The Contemporary Relevance of the Marxist Theory of Dependency

The Marxist Theory of Dependency (MTD), as developed by authors such as Ruy Mauro Marini, Vânia Bambirra, and Theotonio dos Santos, remains an essential analytical tool for understanding the structural dynamics of underdevelopment, domination, and imperialism in the Latin American context, particularly in Brazil. Far from being an obsolete theoretical framework limited to the debates of the 1960s and 1970s, MTD proves to be particularly relevant in a global scenario marked by intensified financialization, rentierism, and peripheral subordination to global capital.

MTD provides a radical critique of classical development theory by arguing that underdevelopment is not a transitional stage toward capitalist development, but rather a structural condition functional to global capitalism. Dependent economies are not simply less developed; they are developed in a dependent fashion, which involves the overexploitation of labor, systematic value transfers, and chronic vulnerability to crises originating in the capitalist core.

This remains evident in Brazil’s subordinated role in the international division of labor, where agricultural and mineral commodities dominate export agendas, while high value-added industrial goods are largely imported. The category of labor overexploitation—central to Marini’s formulation—remains starkly present in contemporary Brazil. Labor reforms, widespread informality, gig economy practices, and the dismantling of rights consolidate an accumulation pattern based on low wages and extended working hours. This is not merely the outcome of misguided economic policies, but the imperative logic of dependency that must compensate for the continuous outflow of value to imperialist centers.

Mechanisms of value transfer described by MTD—unequal exchange, profit repatriation, debt servicing, and royalties—remain active, now under more sophisticated forms. Global financialization has deepened Brazil’s subordination to international financial markets, enforcing austerity and limiting economic sovereignty. The recent fiscal framework and prioritization of primary surpluses function, in this dynamic, as modern disciplinary tools imposed on peripheral economies to the benefit of transnational finance capital.

MTD is also significant for its capacity to unmask the recurrent cycles of developmentalist promises that fail to break with the logic of dependency.

The neo-developmentalism of progressive governments sought to combine economic growth with social redistribution but ultimately proved incapable of structurally altering Brazil’s integration into the global economy. As Marini warned, any attempt at capitalist development within a dependent economy inevitably reproduces subordination mechanisms—unless it ruptures with capital’s logic. Against the technocratic mystification of bourgeois parliamentarism, MTD also critiques the autonomization of economic policy, which today is maintained through depoliticized technical discourse—such as inflation targeting, fiscal governance, or central bank independence.

These measures operate as tools of popular sovereignty neutralization and transformative state action obstruction. Under the guise of fiscal responsibility and economic stability, what emerges is a project of social dismantling and submission to rentier capital cloaked in technocratic neutrality. In a context of crisis in traditional political representation and organization, MTD offers a radical imaginary of resistance—capable of articulating national sovereignty, social justice, and Latin American integration.

Rather than replicating emptied-out social democratic formulas or surrendering to neoliberal pragmatism, it is necessary to rebuild a horizon of anti-capitalist transformation—centered on sovereign reindustrialization, agrarian reform, financial democratization, and rupture with asymmetric trade and debt treaties.

The importance of the Marxist Theory of Dependency lies precisely in its ability to explain the systemic structures of subordination that condemn Brazil to a peripheral position in global capitalism. At a moment when attacks on social rights, environmental destruction, economic imperialism, and the capture of the state by finance capital intensify, MTD is not merely a theoretical reference—it is a political and epistemic weapon essential for guiding strategies of resistance, confrontation, and the reconstruction of a national-popular, democratic, and socialist project. To critically reengage with MTD today is an act of intellectual sovereignty and a commitment to Brazil’s future.