Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
What is ‘dependency theory’?
Dependency theory reveals the ‘hidden skeleton’ underpinning capitalism today, writes the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY

DEPENDENCY theory emerged in the 1960s and ’70s as a Marxist critique of the ideology of “modernisation” which argued that “poor” countries could “develop” by following the same path as ”wealthy” capitalist states.

Over a century-and-a-half ago, Marx and Engels declared in The Communist Manifesto that “The bourgeoisie […] has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.”  

In his 1867 preface to Volume one of Capital, Marx wrote: “The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.”  

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
unequal
Books / 9 April 2026
9 April 2026

MARTIN GRAHAM welcomes, with reservations, a scholarly addition to the unfinished business of understanding how capital works on a world scale

Statue of Oliver Cromwell
Full Marx / 2 February 2026
2 February 2026

The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library

BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE: Yanaocha mine in Cajamarca, Peru is the largest gold mine in South America operated by Newmont Corporation. It is considered the most profitable in the world [Pic: Elbuenminero/CC]
Books / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

JOE GILL appreciates a lucid demonstration of how capital today is an outgrowth of the colonial economy

The front of the Marx Memorial Library
Features / 23 August 2025
23 August 2025

From hunting rare pamphlets at book sales to online panels and courses on trade unionism and class politics, the MML continues connecting archive treasures with the movements fighting for a better world, writes director MEIRIAN JUMP