international vs. domestic domination

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[was: Re: [PEN-L:13810] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: S. Africa/mode of prod. debate]

At 05:46 PM 6/21/01 -0500, you wrote:
> I have no problem with uneven and combined development paradigm, O'Connor's
> piece in the Race and Class special issue on ecological crisis was
> convincing to
> me, but I have never understood the debates between, e.g., world systems
> on the
> one hand and dependency theory on the other, or underdevelopment, mode of
> production debates, etc. I have never understood these as mutually exclusive
> alternative paradigms, but as complementary tools of analysis, all imperfect,
> but all helpful in some cases.  Imperialism yes, global colonialist
> capitalism,
> etc., but also agency for real people who are responding to the ways in which
> imperialist global capitalism affects their lives, very often fighting
> tooth and
> nail against it, and also often using some of what capitalism brought to
> resist
> that very capitalism---technologies, etc. mat

amen. World systems & dependency/underdevelopment theory, on the one hand,
and modes of production theory, on the other, all have something to
contribute. I don't see why the two "sides" have to be contradictory. The
first bunch emphasizes international relations and core domination of the
periphery, while the latter emphasizes different kinds of class domination
and exploitation within the periphery. Both sides deserve our attention. We
shouldn't go with the crude dependency theorists who over-emphasize
international domination (or even make it the whole story), just as we
should reject the crude mode of production theorists who ignore that
dimension. (Samir Amin, for example, provides one balanced story.) And as
Mat notes, we have to look for ways to allow people to promote their own
liberation from both international and domestic domination & exploitation.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine