Why is it that even after two centuries of formal political independence and after the
implementation of policies that were supposed to lead them to development Latin American
countries have not managed to overcome underdevelopment poverty and dependency? Why are the
contradictions inherent to capitalism exacerbated in Latin America in such a way that this
region appears as the denial of the civilising promises inaugurated by capitalist modernity?
Why do the asymmetrical relations in the world system and labour super-exploitation tend to
deepen in the region instead of being reduced? Why do the main social processes that challenge
the capitalist relations of exploitation and domination take place in the 'periphery' of the
system not in its imperialist core? The essays collected in this book present the answers that
Marxist dependency theory has formulated to these and other questions by highlighting the
processes and relations that characterise the heterogeneous deployment of capitalism as a world
system and that define the particularities of Latin American dependent capitalism: the
super-exploitation of labour-power unequal exchange the rupture in the cycle of capital
among others. It also highlights the relevance of the perspective inaugurated by Marxist
dependency theory to explain the current problems of Latin America.
