Imperialism and the Transformation of Modes of Production in Asia, Africa and Latin America, 1870–1930

Abstract

Our analysis of the three stages of world capital accumulation and the development of underdevelopment in Asia, Africa and Latin America has sought to contribute to the clarification of the relations between the world historical process of uneven capitalist development, the exchange relations and mechanisms that drain capital from the colonialised countries to the metropolis, and the transformations in the modes of production in the latter, which permit this drain but at the same time develop their own structural underdevelopment. Often, more than supplying answers, we have been obliged to raise questions about this process. And we shall have to do the same in our examination below of the transformation of the modes of production in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America during the third — imperialist — stage of world capital accumulation and capitalist development.