América Latina: ¿clase media de las naciones?

death·~.4 And tbebonds oi ajointstruggle fD! survival ciuné tó re" define the' frontiets of allegíam:e arhóng' the nations concerned. . . But although lea-dets' of .thought in Africa like' Día· and Sénghor were indee(! pointing to the shared predicament which' binds Afrka with the' rest of the Third WoriJ, mostof the' initiatives in the' struggle were coming froro outside Africa. Latin A'rneri<:a~s contribution has been partiy' intelledual and theo– retkal. The whole body of Eterature,of whkh this paper oi mine. is 110W a part, the literature on dependency, was bornout of the worob of Latín Ameí'ica's experience. Much of the literature on dependencia is still in Spanish and Portuguese and thereforeinaccessibJe to the bulk of African intellectuals and writers, but sorne of the writers that have influenced Africa have thernselves been influenced in tum by the La– tj·n-Ameri~)an experience. André Gunder Frank,. widely' regarded in the Engrish.:speaking world as "the Copernicus of the new paradigm" was intellectuaMy transformed by greater contact with Latin.Ameri.– ea's experience. 5 H ••• Frankadrriits this quite explidtly: he went· to Latin.Amerka a liberal, 'and rapidIy became a revolutionary in response tovarious' drcumstances, aboye aH the Cuban revolrition." Sinee then AfrÍcan writers and analysts have maJe their own con~ tribution to tbe literatuie on dependen e}'. Arnong lhe most influential of the Afriean economists of this seho01 is Samir Amín. Asa reviewer ín the Caoadian Journal of AfrÍcan Sturues put it;"In theoretical· pers– pective and prolific output, Samir Amin has become Afriea's counte!– part to LatinArneriéa's Andre Gunder Frank among the radica,l anti– imperialists".6 The link between parádigms in the social scienees on the ene ·side, ana ideology on the .other, (¡Rn be very dase. The theor:etical formu- 4' See Día, TÍle African Nations and World 80lidarity . (Translared by· Mercer Cook). (London:Thames and Hudson, 1962.) Ardant is quo- red on p. 19. . . 5 See Aidan Foster-Carter; "From Rostow ro Gund9r Fránk: Con– flicting Paradigms in the Analysis of Underdevelopment", World De– velopment, Vol. 4, NQ 2, ma:rch 1976, p. 176. Aidan Fosrer-Carter argues that ii "Frank i8 the Copernicu8 of· the new paradigm, then Baran i8 smeLy its Aristarchus -an older visiona'ry that apprehended the same truth, but was ror a while fal:' less influential". See Paul A. Baran, The PoliticálEconomy of Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press; 1957, and Andre Gunder· Frank, Capitalism and Under development in Latin Ameí:"Íca (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969). A helpful critic:d survey oí the Latin American structuralists is P. O'Brien, "A Critique· oí Latin Atriel'iean Theories of Dependeney" (Institute of Latin Ameri· can Studies, Universíty of Glasgow,march 1973, mimé6.). . . 6 The reviewel' is quoted on the cover' of Amin'.sbook, Neo-COlonia.. lism in West Afríea (Ne'W York ,andLondon: Monthly Review P~ss, 1978).' . .' .. . 76