 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2011) |
| Part of a series about |
| Imperialism studies |
|---|
 |
Unequal exchange is used primarily in Marxist economics, but also in ecological economics (more specifically also as ecologically unequal exchange), to describe the systemic hidden transfer of labor and ecological value from poor countries in the imperial periphery (mainly in the Global South) to rich countries and monopolistic corporations in the imperial core (mainly in the Global North) due to structural inequalities in the global economy.
Due to biased terms of trade and the undervaluation of labor and goods from the global South compared to the North, poor countries are forced to export a much larger quantity of labor and resources than they import to maintain a monetary balance of trade. This enables the global North to achieve a net appropriation through trade, fostering development in the former while impoverishing the global South.[1]
The theory of unequal exchange is a rejection of the fundamental assumptions of Ricardian and neoclassical theories of comparative advantage, which claim that free trade based on comparative costs is beneficial to all parties and in turn represents the theoretical justification of neoliberal trade policies. More generally, the concept is a criticism of the idea that the operation of markets would have egalitarian effects, rather than accentuating the market position of the strong and disadvantaging the weak.[2]
- ^ Hickel, Jason; Dorninger, Christian; Wieland, Hanspeter; Suwandi, Intan (2022). "Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015". Global Environmental Change. 73. Bibcode:2022GEC....7302467H. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102467.
- ^ Siddiqui, Kalim (2018). "David Ricardo's Comparative Advantage and Developing Countries: Myth and Reality". International Critical Thought. 8 (3): 426–452. doi:10.1080/21598282.2018.1506264.