have been criticized for being too determinist and rigid in their thinking in viewing individuals as victims or “pawns” that passively adapt to macro-forces, thereby largely ruling out individual agency.
Moreover, rigid forms of historical structuralism have been refuted by recent history, as various formerly developing and labor exporting countries have achieved sustained economic growth in the past decades despite – or perhaps
thanks to – their firm connection to global capitalism.
For most southern European countries and some “Asian Tigers”, the incorporation into global capitalism and, possibly
high labor migration have apparently worked out well, despite gloomy predictions some decades ago .
There is increasing consensus that capitalism as such cannot be blamed for the problems of
underdevelopment, but that the specific developmental effects of incorporation of a region or
country into the global capitalist system seems to depend much more on the conditions under
which this takes place, that is, how the incorporation is embedded into wider institutional
structures as well as the internal socio-political cohesion and economic strength of countries