This article takes issue with a small book published by Frank in 1969, Lumpenburguesia: lumpendessarrollo. In this book, Frank firmly questions the transformative capacity of the national bourgeoisies in Latin America. The lack of any revolutionary capacity of the bourgeoisie in the backward countries is, according to Frank, part of the condition of dependency. As a consequence, underdevelopment has to be perceived not only as an external force. Rather, the dominant classes in Latin America are partners in their own submission, becoming thus a “sattelite bourgeoisie”. In the second part of the paper the authors discuss the recent political development in Latin America, characterized, on the one hand, by a polarization of the “lumpenbourgeoisie” into a small group of magnates who have benefited from globalization and the majority of smaller capitals displaced by brutal international competition and, on the other hand, by electoral victories of the political left in many Latin American countries. The authors question, however, that these governments of the left can engender a social dynamic leading to a true transformation of the lumpenbourgeoisie and its lumpendevelopment in Latin America.
