Brad’s Reviews > Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism > Status Update

Gradually, the Palestine problem became the pivot of the 'Arab question', the test of capacity for the various social classes that aspired to lead the anti-imperialist national movement. It was on this test that there came to grief both the comprador, latifundia-owning bourgeois generation and then the petty-bourgeoisie.

None of the features that define the structure of the periphery is thus weakened as economic growth proceeds: on the contrary, these features are accentuated. Whereas at the center, growth means development, making the economy more integral, in the periphery growth does not mean development, for it disarticulates the economy — it is only a ‘development of underdevelopment’.

Exports that are destined for the center cannot grow faster than demand at the center — that is, approximately at the rate of growth of the center: it is impossible for a country to catch up on its historical handicap while sticking to the basis of international specialization.

The international division of labour [reproduces] its own conditions, splitting the world labour market into watertight national markets with big differences in rewards. It deepens unequal exchange by internalizing this in the firm.

"To say that the theory of unequal exchange means that ‘the workers at the center exploit those at the periphery ‘ is meaningless, since only ownership of capital makes exploitation possible…To say...that it means that the bourgeoisie of the periphery is...interested in shaking off the domination of the center, [forgets] that this bourgeoisie has been formed...in the wake of the bourgeoisie of the center."

A policy of development for the benefit of the masses would have to base itself upon a fundamental revision of priorities in the allocation of resources, implying rejection of the rules of profitability. That is what a strategy of transition would mean.

The doctrine of free trade has only ever been preached by the stronger, after they have established a dominant position by other means.