Modernization and Dependency: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin American Underdevelopment

The end of World War II marked the beginning of fundamental transformations in world affairs. The defeat of the Axis powers and the devastating toll which the war had exacted on Britain and the European allies propelled the United States into a position of economic and military preeminence. However, the United States' power did not go unchallenged. The Soviet Union was able to influence the accession of power of socialist regimes throughout Eastern Europe and Chinese Communists defeated their Western-backed adversaries to gain control of the most populous nation on earth. These events called for an urgent strategy to revitalize the economies of the Western nations. With massive U.S. public and private economic investment, Western Europe and Japan soon recovered from the ravages of war. But World War II ushered in another important change whose global implications would not be felt for some years to come. The weakening of the European powers and the logic of a war effort aimed at preserving self-determination, marked the final collapse of the vast colonial empires of the nineteenth century and the establishment of a multiplicity of states each claiming sovereign and independent status. The "new nations" soon drew the attention of U.S. policymakers concerned with the claim that Marxism presented the best and most logical road to full incorporation into the modem world. They also captured the attention and imagination of U.S. scholars who in the pursuit of knowledge, as well as the desire to influence government policy, began to produce a vast literature on the "developing" nations. For many economists the solution was another Marshall plan designed for the Third World. But other social scientists argued that fundamental differences between the devel