IPE Lecture 7

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

Documents

IPE Lecture 7