The Myrdal Legacy: Racism and Underdevelopment as Dilemmas

Abstract

Wallerstein, I. The Myrdal Legacy: Racism and Underdevelopment as Dilemmas. Cooperation and Conflict, XXIV, 1989, 1-18.

The legacy of Gunnar Myrdal is in his having posed in very important ways two central questions: the explanations of, and practical solutions for, racism and under development ; the relationship between the scientist and his valuations and the objects of scientific enquiry. It is argued here that racism and underdevelopment are consti tutive of the capitalist world-economy as an historical system, and are not curable maladies within the system. It is further argued that social scientific theorizing is going through a great sea-change at present, along with the theory of physical science which is in the process of rejecting its previous Newtonian premises. Myrdal's views are as pertinent as ever.

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