the state understood as essential to the underpinning of accumulation. It should be understood that this is a very tentative definition, and serves more as a means of access to the subject than a solid foundation for argument. In particular, this paper has as its central arguments: first, that the constraint on peripheral accumulation (and thus on growth, structural change and income distribution) is not a shortage of economic surplus; and second, that the state is not instrumentally subordinate to the logic of the world capitalist system. Against the 'world system' view, and along the lines of what can be called classical dependency, it will be argued that first, the realization of the surplus (particularly in the form of foreign exchange) is the crucial constraint on accumulation; and second, that the relative autonomy of the state in the management of the economy is a necessary aspect of that accumulation process. The implication of this viewpoint is that the 'room for manoeuvre' of national economies, particularly on the semi-periphery, is much greater than that contemplated in the 'world system'