Imperialism and underdevelopment in Samir Amin

Samir Amin's opinions who is one of the current representatives of the Dependency Ecole that opposed modernization theories in the 1960s; has an important role on understanding the issues of underdevelopment and imperialism. In this work, the effects of the spreading of capitalism that a system of world for XVI. century on the imperialism and the underdevelopment are examined. Amin, like other Depenceny theorists, explained the reasons for underdevelopment through the roles that these countries took in the division of labor in the historical process. The effect of the spreading of capitalism that a system of world for XVI. century on the underdevelopment are examined is investigated in this study. It is important for Amin's thoughts to put forward causes of the todays problems lie in the past and bring up the matters in terms of outlines. The main questions that the study looks for answers formed with the cases of underdevelopment and imperialism shaped by the mercantilist process with the emergence of the capitalist mode of production? Can the third world countries emerge from imperialism and underdevelopment without leaving the capitalist production system and breaking the dependency relationship? Is it possible to construct the internationalism created by the central and neighboring countries to come out of the capitalist system? These questions are handled within the perspective of Amin's thoughts. Firstly, it is tried to understand the theories of imperialism and underdevelopment. These phenomena is evaluated as a whole within the framework of the thoughts in these theories. As a result, Amin's model about imperialism and underdevelopment is incomplete considering the realities in today's world. In general, it is concluded that the phenomena of imperialism and underdevelopment is not determined by a mode of production, that third world countries would not go outside the capitalist system of production, that they would develop within the capitalist production relationship and that the central-periphery countries would unite to form the construction of internationalism. In this study, the seven concepts used by Amin in his explanations about imperialism and underdevelopment constitute the subject of the thesis. The main reason of imperialism and underdevelopment is capitalism, the center-periphery that is connected to the capitalist system, the internationalism it builds based on the union of the central and peripheral peoples to oppose the capitalist system, the unequal exchange between the central and peripheral countries and Eurasia Project, which deals with the cooperation of TRIAD, India, Russia and China, which is based on the unification of Russia, is the concept of the breakdown that the underdeveloped countries can undergo. In this study, the concepts of underdevelopment and imperialism are discussed around these perspectives. Keywords: Samir Amin, Imperialism, Underdevelopment, Dependency Theory, Capitalism