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O Inimigo De Papel

(The Paper Enemy)

(There are two polemics: that which clarifies, refines, and advances understanding and that such as the Fernández-Ocampo article which is dogmatic and reaffirms positions which political practice has made obsolete. The authors unjustly lump all the dependentistas together and do not refer to the vast Latin American literature on the subect. Weffort (1970) made an opposite (and equally erroneous) critique to that of Fernández-Ocampo, accusing the dependent istas of ignoring the internal enemies and concentrating only on imperialism. The mistake in both cases artificially separates imperialism from its internal allies in the dominated country. The authors also ignore the context in which Frank set his position on the capitalist character of Latin America since the conquest, and they do not make any contribution by characterizing Latin America as semi-feudal or with strong feudal remnants. The main contribution of depen dency theory has been to get beyond the generality of imperialism and describe specific mech anisms and ties between the local and international structures. Dependentistas do not substitute for or invalidate the theory of imperialism. Nor do they claim that dependency produces only underdevelopment, for indeed there can be dependent development. Dependency must be ana lyzed historically to see how colonial slave dependency is different from feudal dependency. Some countries were never underdeveloped or dependent since both processes began only with the development of a world market and the exploitation of some states by others. Most Latin American agrarian economies are not capitalist or feudal but rather are colonial-latifundist. Thus the authors create paper enemies in the feudal lords and their imperialist allies. Further, they invent a growing gap between city and country while in fact industrialization, urbanization, and dependent capitalism follow developmental lines with great unevenness and regional differen tiation. The principal enemy is not imperialism seen as something separate from local domina tion. The struggle against imperialism implies identifying its internal face which is the local monopoly industrial-financial sector and the local bourgeoisie to which it is allied in both city and countryside) .

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