Dependency, Development, and Denoon

 

Donald Denoon's Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere is a masterful application (or adaptation) of dependency theory to the history of a group of nations in the southern hemisphere—Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay.

 

What is dependency theory? This is a line of historical interpretation elaborated by Latin American scholars. One of them, T. dos Santos, defined it thus: "By dependency we mean a situation in which the economy of certain countries is conditioned by the development and expansion of another country to which the former is subject." As Denoon observes, "It is generally presumed, though seldom stated, that the condition of dependency leads very directly to poverty, ignorance, and disease in the dependent societies. Yet settler societies have usually flourished in direct proportion to their dependence upon metropolitan capital, consumers, and trading partners." How can this be explained?

 

Possible Explanations

 

1.      Presence of Europeans—the "pigment theory"

 

2.      Geographical determinism

 

3.      Stages of economic growth—development theory

 

4.      Dependency theory

 

5.      Modes of production—the palaeo-Marxist approach

 

Conclusions

 

1.      Each society began as a garrison-outpost of empire.

 

2.      There was no concentrated population of indigenes to be exploited.

 

3.      As settlement spread, pastoralism flourished.

 

4.      The societies achieved wonderful prosperity and expansion during the "British century."

 

5.      During this time, however, development was dependent and diversification was lacking.

 

6.      Political and social institutions in the societies reinforced the dependent conditions.

 

7.      From their inception, settler states were dominated by social classes committed to an imperial link, and to the production of export staples.

 

8.      Where settler societies contacted agricultural populations, they were drawn into capitalist modes of production.

 

9.      Product of these observations: concept of "settler capitalism"

 

 

Home Page HIST 381