production produces a very different kind of dependency to that which
exists when advanced economies are dependent on one another.
The whole class structure of peripheral society is determined by the posi-
tion of that society in the international division of labour – whether the
country has been predominantly an agricultural export economy with a
rural-based oligarchy, an enclave economy based on the extraction of natu-
ral resources, or an import substitution economy with an industrial and
financial bourgeoisie. None of these ruling classes has a vested interest
in the reproduction of a working class through better health, housing and
education because there is a surplus of labour in excess of industry’s needs
created by a combination of stagnating agriculture, population growth and
capital intensive industrialization (Hein and Stenzel, 1979).
Thestructure of political poweris affected by economic dependency. The
ruling classes of the Third World (merchants, landowners, financiers, indus-
trial capitalists and state bureaucrats) are seen as junior partners within the
structure of international capital. These ‘clientele classes’ have a vested
interest in the existing international system and perform domestic political
and economic functions on behalf of foreign interests. They enjoy a privi-
leged, dominant and ‘hegemonic’ position within society ‘based largely on
economic, political or military support from abroad’ (Bodenheimer, 1971,
p. 163). The policies of governments reflect the vested interests of the
ruling class in the continuation of dependency:
Using government cabinets and other instruments of the state, the bour-
geoisie produces a policy of underdevelopmentin the economic and
political life of the ‘nation’ and the people of Latin America. (Frank,
1972b, p. 13)
Cardoso provided evidence of how dependency conditions or constrains
the choice of development policies of countries located at the periphery
when he analysed the overthrow of Brazil’s populist regime by a military
coupin 1964 and its consequences. Groups ‘expressing the interests and
modes of organization of international capitalism’ gained disproportionate
influence over policy-makers. An ideological as well as economic affinity
between the holders of economic power and the ‘anti-populist’ sectors of
the military and technocracy enabled the latter to gain in influence not only
in modernizing the administration, but also in the repressive functions of the
state. Other sections of the ruling class declined in power including agrar-
ian, merchant and some industrial interests, the traditional bureaucratic
component of the middle class, and career politicians, while organized
sections of the working class were successfully marginalized.
92 Understanding Third World Politics