Andre Gunder Frank: Crisis: In the World Economy, Crisis: In the Third World. Heinemann, 1980, £4.95 and £5.50
Frank is probably best known for his writings in the late 1960's such as Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. His work sought to trace the historical roots of Latin America to account for the area's domination by imperialism. Various critics pointed out that Frank neglected class relations by his focus on external domination, and that his emphasis on the world market was at odds with the Marxist prioritisation of production relations. Frank seems to have accepted these criticisms and Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment published in 1978 represented a great advance on his earlier work. He now clearly recognised that domination by a world capitalist system did not mean that all production relations in the Third World were capitalist — there were, in fact a whole range of non-capitalist relations of production some of which persist to the present day. With these new books Frank has moved beyond his interest in the formation of the world economy to its contemporary contradictions and acute crisis.
The first volume presents an overview of the whole world economy and its parts, an analysis of the new capitalist economic and political crisis in the 'West' since 1968, the integration of the 'socialist' countries in the international capitalist division of labour, and the Third World's demand for a 'new international economic order'. Frank's analysis of the post-war boom and the international economic crisis will be familiar to readers of Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism and The Second Slump. The response of social-democrats and the Communist Parties to the state austerity and deliberate unemployment policies which followed will also be familiar to any reader of the leftist press. The chapter entitled 'Long Live Transideological Enterprise!' is perhaps more novel, showing as it does precisely how the 'Eastern' economies have become increasingly integrated into the capitalist world economy. Frank concludes that 'we face a grave crisis of Marxism that is costing the cause of socialism countless millions of supporters around the world'. Few would disagree.
The answer to 'underdevelopment' advanced by the Brandt Commission (which had Edward Heath as one of its members!) was that a new international economic order (NIEO) could be forged to the mutual advantage of the industrialised West and the elites at any rate of the Third World. In this scenario the Third World countries would break from their role as exporters of cheap raw materials and through limited industrialisation provide a bigger consumer market for the West. However, the crisis has led to protectionism which limits the role of Third World exports of manufactured products, and the NIEO has effectively faded from view. The most realistic prospect is the continuation of the old trusty model of imperialism, with perhaps a token gesture towards a NIEO at such limits as the recent Cancun summit.
It is the second volume, Crisis: In the Third World, which takes us squarely into the internal problems of the countries dominated by imperialism. Frank distinguishes between the principal kinds of Third World economies and the impact of the world economic crisis upon them. There are those countries such as [illegible] which have become intermediate, 'semi-peripheral', or more dubiously 'subimperialist' economies. These act as only relays in the international imperialist chain, although of course the vast mass of the population does not benefit from this. In most countries agriculture still prevails and Frank provides a useful overview of the development of capitalism there — or 'agribusiness'. A small group of countries are involved in the export of manufactures (Hong Kong and so on) of oil, where Frank shows clearly the limitations of OPEC — the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The analysis then turns to some features and processes that are more or less common to all of these Third World countries: the massive increase in foreign debt, a superexploitation of the labour force which makes the British Industrial Revolution seem benign, and the political repression and growing number of military dictatorships required to maintain this exploitation of the Third World people. The concluding chapter has one of Frank's witticisms as a title — 'Development of Crisis and Crisis of Development'.
So, what is the contribution of Gunder Frank in these recent volumes? In terms of theory they are weak — there is nothing comparable to Mandel's broad sweeping theorisation in Late Capitalism. But, if imperialism is not analysed it is described with a wealth of empirical material, and, not to be sneered at, in a readable and even exciting manner. As with Frank's earlier writings he borrows from a wide range of sources, he synthesises and he popularises. Without using it in a denigrating sense, his work is eclectic. This ensures that it will have a wide readership among students in particular — for whom his catchy phrases like 'the development of underdevelopment' help describe complex realities. The danger is of course simplification...
Politically Gunder Frank could be described as a 'fellow traveller' of revolutionary Marxism. His earlier books which tried to demonstrate the capitalist nature of contemporary Latin America (against the 'feudalism' thesis of the Communist parties) rested heavily on the historical work of Latin American Trotskyists such as Luis Vitale. In the books reviewed here there is constant reference to the writings and periodicals of revolutionary Marxism. Frank's political outlook though is decidedly pessimistic and he is very critical of Trotskyists (who) declare that prerevolutionary situations are in the making in several parts of the world. Underlying this sceptical stance is Frank's incomplete break with his earlier work. The focus is still predominantly on exploration, forms of domination imposed by imperialism. There is little sense, to use a worn phrase, of 'the class struggle as the motor of history'. So, the International Monetary Fund applied its 'remedy' in Peru, but this resulted in a general strike. In Argentina there was a vicious military coup, but popular resistance mounts continuously. In South Africa super exploitation reaches a peak, but the black working class is growing in confidence and militancy. Whether '1984' arrives or not depends on the conscious struggles of real women and men.