Capital Accumulation, Class Formation and Dependency-The Significance of the Kenyan Case

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to clarify some of the issues that have been posed in the theoretical debate about "dependency" and to reconsider the evidence from Kenya in the light of this clarification-if possible, carrying the discussion a small step further in the process. The most important question of all those which are at stake in the debate about "dependency" is whether or not there are theoretical reasons for thinking that the ex-colonies cannot (as Marx put it) "adopt the bourgeois mode of production" and develop their productive forces within it. The underdevelopment or dependency school in general argues that the patterns of subordinate development established at the periphery of imperialism before and during the colonial phase are self-perpetuating.