| | Is there any chance of imperialism initiating and championing industrialisation in the 'Third World' ? This question has been at the root of a growing and on-going debate between the Underdevelopment/Dependency Theorists (UDTS) and their Marxist critics. The UDTSs who arise primarily as critics of bourgeois modernisation theories, argued that there has always been a link between underdevelopment in the 'Third World' and development in the West and that imperialism cannot industrialise the 'Third World' in any serious way. Marxist critics, on the other hand, have argued that there is no reason to believe that capitalist industrialisation is impossible in the 'Third World' given that expansion is the primary force of the capitalist mode of production. The challenge then is to underpin its class implications. |
