Sub-Imperialism Revisited <UN> Studies in Critical Social Sciences Series Editor David Fasenfest (Wayne State University) VOLUME 105 Critical Global Studies Series Editor Ricardo A. Dello Buono (Manhattan College, New York) Editorial Board José Bell Lara (University of Havana, Cuba) Walden Bello (State University of New York at Binghamton, usa and University of the Philippines, Philippines) Samuel Cohn (Texas A & M University, usa) Ximena de la Barra (South American Dialogue, Chile/Spain) Víctor M. Figueroa (Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico) Marco A. Gandásegui, Jr., (Universidad de Panamá, Panama) Ligaya Lindio-McGovern (Indiana University-Kokomo, usa) Daphne Phillips (University of West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago) Jon Shefner (University of Tennessee-Knoxville, usa) Teivo Teivainen (Universidad de Helsinki, Finland and Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru) Henry Veltmeyer (Saint Mary’s University, Nova Scotia, Canada and Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico) Peter Waterman (Institute of Social Studies (Retired), The Hague, Netherlands) VOLUME 7 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cgs <UN> Sub-Imperialism Revisited Dependency Theory in the Thought of Ruy Mauro Marini By Adrián Sotelo Valencia Translated by Jacob Lagnado LEIDEN | BOSTON <UN> Cover illustration: Created by María del Carmen Solanes Carraro. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sotelo Valencia, Adrián, author. Title: Sub-imperialism revisited : dependency theory in the thought of Ruy Mauro Marini / by Adrián Sotelo Valencia ; translated by Jacob Lagnado. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2017] | Series: Studies in critical social sciences ; volume 105 | Series: Critical global studies ; volume 7 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017008347 (print) | LCCN 2017022194 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004319417 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004319400 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Economic development--Latin America. | Capitalism--Political aspects--Latin America. | Imperialism. | Marini, Ruy Mauro. Classification: LCC HC125 (ebook) | LCC HC125 .S6854 2017 (print) | DDC 338.98--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008347 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1573-4234 isbn 978-90-04-31940-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-31941-7 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. <UN> In memory of Ruy Mauro Marini ⸪ <UN> <UN> Contents Foreword ix Carlos Eduardo Martins List of Diagrams, Figures and Tables xiii Introduction 1 1 Dependency Theory in the Post-1945 Development Literature of Latin America 6 2 Marini’s Marxism and Dependency Theory Today 18 3 Neo-Imperialism and Neo-Dependency: Two Sides of the Same Historical-Political Process 42 4 Sub-Imperialism and Dependency 54 5 The United States and Brazil: Antagonistic Cooperation 74 6 Brasil Potência vs. Sub-Imperialism 86 7 Dictatorship, Democracy and the State of the Fourth Power 114 8 Sub-Imperialism and the Contemporary Capitalist Crisis 131 Epilogue 159 Bibliography 175 Index 186 <UN> <UN> Foreword Adrián Sotelo Valencia’s new book, Sub-Imperialism Revisited: Dependency Theory in the Thought of Ruy Mauro Marini, represents a serious attempt to bring Marini’s work up to date theoretically and empirically in light of the major issues facing Latin America and the world today. A student of Marini with numerous works published in different languages, here Sotelo puts the central arguments of the Marxist theory of dependency as conceptualised by Marini to the test of time by throwing them open to debate within the social sciences. In the first two of the book’s eight chapters, the author compares the specific nature of the Marxist theory of dependency to other perspectives, including ecla’s developmentalism and modernization theories; endogen- ism; neo-Gramscianism; postcolonial theory; world-systems theory and the Weberian and developmentalist interpretations of dependency. He argues in favour of developing the Marxist version of dependency theory and rejects hy- bridisations which only mischaracterise it and make developing its concepts that much harder. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 discuss the specificity of dependency theory in relation to the theory of imperialism; the chief features of imperial- ism and dependency in their current phase, and the particular place occupied by sub-imperialism within dependency theory. In doing so, Sotelo draws out sub-imperialism’s economic roots in the capital accumulation process and its relationship with political forces and the State, as well as the characteristics it has assumed in contemporary Latin America and Brazil in particular. The author goes on to situate the theory of sub-imperialism within the debate with those who claim Brazil is set to ‘overcome’ its peripheral and de- pendent condition and become an imperialist pole and world power, albeit one subservient to hegemonic capitalism. Ruy Mauro Marini passed away in 1997, and so Chapters 7 and 8 explore the relevance of his analysis today with a discussion of his concepts of the counter-insurgency state and the state of the fourth power which takes as its starting point the patterns of capital accumula- tion and contradictions between social classes and competing political forces present in Latin America since the 1980s. As a leading exponent of the Marxist theory of dependency, Sotelo’s the- ses are consistent with the view of contemporary capitalism he has presented throughout his body of work, namely that 1) Global capitalism has entered a new stage of dependency under a pat- tern of accumulation under the hegemony of fictitious financial capital. <UN> x Foreword Sotelo characterises this new stage as financial-neoliberal and one which has led to financialisation and two models of accumulation: a de- industrialising primary-exporter model, notwithstanding the mitigating effect of sub-imperialism in Brazil’s case; and a secondary- exporter model, which in Mexico is based on the export of manufactures from the maquiladoras and cheap labour (mostly) to the United States. 2) The financialised model of accumulation, under the hegemony of ficti- tious capital, expresses but also exacerbates the crisis of surplus value production. This is because it is ultimately a result of the automation of productive processes and living labour being replaced by dead labour, which means extraordinary surplus value cannot depend solely on the circuit of commodity production being realised but also requires ficti- tious capital to be created via public debt and state monopoly capitalism. The ever increasing displacement of productive accumulation towards the fictitious sphere has made it harder to produce surplus value, thus triggering a fall in rates of profit, investment and economic growth. It has also led to labour super-exploitation being intensified throughout the global capitalist economy and spreading from the peripheries to the traditional imperialist centres such as the us and Western Europe, where it has fuelled the crisis of bourgeois democracy and capitalist civilisation. 3) Only the Marxist theory of dependency is able to theorise dependency as a historical process that has intensified over the last three decades and identify its different stages. In this sense it is possible to distinguish four principal models of dependent capital accumulation: (a) colonial dependency, (b) primary-exporter and financial dependency, (c) in- dustrial dependency, and lastly (d) neoliberal dependency, dominated by fictitious capital and the scientific-technical revolution. Weberian dependency perspectives prioritise concrete analyses of dependency whilst rejecting its status as a theory, partly because they labour under the developmentalist illusion that ‘interdependency’ can be achieved via integration of a kind which is subservient to and dependent on impe- rialism. Similarly, perspectives which argue that a subordinate capital- imperialism exists in the most developed peripheral countries like Brazil fail to capture the contradictions and characteristics of the new stage of dependency because they ignore its structural differences with capital’s dynamic in the core countries. 4) The cycle of rising commodity prices during the first decade of the 2000s and following the crisis of the Washington Consensus created an open- ing which allowed the left and centre-left in Latin America to come to <UN> Foreword xi power and implement poverty reduction policies. These policies became a badge of honour for these so-called progressive governments and Lula’s two administrations especially, but became unsustainable as prices be- gan falling again in the following decade, thus reversing the earlier trend. As a result political