Global capital, uneven development and national difference: Critical reflections on the specificity of accumulation in Latin America

Abstract

A recent Special Issue in this journal devoted its pages to discuss the varied forms of capitalist development in different countries and regions across the globe. Specifically, the contributions offered a critical assessment of the hegemonic ‘neo-institutionalist’ approach to the study of national diversity of capitalism, with particular focus on the ‘varieties of capitalism’ approach. This article critically engages with the different alternatives to the varieties of capitalism approach that were put forward and shows that these other perspectives also fall short of providing a convincing framework to address the problematique of national or regional particularities as posed in the debate. In order to offer a more solid explanation of the phenomenon of ‘capitalist variety’, the article draws upon Marx’s fundamental insight into the determination of capital as a materialised social relation which becomes the immediate alienated subject of the organisation of the process of social life and also moves some way beyond it so as to cast fresh light on global transformation and uneven development in recent decades. More concretely, the article further submits that the specificity of the Latin American ‘variety of capitalism’ must be grounded in the constitution and dynamics of the international division of labour which results from the underlying essential unity of the production of relative surplus value on a world scale by the global total social capital. In other words, we grasp the emergence of national specificities as the immanent result of the global unfolding of the ‘law of value’.

Extractivism or specificity of capital accumulation? A critique on the extractivist approach regarding the case of Argentina

“…8 On the contrary, exceptional natural conditions that allow for greater productivity of agrarian and mining labour (as well as other productions in the primary sector), which allow for the cheapening of the means of subsistence and, as a consequence, of the value of labour-power, prevail in many territories located in Latin America. Upon this basis, and right from the very beginning, Latin American countries acquired a specific character: the supply of these commodities (Caligaris 2016;Fitzsimons & Starosta, 2018;Iñigo Carrera, 1998, 2007. 9 However, agrarian and mining production presents a distinctive feature: labour productivity is subject to natural conditions which capital is unable to control.…”

El devenir del sistema universitario público en la Argentina a través de sus olas expansivas: Diferenciación en la formación de fuerza de trabajo y acumulación de capital (1971-2015)

“…El desarrollo de las fuerzas productivas del trabajo social a través de la producción de plusvalor relativo constituye, como señalamos anteriormente, una determinación genérica del modo de producción capitalista. Al observar el carácter de los distintos espacios nacionales bajo los que se realiza el proceso de acumulación en su unidad mundial, sin embargo, resulta evidente que no todos ellos son portadores de esta potencia genérica (Caligaris, 2016;Fitzsimons & Starosta, 2018;Iñigo Carrera, 2013).…”

“…Pero estos han sido capaces, de distintos modos, de recuperar porciones de dicha renta. Así, la generalidad de las economías latinoamericanas se caracterizó también por la existencia de un reflujo parcial de renta hacia los países clásicos (Caligaris, 2016;Fitzsimons & Starosta, 2018;Iñigo Carrera, 1998.…”

Dos décadas de conflicto en torno al uso propio de semillas de soja genéticamente modificada en Argentina: fases del enfrentamiento, acumulación de capital y actores sociales (1996-2018)

“…45 De manera general, esta característica se presenta también en buena parte de los restantes países de América Latina. Para un análisis de algunos de ellos sobre estas mismas bases, véanse (entre otros) los trabajos de Grinberg (2010), Starosta & Grinberg (2014), Kornblihtt, Seiffer, & Mussi (2016), Caligaris, (2017), Fitzsimons & Starosta (2017), y Dachevsky y Kornbhlitt (2017). 46 Entre ellos destacan, por su magnitud, los impuestos a la exportación de mercancías agrarias y la sobrevaluación de la moneda.…”