Persistent demi-regs and robust tendencies: critical realism and the Singer-Prebisch Thesis
用批判实在论分析初级产品贸易条件恶化现象，认为其背后存在稳健的因果机制，并指出资本主义下初级产品占世界贸易份额长期收缩。
Debate about whether the terms of trade for primary products relative to manufactures have a tendency to deteriorate has been ongoing for half a century. The phenomenon itself provides an example of a persistent contrastive demi-regularity. This is viewed as the result of a robust tendency, understood as an enduring and pervasive characteristic effect generated by a powerful and stable underlying causal mechanism. On this basis, the key problem for primary products lies in the biological limits on consumption, to which may be added capitalism-specific tendencies affecting processes of production and distribution. The paper concludes by arguing that the relevant holistic generic tendency under capitalism involves a long-term contraction in the primary product share of world trade. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.