Polarization and Ways Toward Emancipation for the South
From this conception of capitalism as a global system, as seen above, flows the questioning of the conventional analysis of ‘underdevelopment’. On the basis of this analysis, Samir Amin has worked to deconstruct the dominant discourse on the origin of the ‘underdevelopment’ of the countries of the South.
This deconstruction starts with the rejection of the superficial explanation of ‘underdevelopment’ based on an economicist analysis. On the contrary, Samir Amin shifts the debate to a broader field, the field of historical materialism, and emphasizes that the study of development problems is inseparable from the history of social formations. With this consideration as a starting point, the ‘underdevelopment’ of the countries of the South, and especially of Africa, must be understood as the logical consequence of the deployment of capitalism on a global scale.This analysis is shared by the Latin American school, personified by Raul Prebisch, who later became the first secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), as well as by many other renowned economists (the Latin American ‘Dependencia’ school). The meetings between Samir Amin and the main thinkers of this school of thought was a stimulating time, characterized by an in-depth critique of the nature of capitalism, the questioning of conventional notions of development and underdevelopment, and a new interpretation of the role of trade in relations between the Cores and the Peripheries.
Samir Amin wrote some of his most well-known works during this period of intense theoretical debate. As well as Accumulation on a world scale (1970), one can mention Uechange inegal et la loi de la valeur (Unequal exchange and the law of value) (1973), Unequal development (1976), Imperialism and unequal development (1976), expanded as Uechange inegal et la loi de la valeur (Imperialism and under-development in Africa) (1988), The law of value and historical materialism (1978), etc.
In these works, Samir Amin forcefully states that the emancipation of the so- called ‘underdeveloped’ countries can neither happen while respecting the logic of the globalized capitalist system nor within this system. The South would not be able to catch up in such a capitalist context because of the system’s inherent polarization. This belief led Samir Amin to assign significant importance to the project adopted by the Asian-African countries at the Bandoeng (Indonesia) Conference in 1955.
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