Branko Milanovic — Disarticulation goes North

Cutting through the BS.

In the neo-Marxist literature on under-development one of the most important theories was about the disarticulation of the countries in the South (the erstwhile “Third World”). What was meant by the term was that the Center, the developed North, established within a peripheral country only enclaves of modernism whose function was to keep the South producing for the needs of the North without being able to create an internally connected production structure, going from raw material extraction to their processing, and ultimately production of high value added commodities. What mattered to the North was extraction of raw materials. This was entrusted to be organized to a local comprador bourgeoisie, whose economic interests thus coincided with those of the former colonial powers. The economy was, to use Samir Amin’s terminology, “extroverted”, that is directed only towards abroad and lacking in domestic ability to develop. Both the polity and the economy were disarticulated.…

The neoliberal objection is that colonialism is over and capitalism as made everyone better off than before, with global poverty rate declining.

Branko Milanovic says, not so fast. Rather than being intended, that is only a by-product of economic growth, which is still based on the same principle of disarticulation and exploitation.

Global Inequality
Disarticulation goes NorthBranko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace