Theorizing Under development : Latin America and Romania , 1860 - 1950

T he relationship between shifts in the world market and ideas on economic development in Latin America contrasted sharply with that in Romania before the First World War. In the latter country, market failure, social upheaval, and access to the continuing Russian debate led to new theoretical responses, in both Marxist and non-Marxist discourses; in Latin America, the perceived success of the export-driven economies, combined with institutional factors and the absence or feebleness of certain critical traditions known in Romania, resulted in a prolonged inability to mount a theoretical attack on the "outward-directed development" prescribed by the Ricardian thesis of comparative advantage. Thus in Latin America, with which this essay is principally concerned, both Marxist and non-Marxist challenges to the region's place in the international division of labor were relatively ineffective before the War's end. Industrial development was well underway in some countries before government policy pushed in the same direction, and a theoretical justification of industrializaion came last — even if it was the first important Third World contribution to development economics.