Political Scholarship

Robert A. Packenham. THE DEPENDENCY MOVEMENT: SCHOLARSHIP AND POLITICS IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Ted C. Lewellen. DEPENDENCY AND DEVELOPMENT: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD WORLD. Westport, CT: Begin & Garvey, 1995.

Political scientists who, like me, got their doctorates in the 1960s may recall with a blush how confident we were upon entering the academy. We were bringing Science, for the first time, to the discipline. We knew statistics; we worked on opinion surveys; we had read Arnold Brecht and knew all the steps of the Scientific Method; we had read Vernon Van Dyke and learned to scorn normative statements; we used words like "hypothesize," "data," "inputs," "outputs," and "feedback." We read Gabriel Almond and knew Systems Theory; and although we were strictly "value-neutral," we still recognized that something might be "functional" or"dysfunctional" for something we called "the System," in order to avoid that obsolete, unscientific term, "the State." Looking down impatiently at our elders, poor old "traditionalist" duffers who still mumbled about things like laws, treaties, or constitutions as they shuffled (not nearly fast enough) toward retirement, we knew, as Positivists, that we were scaling the intellectual Himalayas. Who could blame us for believing in Progress? After all, our mentors - such as Professors Almond, Coleman, Lipset, Lerner, and Rostow - had shown clearly that forces were at work all over the world producing an inevitable phenomenon called "Modernization." The United States was the most modern country in the world (in fact, the Almond and Coleman model of political modernization looked strikingly like the US political system), and we were the most modern generation in that most modern of nations: right on the cutting edge.

Then, suddenly, just as we had pushed the last traditionalist off the stage and were settling down to run the show, . . . whoosh! bang! pow! . . literally from out of left field, the late Sixties hit. Positivism was out. Scientific objectivity was out. Modernization was out. Revolution was in, and scholars were expected to use all their abilities to promote it. After a brief struggle, the new approach won. Maybe it was the sheer numbers of the New Left "baby boomers" that overwhelmed us, or maybe the fervor of their faith shamed us. After all, many of the Latin Americanists among us had gone through graduate school on National Defense (sic) Scholarships, the ample supply of which surely was due to the Cold War and, especially, the Cuban Revolution. Though we thought of ourselves as liberals, we were defensive at the charge that we had been bought and turned into the lackeys of capitalism. Against the background of the Vietnam War, any claim to value neutrality looked like veiled support for an immoral status quo.

The process of radicalizing and politicizing the academy went fastest and furthest in the field of Latin American studies, where a branch of New Left thought called dependency theory became dominant just about 1970. It was in that year that the dependistas took over the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and began to pass political resolutions over the objections of those who wanted to keep the organization focused strictly on academic matters. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, meaning that most of us who still believe in the ideal of objective, scientific research have spent the greater part of our careers as a besieged minority in the profession.

That is not a pleasant situation, nor does it serve the cause of intellectual progress to twist the facts in order to serve an ideology. However much positivists may have fallen short of their objective standards, those standards were still the right ones. So it is to the credit of Robert Packenham, a Stanford political scientist trained in the positivist approach, that he decided to fight back. The Dependency Movement, published in 1992, offers a devastating analysis of dependency theory that is based on a solid bed of facts, quotations, and citations; and it proceeds to its task of demolition with a relentless logic. Every inconsistency, every facile assumption, every unsupported assertion, and every dishonest intellectual dodge employed by the leading dependistas is brought under Packenham's pitiless microscope. It would be hard to read this book and still take dependency theory seriously, which is why it has been largely ignored by the profession over the past five years. That is an undeserved fate. The book should be read widely, not only as a critique of an essentially shallow theory, but as a model of how to analyze texts carefully.

As Packenham shows, "dependency theory" was essentially Marxist: more specifically, it offered an updated version of Lenin's imperialism, the so-called "highest stage of capitalism.' Where Lenin had predicted the continued spread of colonialism, which would lead to a series of world wars that would eventually exhaust capitalism, the dependency theorists wrote in a post-colonial world that required them to redefine the workings of imperialism. Taking a cue from the "structuralist school" of economists at the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), the dependistas viewed contemporary imperialism as a 3-tiered pecking order in which the advanced industrial nations of the West, plus Japan, constituted the "Center" of a worldwide capitalist system. The "Periphery" of this system was formed by the agricultural nations of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. In between were the semiindustrialized, "Semi-Peripheral" nations, who might be regional powers capable of exploiting their neighbors on the one hand, but who were also equally dependent upon the Center's capital and technology on the other. The Center controlled the whole system indirectly, through interlocking elites: bankers and heads of multinational corporations in the Center connived with local agrarian and military bosses in the Periphery and Semi-Periphery. In some dependency writings, this power network was replicated within each national unit, with national elites controlling regional capitals which exploited, in turn, smaller towns and countryside around them.

The dependistas departed from the structuralists in two ways. Whereas a structuralist (like Raul Prebisch) thought that the global economy was currently unfair to agricultural countries, he believed in the possibility of enlightened cooperation by the Center to raise living standards worldwide because it would be good business to do so. In addition, he believed that many, if not most, countries in the Periphery could develop their own industry and industrial bourgeoisie. Dependency theory rejected both notions. So long as the world's economic order remained capitalist, the Center would continue to dominate and exploit the rest of the world through its control of capital and technology. The only remedy for this situation would come from a socialist revolution, which would spread worldwide and eventually destroy capitalism. Various examples have been hailed as possible harbingers of this global ideological shift: Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, Allende's Chile, Sandinista Nicaragua. Hope dies hard among the dependistas.

As Packenham points out, there are many varieties of dependency theory, although they can generally be classified as either orthodox or unorthodox. Andre Gunder Frank's Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1967) is the earliest, and perhaps most extreme, statement of orthodox dependency theory. More faithful to a strict Marxist-Leninist model than other versions, his theory posits that the effect of global capitalism on the Third World is, inevitably, to produce "the development of underdevelopment." That is to say, capitalism cannot help being more and more exploitative, and its victims cannot avoid increasing immiseration. Violent revolution and the triumph of socialism are the predestined outcomes of this globalized process of capitalist accumulation. Unorthodox dependency theory, which in Packenham's view is best represented by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto's Dependencia y desarrollo en America Latina (1969), attempts to avoid such crudities by being more ambiguous and eclectic. It claims to draw inspiration from non-Marxist sources (Weber, Durkheim, Parsons) as well as from Marxist ones. In its analysis, it also claims to give as much emphasis to the claims of nationalism as to those of class interests. However, Packenham spends a considerable part of his book in dismantling that facade. He concludes that, as between orthodox and unorthodox dependency theory, "the alleged differences are either much smaller than claimed or nonexistent regarding other issues" (p. 119), and, again: "The fundamental ideas and logic of unorthodox dependency no less than orthodox dependency are Marxist" (p. 120). Packenham basically argues that, Reduced to its essentials, the dependency perspective is really a massive prescription for socialism. National dependency or autonomy is a secondary concern. . . Dependency writers are willing to use arguments about national dependency as long as the facts fit their preconceptions; but when the facts diverge, they readily jettison national autonomy as a pertinent concern (p. 38).

For Packenham, the basic intellectual flaw of dependency theory is its "substantive holism," by which he means the use of loaded terms that assume, axiomatically, that certain features are always found together. Thus, for dependistas, a term like "dependent capitalism" necessarily connotes exploitation, foreign penetration, national disintegration, instability, inequality, underdevelopment, distorted development, unemployment, ever-widening gaps in income, and poverty. Similarly, dependistas, like other Marxists, employ the term "interest" in a special way that is both loaded and immune from empirical verification. Foreign bankers have "interests," as do multinational corporations. Local military officers have interests, and so do latifundistas, the Catholic hierarchy, local businessmen and, of course, "the People." These are objective interests, as defined by dependency writers, so if any specific individuals fail to act in accordance with the theory, their behavior can be attributed to "false consciousness." Assigning "objective interests" to various groups has the additional charm of making the writer feel omniscient and godlike.

Substantive holism is buttressed by "epistemological holism," which rejects any idea of submitting the assertions or assumptions of dependency theory to empirical testing. For example, the fact that capitalism in North America, Japan, and Western Europe has resulted in unprecedentedly high standards of living is rejected as irrelevant: dependent capitalism is different because it is "dependent," an obvious tautology. Nor will dependistas grapple with the fact that the United States and Japan were once "dependent" themselves, or that England was once a colony of Rome and, later, a supplier of raw materials to the textile industries of Bruges. Another fall-back position is to shift the argument. If you point out that many Latin American countries are industrializing, dependistas are certain to reply that such industries are only "enclaves," or that they are creating unemployment by bringing in capital-intensive methods (or, if they are labor-intensive, that they are withholding the latest technology so as to keep Latin America dependent). Heads I win, tails you lose.

Another generic feature of dependency theory, for Packenham, is its utopianism. Socialism is the goal. But surely there is dependency, inequality, poverty, exploitation, or brutality under real-life socialist systems? That question is never even asked, much less explored. To mention Pol Pot, the Prague Spring, the Chinese and Soviet labor camps, the Cuban and Vietnamese boat people, or the Sandinistas' plundering of the national patrimony, to select only a few examples from 20thcentury socialist practice, would be dismissed as a pointless bourgeois ploy. After all, those are not real socialism. "Real" socialism exists only in theory, where it is forever pure, virginal, perfect. And when you compare pure theoretical socialism to messy everyday capitalism - well, it is really no contest.

That is why all the evidence of socialism's failures have had, thus far and in practice, so little impact on Western intellectuals. Nevertheless, there is some indication that maybe, even in academia, reality is beginning - only just beginning - to make a tiny breach in the defensive walls of dependency theory. I submit as evidence a recently published book called Dependency and Development: An Introduction to the Third World, by Ted C. Lewellen, a specialist on Peru.

The first thing about Lewellen's book that strikes one's attention is that the old theories of modernization, or development, get equal billing with dependency theory. Not that Professor Lewellen approves of them: they are, after all, ideological justifications of Western capitalism, with its dreadful consumerism. He much prefers Marxist systems like China, North Korea, and Cuba, all of which have, according to him, "attained high scores on the PQLI"- the Physical Quality of Life Index, a measure that combines rates of infant mortality, life expectancy, and literacy. Unfortunately, while these three communist countries have provided "a low but adequate standard of living for the larger part of their peoples, . . . they have found it difficult to evolve beyond the basic needs approach" (p. 84). Moreover, Lewellen concedes, other Marxist countries failed "miserably" even at their basic needs goals: e.g., Cambodia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Chile, Nicaragua. Is there some kind of self-destruct mechanism in socialist economies, he asks, like perhaps a lack of incentives, rigid centralized planning, or too much repression? A willingness even to suggest these things indicates that maybe dependency theory has loosened up. Nevertheless, Lewellen quickly follows up with:

However, it would be difficult to find a Marxist government in the Third World that was not relentlessly attacked by the West, either covertly through Central Intelligence Agency destabilization or overtly through embargoes and open warfare, so, it is difficult to say how a socialist country might have fared if it were left in peace and allowed to trade freely in the international marketplace (p. 85).

Let's see now, I may be wrong but I seem to recall Cuban-financed guerrillas trying to destabilize democratic governments in Costa Rica and Venezuela, and Cuban soldiers directly intervening in Angola, Ethiopia, and South Yemen. I know it was a long time ago, but I also sort of remember North Korea invading the South, or was it really the other way around? And didn't North Vietnam first try to destabilize South Vietnam through the Viet Cong, and, when that proved insufficient, didn't they invade? seizing territory in Laos and Cambodia on the way down? Finally, if all that these Marxist countries wanted was to "trade freely," why weren't they willing to allow people to pass freely back and forth across their borders as well as goods? What was the idea behind the Berlin Wall or the Bamboo Curtain? Why do Cubans still have to flee across the Florida Straits in little bitty boats?

Lewellen's bias towards Marxism is evident in the chapter where he gives a history of the West's relations with the Third World. Four of the five sources cited are Marxist, including a history of capitalism published by the Monthly Review Press, another "history" by the Open University, and a so-called "classic of Marxist analysis" published by Howard University. Similarly, in the following chapter, where he compares modernization theories with dependency theory, five of the six sources are Marxist, including one by Fidel Castro. When Lewellen compares socialist "basic needs" development strategies with neoliberal ones, the latter being guided by the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, he asserts that "basic needs" models have as their goals "adequate food, housing, clothing, medical care, and education for all" (p. 104). By contrast, neoliberal models only aim at increasing the gross national product (GNP) and paying off the foreign debt. China, Cuba, and Chile-under-Allende are examples of the basic needs model; whereas Chile-under-Pinochet and Hong Kong are examples of neoliberalism. Almost immediately, Lewellen tells us that the latter two cases are exceptional and probably not pertinent for other developing countries: Hong Kong because it is an island city-state that served as a financial outpost for the British Empire, and Pinochet's Chile because its success was built on an already well-developed infrastructure (as if China, Cuba, and Allende's Chile did not enjoy the same advantage).

Such loading of the dice is exactly what Packenham has in mind when he complains (pp. 30 and 4852) of politicized scholarship. For the politicized Marxist intellectual, objectivity is only a mask that the enemy wears, which must be torn away. Facts are pawns to be used or sacrificed as strategy requires. There is no difference between scholarship and polemics. Truth is simply a matter of power, and it is here that MarxismLeninism shows its affinity to Social Darwinism. Thus, when Lewellen states that socialist countries aim at meeting the basic needs of all, he overlooks the millions, indeed tens of millions, of unfortunates who died under those regimes because they were either killed outright or were denied, deliberately, the basic needs of life. Conversely, he overlooks the most obvious and ubiquitous facts of life under Western consumerism: the mass production and marketing of cheap goods, and the provision of high wages and easy credit with which to buy them. As Joseph Schumpeter once wrote in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy:

The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort.

To Lewellen's credit, he has abandoned the static premises of the old dependency theorists and has accepted the fact that some Third World nations can actually make it into the First World. He also concedes that the ones who are doing so - South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and perhaps Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Uruguay - are capitalist, before hastening to add that this is a "very small elite group" (p. 16). In a later chapter, in order to distinguish them from the more classic neoliberal model, he carefully categorizes them as the "Southeast Asian Model" on grounds that they are more "pragmatic" in their policies and willing to employ state intervention in the earlier stages of development. While there may be much to quibble about concerning Lewellen's definitions and classifications, it is clear that his book represents some progress toward rediscovering scientific objectivity. If his heart is still with Marx, his head, nevertheless, is sending him messages from the real world. In fact, after the first few chapters, his book is really quite good. His fundamental point is probably correct: that some (not all) Third World countries can aspire to join the First World, but only if they adopt an unorthodox, authoritarian capitalist approach. Actually, before anyone ever thought of a Third World, imperial Japan and imperial Germany succeeded in playing catch-up just that way. Furthermore, even though the United States bears a much greater resemblance to the neoliberal model, its growth was not spurred primarily by exports. Industrial capitalism triumphed here following a civil war that eliminated its Southern agrarian opponents, and it developed behind high protective tariff walls. In fact, England, the first industrial nation, may be the only true example of "neoliberalism."

The Soviet Union, the world's first communist state, dissolved itself at the end of 1991. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former caudilho dependista, won the Brazilian presidency as candidate of the Right in 1994. By 1995, the field of development studies seems to have accepted, albeit grudgingly, the superiority of capitalism - if Lewellen's book is any indication. Perhaps, as Packenham urged, scholarly values will gradually return to academia. Inductive method in; politics and theatre out. That may still take some time, but the trends look positive.

Paul H. Lewis is Professor of Political Science at Tulane University.

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