[Marxism] (fwd) Henryk Grossman as dependency theorist

[Les Schaffer]

[ fwd from Rick Grossman, came as HTML only]

Louis's very interesting piece 'Henryk Grossman as dependency theorist', 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/henryk-grossman-as-dependency-theorist/ 
, draws attention to a neglected aspect of Grossman's work, his account 
of unequal exchange in foreign trade as a counterveiling tendency to the 
tendency for the rate of profit to fall.

This matter is also briefly discussed in Henryk Grossman and the 
recovery of Marxism University of Ilinois Press, Urbana and Chicago 
2007, pp. 133, 263-264 and in more detail in 'Henryk Grossman on 
capitalist expansion and imperialism; International socialist review 56, 
November-December 2007, pp. 57-66, on the web at 
http://www.isreview.org/issues/56/feat-grossman.shtml. A contributor to 
OPE-L also drew attention to the issue, 
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/ope-l/2005m10/msg00157.htm and 
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/ope-l/2006m08/msg00030.htm.

Grossman's approach has common features with the treatment of unequal 
exchange, as a consequence of the transformation of values into prices, 
by Arghiri Emmanuel in his Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism 
of Trade Monthly Review Press, New York 1972. There is less affinity 
with Frank and Wallerstein.

Grossman's use of Marx's phrase "due to backward development" can't be 
equated with Frank's "development of underdevelopment". The apparent 
similarity is an artifact of the translation. The German does not 
suggest that development has gone into reverse in "countries with 
inferior production facilities". An alternative translation of  "wegen 
der niedrigen Entwicklung" that avoids this implication is "because of 
the low [level of] development".

Grossman certainly regarded unequal exchange as one of several 
counterveiling tendencies associated with imperialism. Unlike the 
dependentistas, he did not see it as the explanation of imperialism.

The passage that criticises Kautsky (below) can be read as a critique of 
ideas Kautsky shares with dependency theory. Paraphrasing this 
interpretation of Grossman: Kautsky says imperialism is mainly about the 
relationships between advanced capitalist countries and non-capitalist 
parts of the world. This is wrong. Imperialism is primarily about 
competition between imperialist powers.

    Kautsky sees the essence of imperialism in a striving to conquer the 
non-capitalist agrarian parts of the world. He therefore sees 
imperialism as merely an episode in the history of capitalism that will 
pass with the industrialisation of those parts of the world. This 
conception is totally false. Imperialism must be understood in the 
specific form that Luxemburg gives to it in her theory of the role of 
the non-capitalist countries. Imperialist antagonisms subsist even among 
the capitalist states in their relations to one another. Far from being 
merely an episode that belongs to the past, imperialism is rooted in the 
essence of capitalism at advanced stages of accumulation. Imperialist 
tendencies become stronger in the course of accumulation, and only the 
overthrow of capitalism will abolish them altogether. [Source Grossman 
The law of accumulation 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/grossman/1929/breakdown/ch03.htm]

Rick

At 12/06/2008 04:32 AM, you wrote:
 > 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/henryk-grossman-as-dependency-theorist/ 


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