Walter Rodney and Samir Amin: From Underdevelopment to Global Decolonization

• In Event: Globalizing Political Theory

Abstract

This paper explores the thought of Walter Rodney and Samir Amin, two Marxists from the Global South whose thought explores the conditions of global underdevelopment and prospects for decolonizing global political economy. Focusing on Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, I explore Rodney's relational account of underdevelopment and its role in producing Euromodern hegemony. I then turn to explicating the argument of Amin's Eurocentrism, which maintains that the lesser-developed tributary forms in Europe created conditions under which a global tributary system founded on colonization and enslavement could give rise to a coterminous intra-European capitalist system and modern ideology. I conclude by reflecting on the significance of Rodney and Amin for contemporary decolonial theorists.

Author

• Thomas Meagher, Sam Houston State University