Dependent Reproduction and the Role of Science in Cultural Alienation

Abstract

This article stresses the roles of science and international scientific relations in the emergence of social and political problems in societies of the Third World. It uses the theoretical framework of "peripheral capitalism" to demonstrate that patterns of dependent reproduction lead to structural heterogeneity. This has been demonstrated by various scholars for the economic and political relations between centers and peripheries, but it holds true for the cultural reproduction of dependent societies too. Science and its mere transfer as "Western science" into those societies plays a substantial role for the emergence and persistence of cultural hetergeneity. Science and education systems thus support a political and socioeconomic power structure in countries of peripheral capitalism that disturbs balanced development and that supports the enduring political rule of élites and the exploitation of masses.