Intellectual Production
Samir Amin’s time at IDEP and the foundation of CODESRIA are milestones in his research, his intellectual production, one of his core concerns. In his intellectual production, he has focused on a harsh critique of the capitalist/imperialist system; on the deconstruction of conventional concepts of analysis; on unfailing support for political, economic and cultural emancipation of the countries of the South; and on the defence of socialism as the only alternative to capitalism and its horrors.
As mentioned above, for Samir Amin intellectual and political struggles are inseparable, because as a fundamentally intellectual being, he cannot limit himself to explaining the world and its atrocities but can rather highlight and participate in struggles aimed at changing the world. In this perspective he remains true to the teachings of Marx who wrote in one of the famous “Theses on Feuerbach” that philosophers must not only try to explain the world but rather devote themselves to transforming it.There is no doubt that Samir Amin contributed, as much as, if not more than, other prominent economists of the South to questioning the notion of
Samir Amin. Source Photograph from the personal photo collection of the author
“development” as it was understood by conventional economists in the early 1960s, and especially to disputing the dominant discourse on why the development of countries of the South, and Africa in particular, were lagging behind. A core aspect of Samir Amin’s work, since his PhD thesis, was to demonstrate the indissoluble link between ‘development’ and ‘underdevelopment’.
Samir Amin was among the first economists of the South to refute in a coherent and well-argued manner the conventional theses on why the South is lagging behind. In his opinion, capitalism is a world system comprising the so-called ‘developed’ capitalist countries and the so-called ‘underdeveloped’ countries of the South. This position, already expressed in his PhD thesis, had attracted a lot of attention and stimulated debate both in the countries of the South and of the North. His later writings only confirmed these views, which were to be reinforced by those of other economists, notably those of the Latin American school and of Immanuel Wallerstein and the ‘world system’.
Samir Amin’s work is marked by key ideas that guide his fight against capitalism, for the emancipation of the people of the South from the capitalist/imperialist yoke, and for economic and social transformation on the long transitional path to socialism.
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