Developmentalism, Modernity, and Dependency Theory in Latin America

The Latin American dependentistas produced a knowledge that criticized the Eurocentric assumptions of the cepalistas, including the orthodox Marxist and the North American modernization theories. The dependentista school critique of stagism and developmentalism was an important intervention that transformed the imaginary of intellectual debates in many parts of the world. However, I will argue that many dependentistas were still caught in the developmentalism, and in some cases even the stagism, that they were trying to overcome. Moreover, although the dependentistas’ critique of stagism was important in denying the “denial of coevalness” that Johannes Fabian (1983) describes as central to Eurocentric constructions of “otherness,” some dependentistas replaced it with new forms of denial of coevalness. The first part of this article discusses developmentalist ideology and what I call “feudalmania” as part of the longue durée of modernity in Latin America. The second part discusses the dependentistas’ developmentalism. The third part is a critical discussion of Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s version of dependency theory. Finally, the fourth part discusses the dependentistas’ concept of culture.

Developmentalist Ideology and Feudalmania as Part of the
Ideology of Modernity in Latin America

There is a tendency to present the post-1945 development debates in Latin America as unprecedented. In order to distinguish continuity from discontinuity, we must place the 1945–90 development debates in the context of the longue durée of Latin American history. The 1945–90 development debates in Latin America, although seemingly radical, in fact form part of the longue durée of the geoculture of modernity that has dominated the modern world-system since the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century. Before I can elaborate this further, I must, however, clarify some historical and conceptual points. The idea that anything new is necessarily good and desirable because we live in an era of progress is fundamental to the ideology of modernity (Wallerstein 1992a, 1992b). This idea can be traced to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, which asserted the possibility of a conscious rational reform of society, the idea of progress, and the virtues of science vis-à-vis religion.

The modern idea that treated each individual as a free centered subject with rational control over his or her destiny was extended to the nation-state level. Each nation-state was considered to be sovereign and free to rationally control its progressive development. The further elaboration of these ideas in classical political economy produced the grounds for the emergence of a developmentalist ideology. Developmentalism is linked to liberal ideology and to the idea of progress. For instance, one of the central questions addressed by political economists was how to increase the wealth of nations. Different prescriptions were recommended by different political economists; namely, some were free-traders and others neomercantilist. In spite of their policy discrepancies, they all believed in national development and in the inevitable progress of the nation-state through the rational organization of society. The main bone of contention was how to ensure more wealth for a nation-state. According to Immanuel Wallerstein,

This tension between a basically protectionist versus a free trade stance became one of the major themes of policy-making in the various states of the world-system in the nineteenth century. It often was the most significant issue that divided the principal political forces of particular states. It was clear by then that a central ideological theme of the capitalist world-economy was that every state could, and indeed eventually probably would, reach a high level of national income and that conscious, rational action would make it so. This fit very well with the underlying Enlightenment theme of inevitable progress and the teleological view of human history that it incarnated. (1992a, 517)

Developmentalism became a global ideology of the capitalist world-economy. In the Latin American periphery these ideas were appropriated in the late eighteenth century by the Spanish Creole elites, who adapted them to their own agenda. Since...