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7/29/2019 IPE Lecture 7
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International Political Economy
Structuralism inPerspective: Lenin and
Imperialism, Modern WorldSystems Theory, Dependency
Theory.
(Ch. 4 contd)
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Lenin and Imperialism
- Lenin: founder of the Soviet Union, role in the RussianRevolution of 1917.
- Took Marxs ideas forward Russia had gone through thecapitalist stage in history and was ready for a socialistrevolution
- Lenins ideas are the basis of Dependency and MWS theory
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Marx Vs Lenin
Marx: Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destructioninherently unstable three laws class conflict revolutionarycrisis transition to socialism.
Lenin expanded Marxs theory: Capitalism had escaped its threelaws of motion through overseas imperialism acquisition offoreign colonies had enabled the capitalists to dispose offunconsumed goods and acquire cheap resources.
Marx focus: internal exploitation of capitalism
Lenin Focus: international exploitation of capitalism howinequality between classes was similar to inequality indevelopment among industrialized and developing countries.
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Fourth Law: Law of capitalist imperialism
As capitalist economies mature, capitalaccumulates, profits fall, capitalist economiesacquire colonies to serve as markets,investment outlets and sources of cheap rawmaterial.
Lenin: imperialism is the highest stage ofcapitalismconcentration of wealth incapitalism fuels imperialism
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Imperial capitalism spreads through two structures of
IPE: the production and finance structure.
Under capitalism both theses structures are constituted
to create dependency and facilitate exploitation.
Rich capitalist countries are able to delay their financial
crisis by keeping poor nations underdeveloped and
deep in debt, and dependent on the rich nations for
manufactured goods, jobs and financial resources.
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Modern World Systems theory
(MWS)
Immanuel Wallerstein - the founder of the
intellectual school of world-systems theory- characterizes the world system as a set of
mechanisms which redistributes resources from the
periphery to the core.
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Modern World Systems theory (MWS)
Core: developed industrialized nations
Semi- Periphery: NICs
Periphery: LDCs
Core nations dominate the peripheral states throughunequal exchange- extraction of cheap raw materialsetc. The Core interacts with the periphery and the
semiperiphery through the global structure ofcapitalism. Core exploits and transforms
Semi periphery acts as an intermediary diffusingopposition of the periphery to the core.
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The core nations primarily own and control the major means of
production in the world and perform the higher-level production
tasks.The periphery nations own very little of the worlds means of
production and provide less-skilled labor.
Like a Marxs class system with a nation,:The core nations receive
the greatest share of surplus production, and periphery nations
receive the least. Furthermore, core nations are usually able topurchase raw materials and other goods from noncore nations
at low prices, while demanding higher prices for their exports to
noncore nations
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Core, Periphery and Semi-periphery Today?
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Criticism of MWS?
MWS approach to structuralism sees
exploitation as an inherent element of thecapitalist economic structure both within and
among the core, periphery and
semiperiphery.
Simplistic and deterministic?
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Dependency Theory
Main theme: the structure of the global political
economy enslaves the less developedcountries of the South by making them
dependent on the capitalist core nations of
the North
Development of underdevelopment thesis:Imperialism produced underdevelopment
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Then how can the periphery develop if it is
exploited by the industrialized nations in theglobal political economy?
- Withdraw from the global political economy?
- Efforts to redistribute power and income
between North and South (eg. Organizationslike UNCTAD)
- Calls for a NIEO
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