Accumulation on a world scale: a critique of the theory of underdevelopment

One does not need to be an economist to know that our world is made up of "developed" countries and "underdeveloped" ones, that it is also made up of countries that style themselves "socialist and of others that are "capitalist," and that all these countries are integrated, though to varying degrees, in a worldwide network of commercial, financial and other relations such that none of them can be thought of in isolation that is, leaving these relations out of account-in the way that one can think of the Roman Empire and Imperial China, as they were unaware of each other.
Accumulation on a World Scale is concerned with analyzing all these relationships in their fundamental aspect. This problem, which is essen tial for understanding the world of today, is obviously a complex one: moreover, the field it covers is all the greater because the inter penetration between international relations and internal structures is often decisive in character; and it is only beginning to be given systematic attention. Though Marxist analysis necessarily includes in its pro gram the development of the theory of this subject, little progress has been made since Lenin's Imperialism, while the basic theoretical equipment of present-day university economics (marginalism) prevents the question from even being raised. The consequence is that current analysis of "underdevelopment" is at an incredibly low level.