The Internationalization of Capital and The Transformation of Social Formations: A Critique of the Monthly Review School

The ahistorical, static and exchanged-based "development of un der development" theory of the conjuncture between the most developed nations and the historically underdeveloped regions fails to describe the origins and the nature of the disarticulated world economy and cannot account for the growing significance of some less developed countries in the world economy. A dynamic, historical and production-based approach to development theory which draws from Marx's formulation of the concepts of mode of production and expanded reproduction, and from Luxemburg's insights into the nature of the interaction of the capitalist mode of production (CM P) with the noncapitalist modes of pro duction (NCMP) is presented. The result of the CMP-NCMP conjuncture in cer tain historical circumstances is the creation of a Colonial Social Formation (CSF) due to the predominance of Merchant Capital in this conjuncture. Once established the CSF resists disintegration into the CMP and does so only under particular historical and dialectical circumstances. If and when a capitalist state emerges from the CSF at a time of crisis, and if, dialectically, this emergence coincides with a particular form of extensive expanded reproduction emanating from the CMP, a formerly (Neo) Colonial Social Formation can be drawn into the three circuits of capital (money, commodities, and production) and enter into the world CMP not as a dependent but as an interdependent social formation. Imperialism does not preclude development and is not relegated to the CMP- CSF conjuncture.