The Disarticulation of Economy Within “Developing Societies”

Abstract

The process of development of peripheral capitalism goes for-ward within a framework of competition (in the broadest sense of the word) from the center, which is responsible for the distinctive structure assumed by the periphery, as something complementary and dominated. It is this competition that determines three types of distortion in the development of peripheral capitalism as compared with capitalism at the center: (1) a crucial distortion toward export activities, which absorb the major part of the capital arriving from the center; (2) a distortion toward tertiary activities, which arises from both the special contradictions of peripheral capitalism and the original structures of the peripheral formations; and (3) a distortion in the choice of branches of industry, toward light branches, and also, to a lesser degree, toward light techniques.