Imperialism and unequal development

This collection of essays elaborates and applies the ideas developed by the author in Accumulation on a World Scale (MR Press, 1974) and Unequal Development (MR Press, 1976). Marxism, according to Samir Amin, « is neither an economic theory, a sociological theory, nor a philosophy, but the social science of revolutionary socialist praxis. » It follows that the renaissance of Marxism that has characterized recent years has had its origins in those parts of the world which have been and continue to be the scene of decisive revolutionary struggles- the exploited and oppressed periphery of the world capitalist system, primarily Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And it is this renaissance of Marxism with which the author deals and to which he makes a vital contribution in these lively and eminently readable essays. The book is divided into three parts, entitled, respectively, « Historical Materialism : Capitalism and Socialism, » « Imperialism and Underdevelopment, » and « Problems of Transition and the Construction of Socialism. » The range of topics is thus extraordinarily wide, and in every case the treatment has the freshness and originality that readers have come to expect from Amin. His overall conclusions can be summed up in the following words, occurring near the end of the last essay : « The societies of the capitalist centers are sufficiently rich, the interlocking of interests sufficiently complex, the feeling for the privileges which imperialism stimulates sufficiently shared, for these societies to be able to wait for some decades yet in a kind of slow decomposition. On the other hand, the societies of the dominated periphery no longer can wait. With every passing year, the material conditions of their vast masses becomes more intolerable, while the palliatives of capitalist integration become increasingly worthless. ».