Samir Amin

1. Introduction

Samir Amin (1931–2018) is widely regarded as a central figure in critical theories of global capitalism, imperialism, and development. Trained as an economist yet writing across political theory, sociology, and historiography, he proposed that capitalism must be understood as a single world system structured by enduring core–periphery hierarchies. Within this framework, he argued, “underdevelopment” is not a temporary lag behind an advanced model but a structural condition produced by the very functioning of global capitalism.

Amin’s work is often located at the intersection of Marxism, dependency theory, and world-systems analysis. He extended Marx’s critique of political economy to the global level through concepts such as world scale accumulation, unequal exchange, and the law of worldwide value, insisting that international wage and productivity gaps are integral to the profitability of core economies. This focus led him to a strategic notion of delinking (déconnexion), understood as a reorientation of peripheral economies away from the imperatives of the world market and toward internally defined, popular development projects.

Philosophically, Amin is best known for his systematic critique of Eurocentrism. He argued that dominant narratives about modernity, rationality, and progress universalize a specifically European historical trajectory and obscure the material foundations of Western power. Against both Eurocentric universalism and cultural relativism, he defended an alternative, struggle-based universalism “from below”, rooted in the experiences of workers and peoples of the Global South.

In contemporary scholarship, Amin is treated simultaneously as a major development economist, a theorist of imperialism and globalization, and an important voice in postcolonial and decolonial thought, whose categories continue to inform debates on global justice, sovereignty, and alternatives to capitalism.

2. Life and Historical Context

Amin’s life unfolded across key moments of decolonization, Cold War polarization, and neoliberal globalization, which shaped both his questions and his interventions.

Biographical trajectory

Born in Cairo in 1931 to an Egyptian father and French mother, Amin grew up in a colonized society marked by British influence and local anti-imperial mobilization. His secondary education and later studies in Paris (from 1947) placed him in the milieu of postwar French Marxism, anti-fascist politics, and emerging debates about development and planning. After completing studies at Sciences Po and a doctorate in economics (defended in 1963), he returned to the Arab and African worlds, working in Egypt and then in several West African contexts, including Mali and Senegal.

His appointment as director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) in Dakar (1970–1980) embedded him in African policy debates during the period of post-independence experimentation with state-led development and non-alignment. Later, his involvement in networks such as the Third World Forum connected him to wider South–South and left internationalist circles.

Historical environment

Amin’s thinking developed against the background of:

Observers note that these conjunctures informed Amin’s preoccupation with how newly independent states could pursue sovereign development within an unequal world economy, and later, how the trajectories of globalization and imperial restructuring affected possibilities for socialist and popular alternatives.

3. Intellectual Development

Amin’s intellectual formation is often described in phases that track both his geographical movements and shifting theoretical preoccupations.

From Marxist student to critic of development theory

In Paris (late 1940s–1950s), Amin engaged with French Marxism, structuralism, and debates about planning. He drew on Marx, Lenin, and Mao, as well as currents in French political economy and historical sociology, but later suggested that his anti-colonial commitments led him to reread these traditions from the standpoint of the periphery. His doctoral work, completed in 1963 and later published as L’Accumulation à l’échelle mondiale, marked his break with mainstream, stage-based modernization theory.

African experience and systematization of dependency

Work in Egypt and West Africa during the 1950s–1960s exposed him to the constraints faced by postcolonial states. At IDEP in Dakar, he interacted with African planners and intellectuals, synthesizing empirical observations into a theory of peripheral capitalism, unequal development, and core–periphery structures. During the 1970s, he consolidated his status within emerging dependency theory and as a precursor to world-systems analysis, while maintaining some distance from both labels.

Turn to strategy, ideology, and history

From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Amin extended his earlier political economy into explicit strategic proposals (notably delinking) and into analyses of class and nation in peripheral formations. With Eurocentrism (1989), his work took a more self-consciously historical and philosophical turn, focusing on ideology, cultural representations of modernity, and the longue durée of world history.

Late reflections on crisis and alternatives

In the post–Cold War period, Amin revisited his earlier theses under conditions of financialization, U.S. hegemony, and emerging multipolarity. He elaborated ideas about an “empire of chaos,” ecological limits, and the need for renewed “internationalism of peoples,” while continuing to refine, rather than abandon, his core world-systemic framework.

4. Major Works and Key Texts

Amin produced an extensive body of work; a few texts are widely treated as landmarks in his oeuvre.

Central economic and theoretical works

Strategy, class, and nation

Ideology, Eurocentrism, and globalization

Across these works, Amin combines empirical analysis, theoretical innovation, and strategic reflection, providing a relatively coherent but evolving framework for understanding capitalism, imperialism, and possible paths of transformation.

5. Core Ideas: World System, Dependency, and Delinking

Amin’s core ideas revolve around the claim that capitalism constitutes a hierarchical world system rather than a collection of autonomous national economies.

World system and core–periphery structure

Amin conceptualizes the global economy as organized into core, semi-periphery, and periphery. Core regions host diversified, high-productivity industry and command financial and technological resources. Peripheral regions are externally oriented, with truncated industrial structures and dependence on primary commodities or low-wage manufacturing. This structure is maintained through trade, investment, technology transfers, and political-military power.

He develops the notion of world scale accumulation, arguing that capital accumulates through an integrated international division of labor. Profitability in the core, he contends, relies on systematically lower wages and weaker bargaining power in the periphery, formalized in his law of worldwide value.

Dependency and peripheral capitalism

Building on and transforming dependency theory, Amin characterizes peripheral capitalism as a specific form of capitalism whose internal class structures and patterns of consumption are shaped by external dependence. Underdevelopment is, in his view, an active product of this configuration:

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“Underdevelopment is not a stage on the way to development; it is the product of the very development of capitalism on a world scale.”
— Samir Amin, Accumulation on a World Scale

Proponents of Amin’s framework highlight its capacity to connect trade patterns, class relations, and political regimes. Critics from neoclassical and some institutionalist perspectives argue that it underestimates domestic policy choices and institutional variation.

Delinking and polycentric development

Delinking (déconnexion) is Amin’s strategic response to structural dependency. He defines it not as autarky but as reorganizing external relations so that they are subordinated to an internally defined popular-national project. This involves redirecting investment, trade, and technological choices toward domestic needs and democratic control.

Supporters see delinking as a realistic interpretation of economic sovereignty under uneven globalization. Skeptics question its feasibility given financial interdependence, and some worry that national projects may empower authoritarian or elite interests unless carefully constrained by popular participation.

6. Critique of Eurocentrism and Universalism

Amin’s critique of Eurocentrism addresses how Europe (and later the West) has been constructed as the normative center of world history and rationality.

Eurocentrism as ideology

In Eurocentrism (1989), he defines Eurocentrism as an ideology that naturalizes Europe’s historical trajectory—feudalism, capitalism, liberal democracy—as a universal model. This ideology, he argues, underpins disciplines such as history, philosophy, and economics by:

• Portraying capitalism as the endogenous product of uniquely European virtues (rationality, individualism).
• Depicting non-European societies as static or latecomers destined to follow the European path.
• Minimizing the role of colonialism, slavery, and imperial extraction in Europe’s rise.

He contends that Eurocentrism corresponds to the material dominance of capitalist centers, thereby linking epistemic hierarchies to global power structures.

Alternative readings of history and modernity

Amin proposes a polycentric reading of world history in which multiple civilizations and regions—China, the Islamic world, Africa, pre-Columbian Americas—are active participants in global processes. He suggests that capitalism emerged from a long ** Afro–Eurasian** history, rather than from Europe alone, and emphasizes how colonial incorporation reshaped peripheral societies.

This position intersects with but also diverges from other postcolonial and decolonial approaches. Some scholars appreciate his insistence on material structures; others argue he insufficiently engages cultural and discursive dimensions beyond political economy.

Universalism from below

Rather than rejecting universalism, Amin distinguishes between Eurocentric universalism and a universalism constructed from popular struggles:

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“The only possible universalism is that which is constructed from the struggles of workers and peoples against capital on a world scale.”
— Samir Amin, Beyond US Hegemony?

Supporters interpret this as a way to reconcile anti-Eurocentric critique with commitments to human emancipation and global justice. Critics, including some postmodern and strong relativist positions, question whether any universalism can avoid reproducing exclusions, while others argue that Amin’s proposal risks re-centering class at the expense of other axes of domination.

7. Methodology and Approach to Political Economy

Amin’s methodology combines historical materialism, structural analysis, and a global scale of inquiry.

World-historical and structural perspective

He insists that economic categories (value, profit, accumulation) be analyzed at the level of the world system. This leads him to extend Marx’s value theory into the law of worldwide value, incorporating international wage differentials and unequal exchange. His approach is explicitly historical, drawing on longue durée perspectives influenced by Marx and, to some extent, by traditions associated with Braudel and world-systems analysis.

Interdisciplinarity and totality

Amin treats political economy as inseparable from class relations, state forms, and ideology. His analyses routinely integrate:

• Economic structures (trade patterns, industrialization, finance),
• Social formations (class composition, peasantry, urban workers),
• Political configurations (states, parties, national liberation movements),
• Ideological dimensions (Eurocentrism, development discourse).

He often refers to this as a concern with the totality of the system, arguing that partial or sectoral analyses risk reproducing dominant ideology.

Relation to mainstream economics and other heterodox currents

Amin is sharply critical of neoclassical economics, which he views as abstracting from power, history, and imperialism. In Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, he accuses mainstream economists of constructing an “ideology of the market” that legitimizes unequal globalization.

Compared to other heterodox approaches:

Critics from within heterodox economics sometimes argue that his categories are difficult to operationalize quantitatively, while others praise his method for integrating empirical observation with systemic theorization.

8. Influence on Political Philosophy and Postcolonial Thought

Although primarily an economist, Amin has been influential in political philosophy, critical theory, and postcolonial studies.

Political philosophy and theories of democracy

Amin’s insistence that democracy be situated within global material constraints has informed debates about global justice and sovereignty. His concept of the popular-national project—alliances of workers, peasants, and other popular classes pursuing autonomous development—has been taken up in discussions about:

• The relationship between national self-determination and cosmopolitanism.
• The feasibility of democratic control over economic policy under globalization.
• The tension between class-based and identity-based political projects.

Some political theorists use Amin’s work to question liberal models that treat states as equal units and abstract from imperial structures; others contend that his emphasis on national-popular projects risks underplaying transnational civil society and human-rights-based approaches.

Postcolonial and decolonial thought

In postcolonial and decolonial circles, Amin is often cited alongside or in dialogue with figures such as Frantz Fanon, Immanuel Wallerstein, and later Latin American decolonial theorists. His analysis of Eurocentrism offers a bridge between political economy and critique of knowledge, influencing:

• Critiques of “development” as a Eurocentric narrative.
• Reinterpretations of modernity as a world-historical process rooted in colonialism.
• Efforts to articulate pluriversal alternatives to Western-centric universals.

Some decolonial thinkers commend his materialist grounding and his focus on the structures enabling epistemic dominance. Others argue that he remains too committed to classical Marxist categories (notably class and production) and pays comparatively less attention to gender, race, and sexuality as autonomous sites of analysis.

Impact on movements and intellectual networks

Amin played an active role in forums and networks such as the World Social Forum and the Third World Forum, shaping discourses around “another world is possible.” Activists and intellectuals in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have drawn on his notions of delinking, popular internationalism, and polycentric world order to frame campaigns for debt justice, trade reform, and regional integration.

9. Debates, Criticisms, and Revisions

Amin’s work has generated extensive debate across economics, sociology, and political theory.

Debates on dependency and world-system analysis

Supporters argue that Amin’s core–periphery framework offers a powerful explanation of persistent global inequalities. Critics from neoclassical and institutionalist perspectives contend that his emphasis on structural constraints neglects the role of domestic institutions, policy choices, and technological innovation. Some claim that his theory may not fully account for cases of rapid industrialization in East Asia, often cited as evidence that integration into world markets can enable development.

Within Marxist and world-systems debates, questions arise about the specificity of his law of worldwide value and its empirical measurability. Some scholars suggest that Amin’s concepts of unequal exchange and super-exploitation overlap with, but do not always clearly differentiate themselves from, other formulations in the literature.

Critiques of delinking

Delinking has been both influential and contested. Sympathetic commentators view it as a necessary corrective to uncritical globalization, stressing its emphasis on internal priorities rather than isolation. Critics raise several concerns:

• Feasibility: Given contemporary financial interdependence, some argue that substantial delinking may provoke capital flight, sanctions, or economic crises.
• Political risks: Others warn that national-popular projects could be co-opted by authoritarian or nationalist elites.
• Ambiguity: Some economists suggest that the concept is under-specified in terms of concrete policy instruments.

Amin responded by clarifying that delinking is a relative and strategic orientation, not an absolute rupture, but not all critics are persuaded that this resolves practical difficulties.

Eurocentrism and universalism

While Eurocentrism is widely cited, debates concern whether Amin sufficiently integrates culture, discourse, and subjectivity alongside political economy. Certain poststructuralist and deconstructive critics argue that his alternative universalism may reproduce totalizing tendencies, whereas others consider his emphasis on popular struggles a way to ground universalism more democratically.

Revisions and self-reflection

In his later writings, Amin revisited earlier positions in light of financial globalization, the rise of China, and environmental concerns. He maintained the core of his world-systemic analysis but acknowledged new forms of imperial control (notably through finance and global value chains) and the necessity of ecological considerations. Scholars differ on whether these revisions adequately address changes in global capitalism or whether they reflect an adaptation of a fundamentally stable framework.

10. Legacy and Historical Significance

Amin’s legacy spans multiple disciplines and regions, and assessments of his historical significance emphasize both his conceptual innovations and his role within global intellectual networks.

Place in the history of social thought

Many commentators situate Amin alongside key figures of dependency theory and world-systems analysis, crediting him with helping to shift the focus of social science from national development trajectories to global structures of accumulation. His concepts—peripheral capitalism, unequal development, law of worldwide value, delinking, and Eurocentrism—are frequently cited in contemporary research on globalization, development, and imperialism.

In histories of postcolonial and decolonial thought, he is recognized as a crucial link between earlier anti-colonial Marxism and later critiques of Western epistemologies. His work is often used to exemplify attempts to produce theory from the periphery, grounded in African and broader Global South experiences.

Institutional and regional impact

Amin’s tenure at IDEP and leadership in organizations such as the Third World Forum contributed to the formation of African and South–South research agendas. For some African and Arab intellectuals, he modeled a form of engaged scholarship that connects academic analysis with political practice.

Continuing relevance and reassessment

In the context of widening global inequalities, ecological crises, and renewed debates about imperialism, Amin’s analyses of global value transfers and imperial restructuring are frequently revisited. Scholars sympathetic to his framework argue that contemporary phenomena—global value chains, labor arbitrage, debt regimes—confirm many of his insights, even if details require updating. Others maintain that the diversity of development paths and the complexity of global governance call for frameworks that go beyond his binary core–periphery schema.

Overall, Amin is widely regarded as a major 20th–21st century theorist of global capitalism and a significant reference point for debates on development, sovereignty, and global justice, with ongoing discussions about how his categories should be revised or extended to address changing global realities.