Marxian theories and economic development: roots, boom, setbacks and contributions to development

JUAN EDUARDO SANTARCANGELO

Liverpool

Conferencia; 22nd Annual Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics; 2020

Association of Heterodox Economics

Although there are many different explanations throughout history about the causes of backwardness and underdevelopment, one of the most realistic and sophisticated approaches was based on the classical political economy, and in particular on the Marxian school of thought. Such are the cases of the theories of imperialism, dependency theory, unequal exchange and world-system analysis; all theories that have in common the key role of profits in combination with specific forms of exploitation and disputes of power between countries. The aim of my paper is to study the role played by these Marxian theories regarding economic development from the origin of its discipline, its heyday in the early 1970s, and almost abandonment thereafter. My goal is to analyze the main Marxian contributions to the development and to determine its relevance to understanding the current challenges of developing countries.