[Marxism] Andre Gunder Frank

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Although the only contact I ever had with Andre Gunder Frank was
participating on the same mailing listss, he certainly made a strong impact
on me. Whether you agreed or disagreed with A.G. Frank, he was not easily
forgotten or ignored.

I own five of his books and have referred to them frequently over the
years, especially the MR classics that deal with dependency theory. Frank
was vulnerable to charges from his detractors that he was insufficiently
grounded in Marxist theory. However, he compensated by exposing class and
national injustice.

In many ways, his theories about the development of underdevelopment, etc.
are merely secondary. Primarily, I considered him to be the academic voice
of the Cuban revolution. If Fidel Castro said that the revolution must be
socialist or it will be a caricature of a revolution, then Andre Gunder
Frank was the scholar who embodied that message in nearly everything he wrote.

To the very end, Frank wrote penetrating critiques of US foreign policy
that never yielded an inch to "humanitarian intervention" sensibilities. He
never mellowed in his old age and because of illness. He will be remembered.

---
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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