EMMANUEL ON UNEQUAL EXCHANGE: A MARXIST CONTRIBUTION ON TRADE RELATIONS BETWEEN RICH AND POOR

Unequal Exchange (L'échange inégal) by Arghiri Emmanuel attempts a Marxist treatment of trade between poor and rich countries. Published with it are four appendices in which Charles Bettelheim and Emmanuel debate the issues raised by the main work, and a fifth appendix in which Emmanuel replies to other critics. Emmanuel aims, he says, to address himself “to economists of all tendencies in a common language” (p.323). This aspiration, which is reprehended by Bettelheim (p.349) — either you stand on Marxist ground or you don't — makes the book a particularly interesting one for the non‐Marxist interested in the same range of issues. Though some of the terms used are Marxist or have a peculiarly Marxist meaning, the approach — again to Bettelheim's dismay (p.284) — is through analytical models whose internal logic and empirical realism can be rigorously discussed.