Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade

by Arghiri Emmanuel, Charles Bettelheim (Editor), Torkil Lauesen (Foreword)

Neo-colonialism continues to run rampant, as a few nations continue to grow rich at the expense of the rest. Traditional doctrine, resting on Ricardo’s theory of comparative costs, has dominated investigation of this problem for a century-and-a-half, and has proven itself incapable of providing any answer to the inequality that arises as a result of free trade within a global capitalist system.

Arghiri Emmanuel’s pathbreaking study, now a classic, upends the conventional assumptions, subjecting the phenomena of international trade to critical scrutiny, both systematically and with logical rigor. It integrates the theory of international value (and unequal exchange) into the general theory of value as propounded by the classical economists and Marx.

Emmanuel’s theory of unequal exchange generated widespread world debate on its first appearance, part of which, emanating from French economist Charles Bettelheim, is included in this volume. It has remained the foundation of critical analysis of international exchange relations ever since and has gained even more importance today in the age of global value chains.

First published in English in 1972 and long out of print, Monthly Review Press is proud to reissue this updated edition with a new foreword by Emmanuel protégé, Torkil Lauesen, and a new introduction by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Theory, Politics, History, Philosophy

552 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2025

About the author

(Greek: Αργύρης Εμμανουήλ) was a Greek-French Marxian economist who became known in the 1960s and 1970s for his theory of 'unequal exchange'. The theory was an attempt to explain the falling trend in the terms of trade for underdeveloped countries, while criticising the different approaches of Raúl Prebisch, Hans Singer, and Arthur Lewis to do so as only half-hearted attempts. It stated, contrary to the then conventional Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson theory, that it was politically and historically set wage-levels that determined relative prices, not the other way around, and, contrary to the assumptions of Ricardo's comparative costs, that capital was internationally mobile and the rate of profit correspondingly equalised. What made the theory a heated subject in Marxist and dependendista circles was the theory's implications about international worker solidarity. Emmanuel was not late to point out that his theory fitted well with the observed absence of such solidarity, particularly between high- and low-wage countries, and, in fact, made the nationally enclosed workers movements into the principal cause of unequal exchange. By contrast, all subsequent versions of the theory such as those by Samir Amin, Oscar Braun, Jan Otto Andersson, Paul Antoine Delarue, and almost every critic since Charles Bettelheim, have preferred to make higher productivity the cause (and thereby justification) of higher wages, and 'monopolies' the cause of unequal exchange.

Emmanuel's theory of unequal exchange was part of a more comprehensive explanation of the post-war capitalist economy. In Emmanuel's view, because selling had to take place without the income generated by the sale itself, there was a permanent excess of (the value of) goods over (the purchasing power of) income in the normal workings of a market economy. This obliged the economy to function below its full potential and made it prone to crises such as the one he had himself experienced during the Great Depression. By contrast, the boom of the 'thirty glorious' post-war years indicated that this normal functioning had somehow been evaded, and Emmanuel now offered the institutionalised rise in wages, plus a policy of permanent inflation, as the principal stimulant directing the boom in investments. Since neither the wage- nor the consumption levels of the well-off countries could be internationally equalised - upwards for both ecological reasons and because it would eat up all profits, and downwards for political reasons in the same rich countries - unequal exchange was the necessary consequence, in a sense saving the capitalist economy from itself.

Reviews

[sube · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book in its content - it seeks to advance the theory, that with the assumption of an equalisation of international profit rates the increased wages of one nation are the expense of other nations; that is, the growth in wealth in one nation increases the inequality elsewhere. Wealth begets wealth, poverty begets poverty.

He creates a really useful and heterodox model, which however in my view is the best view in explaining the international situation at this day and the absence of international struggles.

Nonetheless, the book is extremely hard to read as it is written for economists - however, it gets better after the first 3 chapters or so, and the discussion in the appendix between bettelheim and emmanuel includes a lot of the key themes at play. Ultimately, a key work, however it requires a lot of work and I'll be revisiting this in the future.

[Maja Solar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knjiga je izazvala dosta polemike u marksističkim krugovima nakon njenog pojavljivanja 1969. Svakako, bitne teze za razmišljanje o nejednakosti iz ravni nadnica. Arghiri Emmanuel je pored uviđanja razlika koje nastaju zbog različitog organskog sastava kapitala ukazao na to da nejednaku razmenu uslovljavaju i nejednake nadnice, a onda je ovo pokušao teorijski zasnovati i odatle objasniti eksploataciju zemalja periferije i poluperiferije (nerazvijenih i zemalja u razvoju) od strane zemalja centra (razvijenih zemalja). Neke konsekvence su radikalne: ne samo da kapitalisti razvijenih zemalja eksploatišu radnu snagu nerazvijenih zemalja, već i radnička klasa razvijenih zemalja eksploatiše radničku klasu nerazvijenih zemalja. Uprkos problemima u vezi sa ovako određenim konceptom eksploatacije, zanimljivo je razmišljati o tome zašto npr. danas radnička klasa u Nemačkoj nema iste interese kao radnička klasa u Bangladešu i kakve koristi od njene eksploatacije zapravo ima...

[VSOP · Rating 5 out of 5]

B-b-banger! Chapters on rent and comparative costs are very math-heavy and a bit of a slog for a layman, I found that skimming through them got the general point across, however. All things considered, a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a 'leftist' or anti-imperialist. Chapters 3, 4 and the conclusion in particular are very worthwhile if you don't have time for all the formulas.

[Abe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could sort of follow the general thesis but many of the details are hazy. This isn’t really his fault the book presumes familiarity with at least part of Capital Vol 3 (mainly Marx’s schema for transforming values into prices). Good working knowledge of the broad strokes of the major schools of Economics (marginalism, classical Political Economy, etc) certainly doesn’t hurt either). He’s in the sort of weird position of having to defend his thesis to both classically trained economists as well as Marxians and slips in and out of the terms/style of these respective camps when making his argument. This sort of thing leads to, for example, sort of clunky sounding phrases like organic composition of labor (“organic” is already the thing gesturing at the labor component of the production process) or idiosyncratic definitions of “factor”. For these reasons I am uncomfortable making any sort of strong criticisms of most of the substance. I will say it is somewhat disappointing many regard this as *the* definitive statement on “third worldism” (I avoided reading Amin and some of the Monthly Review crowd first despite the latter probably having a lower intellectual barrier to entry because of such people’s enthusiasm about Arghiri) since his argument about mobility of capital and immobility of labour giving rise to unequal exchange can certainly in principle (and probably are operative in cases) apply just as much to differences within the worlds between nations (1st, 2nd, semi-periphery, 3rd, etc) as it does between first and third. Not spending more on how dramatic wage differentials arose (and not just on how they are reproduced) between first and third world is a flaw in my opinion and also explains part of why people like Wallerstein and Amin have some of the popularity they do (it’s not just because the latter may constructed his account to avoid certain political implications Emmanuel’s thesis entails).

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one goes pretty hard (and is pretty hard, some sections are quite a bit math-heavy and it takes some time for someone only moderately familiar with debates in marxian economics to grasp whats going on here). Despite its aim at economists, for the most part this book is quite lucidly written, and at the points when it all comes together into polemicizing it’s really great. Its conclusions, too, seem to be backed up by history - the international unity of capital triumphing over any potential solidarity of nationally fragmented working classes (and not because of any sort of mystical ideology, hegemony, or ‘false consciousness’ - as Hegel said, essence must appear!)
And I’m glad I didn’t skip the 160 pages of appendices - at times they’re really in the weeds of economic theory but they also serve to clarify the stakes of these debates for a marxist audience as well as the ambiguities in marx’s own work that form their foundations. It may be because Emmanuel gets the last word (twice), but I think he handily responds to Bettelheim’s critiques while giving a good introductory lesson in the transformation problem (which is for Emmanuel a false one).
Essential reading for thinking through imperialism and the production of international space, and especially for any world-systems head

[Robert Johannson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful theoretical work on the transfer of surplus value from low to high wage countries. Emmanuel deserves a place among the greats of Marxian political economy for his creative and undogmatic development of Marx's theory to analyze international inequalities, as well as the uncomfortable political logics that come from it.

[FANI Chilanga]

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