Andre Gunder Frank

Andre Gunder Frank was an influential and prolific social thinker, economist, historian, sociologist, activist and political economist. The majority of his research provided detailed analysis of the relationship between economy and society from the post-colonial era up to the turn of the century. Frank’s contributions to the development of Dependency Theory, The World Systems Theory, and the analysis of Underdevelopment are profound. He is known for his prodigious output, his rejection of mainstream economics and for giving meaning to the study of political economy. He is one of the great intellectuals of the 20th century and has been admired throughout his career for his dedication to the condition of the working class (Chossudovsky 2005).

Andre Gunder Frank was born in Germany in 1929. His family fled the country when Hitler was elected Chancellor, first to Switzerland and eventually to the United States where he received his undergraduate schooling at Swarthmore. After a circuitous tour of the United States doing odd jobs, he enrolled at the University Chicago where he earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 1957. His dissertation focused on Soviet agriculture. He considered “general productivity” by looking at output of agriculture over time compared to agricultural changes in measurable and immeasurable changes in input (Rojas 2005). This dissertation foreshadowed some of the concepts Frank would focus on throughout his productive career as an intellectual, educator and social activist. After completing his degrees he held lecturer and assistant professorships at Michigan, Iowa and Wayne State. He left the US for a long stint (by his standards) in Latin America in 1962, first working as an Associate Professor in anthropology at the University of Brasilia, then as an Extraordinary Professor in Economics at the University of Mexico. In 1968 he became a professor of Economics at the University of Chile in Santiago where he worked on reforms for the Salvador Allende administration until he was exiled from Chile when General Pinochet successfully toppled the socialist government and instituted a military dictatorship on September 11, 1973. From 1973 until his mandatory retirement from professorship at the University of Amsterdam in 1994, he held various positions at universities in Germany, the US, the Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Belgium, and France. From 1994 until his death in 2005, he held other positions at five different universities in the US (Rojas 2005).

In all, Andre Gunder Frank has taught or done research in departments of anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, political science, and sociology, among others, in nine universities in North America, three in Latin America, and five in countries in Europe. He has also given many lectures and seminars at dozens of universities and other institutions around the world in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch (Rojas 2005).

Frank has written extensively on economics, social and political history, contemporary development of the world system, industrially developed countries and the Third World and Latin America. His level of production is best illustrated by the following stats: he has produced over 1000 publications, including 43 books, 169 chapters in 145 books and 400 articles in over 600 issues of academic journals and newspapers (Rojas 2005). Frank’s output was for the most part, unparalleled.

Andre Gunder Frank’s influences as an economist and social activist can be traced to his studies at Chicago where he ultimately honed his approach to economics. His training in neoclassical economics under Milton Friedman resulted in the rejection of the neoliberal and late 19th Century mathematical approach to economy and society. Frank pursued a self-directed path to his degree that focused on the role political elements play in the development of economic theory, contrary to the Chicago school of neoclassical economics (Sommers 2005). Frank rejected the mainstream "stages of economic growth" and argued that poor countries were not on a path of sequential growth stages but were actually circling the drain of dependence. His analysis of serial poverty in his groundbreaking essay, “The Development of Underdevelopment,” was the first step of contributions to come in the area of dependency theory and underdevelopment (Guang 2002).

Frank has been credited as the architect of Dependency Theory. The theory, developed in the 1950s and popularized in the 1960s, seeks to explain the relationship between developed and developing countries as a dynamic interplay where exchange of goods, services and resources between countries ultimately benefits developed countries at the detriment of developing countries. Raul Prebisch, one of the fathers of the theory, put it simply:

"Poor countries exported primary commodities to the rich countries who then manufactured products out of those commodities and sold them back to the poorer countries. The "Value Added" by manufacturing a usable product always cost more than the primary products used to create those products. Therefore, poorer countries would never be earning enough from their export earnings to pay for their imports." (Ferraro 1996).

The difference between undeveloped and underdeveloped states, to which Frank has analyzed extensively, is critical to understanding the historical context and severity of the cycle of dependence. Frank defined undeveloped states as those in which resources are not being used. Underdeveloped states actively harvest their resources, however, are in a situation where the dominant state benefits from the their resources. In effect, the dependent states are dependent because they were integrated into the economic system only as “producers of raw materials or to serve as repositories of cheap labor, and were denied the opportunity to market their resources in any way that competed with dominant states.” (Ferraro 1996).

However, there are different schools of dependency theory that approach or see the concept from a different angle. Prebisch, a liberal reformer, Frank a Marxist, and Wallerstein a World Systemists, would agree to disagree on a centralized definition. There are three common features to which most theorists agree. First, the developed or dominant states (center) is advanced and industrialized, and the dependent states (periphery) are those with low per capita GNPs and rely heavily on a single export. Second, external forces are the drivers of economic activity within the dependent states, and include corporations, markets or foreign assistance from the dominant state. Finally, these relations are dynamic and over time are reinforced and intensified. In essence, a cycle is created where the dominant state continues to prosper while the dependent state become just that, dependent (Ferraro 1996).

Frank has been called a Marxist, however, it is important to look at where Frank and Dependency Theory deviated from Marx’s theory of imperialism. First, The theory of imperialism describes the expansion of a state while dependency identifies underdevelopment. More concisely, “ Marxist theories explain the reasons why imperialism occurs, while dependency theories explain the consequences of imperialism.” (Ferraro 1996). Finally, the theory of imperialism is self-liquidating while dependency relationships are self-perpetuating (Ferraro 1996).

Dependency Theory attempts to explain the underdevelopment of states by examining the relationships between different states where the inequalities of benefit are intrinsic to those relationships (Ferraro 1996). According to Frank, dependency is a result of the development of underdevelopment and is a zero sum game. Ultimately both states lose, only the dominant state loses less than the dependent state (Frank 1975:13-14).

Early in his career, Frank focused heavily on explaining underdevelopment and dependency economic systems and worked to dispel the beliefs of free market economists who argued that underdeveloped states were progressing and were on a path of full integration. Later in his career Frank worked and contributed to the formulation of the theory of the world system. He advocated for a reinterpretation of world history and believed the implications of our current economic perspective were devastating. He argued that mainstream economics was the result of five thousand years of history and not 500. He theorized that modern economics originated in Asia around the Silk Road and only later appeared in Europe after the rise of Western sea-power and the industrial revolution (dos Santos 2005). The end of his career was dedicated to understanding globalization and was framed by a 10-year battle with cancer. Up to his final breath, Frank reviewed and rejected parts of his old theories and worked to create new ones (dos Santos 2005).

Frank left an indelible mark on development economics, history and political economy. His theories were powerful and required adoption or a forceful rejoinder (Sommers 2005). Frank was a social activist, a polemic and a gentleman. During my research, I found much information about why he was admired and why his theories were criticized, however, I was unable to find critics of his personality, his effort and his dedication to the human conditions. For this reason, it seems appropriate to conclude with these two sentiments, written shortly after his death.

"What I loved above all about Frank was his unlimited sincerity and devotion. Frank was motivated only by a single desire: the desire to be of service to the working classes and subordinated peoples, to the victims of exploitation and oppression. Spontaneously, unconditionally, he was always on their side. A quality which is not necessarily always found even among the best intellectuals. "(Amin 2005).

"His death on April 23 leaves a hard-to-fill gap in contemporary social thought. But André was much more than a major social thinker. He was an intellectual who lived his ideas, a fighter for the truth and for the transformation of the world. Even though he was often wrong (like any human being), he was fertile and inspiring even in his errors. This is a quality that only geniuses possess. "(dos Santos 2005).



Works Cited:

Chossudovsky, Michael
2005 Lifelong Battle against Neoliberalism: André Gunder Frank, 1929-2005. Electronic Document,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=
20050718&articleId=703, accessed October 29th, 2007

Dos Santos, Theotonio
2005 Andre Gunder Frank (1929-2005). Electronic document,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0505dossantos.htm, accessed October 22nd, 2007

Frank, Andre Gunder
1975 “On Capitalist Underdevelopment.” Bombay: Oxford University Press.

Frank, Andre Gunder
1984 “Critique and Anti-Critique.” New York: Praeger Publishers.

Ferraro, Vincent
1996 Dependency Theory: An Introduction. Electronic document,
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/depend.htm, accessed October 22nd, 2007

Guang, Lei
2002 Re-Orient: Andre Gunder Frank and a Globalist Perspective on the World Economy. Electronic Document,
http://www.oycf.org/Perspectives/16_033102/re_orient.htm, accessed October 29th, 2007

Rojas, Robinson, and Andre Gunder Frank
2005 Andre Gunder Frank Official Website, Electronic documents,
http://www.rrojasdatabank.org/agfrank/, accessed October 22nd, 2007

Amin, Samir
2005 A Note on the Death of André Gunder Frank (1929-2005), Electronic Document,
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0405amin.htm, Accessed October 22nd, 2007

Sanchez, Omar
2003 The Rise and Fall of the Dependency Movement: Does It Inform Underdevelopment Today? Electronic Document,
http://www.tau.ac.il/eial/XIV_2/scarzane.html, accessed October 22nd, 2007

Sommers, Jeffrey
2005 The Contradictions of a Contrarian: Andre Gunder Frank. Electronic document,
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu/2.2/sommers.html, accessed October 22nd, 2007