The Pros And Cons Of Dependency Theory

The insinuation behind this model, as Dependency Theory suggests, is that satellite countries become connected to the economic success of metropolis countries (a connection that is neither “self-generating nor self-perpetuating”). When countries within the core experience growth, countries within the fringe tend to experience growth at a proportional level. When world metropoles experience economic recession, however, the satellite countries feel it at a larger rate because of the loss of their resources and their subordinate relationship to metropoles. This is often a generality and isn 't consistently the case.

One of his hypotheses in developing this theoretical model maintains that, “Satellites experience their greatest economic development

This is no less true for Dependency Theory. Radicals amongst Dependency Theory, mostly neo-Marxists, are often criticized for their ostentatious views of development Gunder Frank stated that the “economic and social development for the majority of Latin American societies will not change until they destroy the capitalist class structure through revolution and replace it with socialist development” . A radical view like this is not the best way to accrue a mass of followers behind your cause. It is also known that the theory began to lose steam with the rise of the economies of both Taiwan and South Korea after it was expected that they would follow a similar path to that of Cuba, prior to its

A major claim against the theory is that it fails to account for the endogenous factors involved in a country’s development and places blame entirely on external factors. Tony Smith, in his work, The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory, writes “Dependency Theory represents a historically concrete attempt of Marxism to absorb southern nationalism into a kind of ideological united front.” This is not a common claim, specifically because in order to move towards the next mode of production, in Marxist Theory, it is necessary for the proletarianized people, or satellites in this case, to mobilize against the current mode in order to achieve socio-economic change. Neo-Marxists, understanding this concept full well, might likely attempt to incorporate Latin Americans into a struggle against the current economic elite, so as to stimulate