Social classes in Latin America. The contributions of Ruy Mauro Marini

Abstract

In this article we inquiring into Ruy Mauro Marini’s dependency theory, and his studies from the early ‘70s, in order to take up again the theoretical-methodological contributions provided in the face of the problem of conceptualizing social classes in Latin America. We have retrieved the studies developed by Marini from 1973, the year of publication of La dialéctica de la dependencia, to 1979, when his articles “Plusvalía extraordinaria y acumulación de capital” and “El ciclo del capital en la economía dependiente” were released. During that period of time, the author developed the core of his critique of Latin American political economy, and the foundations of dependency as a category. Likewise, in that context he produced a series of studies aiming to think about the Chilean juncture of the time. Many of these materials were compiled in the book El reformismo y la contrarrevolución (1976). The dialogue between his theoretical texts and his studies about Chile is the main source for our research. Our hypothesis is that, in these texts —written in the heat of struggles, and political and cultural processes—, there is an implied theoretical-methodological orientation that serves as a consideration of social classes in Latin American dependent capitalism, and that goes beyond punctual events to support the construction of tools which permit the understanding of determinations in the general picture, linked to neoliberal reconfigurations of capitalism.