Gianina Hospedales
The now developed countries were never underdeveloped although they
may have been undeveloped. Discuss
What is development? Development is economic independence from foreign
powers. Countries such as the United States and The United Kingdom can
be considered as ‘developed’ countries. The most important obstacle to
development is political: Governments believe that they could manage
economic development better than the free market. Most Third World
countries for e.g. the Caribbean, lack investment capital. Private
entrepreneurs prefer to invest in safer markets of the West than in
their own countries. According to Andre Gunder Frank, “Third world
countries may be undeveloped at the start, but they have never been
underdeveloped at the start. They were undeveloped in comparison with
developed, but they were never underdeveloped. They were created into
underdevelopment.” Today's ‘underdeveloped’ countries are faced with a
world economy dominated by the developed capitalist countries. This
must affect their development. According to Frank, the only thing that
drives the international capitalist system is the search of profit,
and this is pursued at the cost of everything else.
Third World countries are over dependent on one or two primary
products for example; basically all countries in the Caribbean depend
on advanced industrialized countries for electronic products such as
TVs and cars or for food products. Some theorists believed that
economic growth in the “First world” countries did not necessarily
lead to growth and development in the poorer countries. The poorer
countries are those in regions such as Latin America, Africa and Asia
who have a small income and heavily rely on th...
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...st country in the
Caribbean but once produced half of all the sugar and coffee consumed
in Europe as well as other products such as indigo and cotton which
helped to boost quite a large amount of France’s economy. This shows
that development comes at a cost and that results in the creation of
underdevelopment. For the refining of materials and minerals such as
bauxite, tin and iron the developed countries relied on cheap or slave
labour which left many of the world’s populations devastated while the
advanced countries gained wealth.
The developed countries were never underdeveloped because they always
found ways of gaining wealth through their colonies all over the world
yet, it resulted in the underdevelopment of those colonies which had
long term effects of impoverishment. Dependency theory sees
international capitalism as the ruin of the third world.
Unlike the North – a term in vogue today, among others, for highlighting the difference between the rich, industrialised nations of mostly Western Europe, North America, Australasia, and the rudimentary economies of Latin America, Asia and Africa – underdevelopment, characterised by low income levels, poverty, low living standards and other socio-economic ills seem to be a defining feature of countries in these regions, collectively described as the Global South. Thomas (2003), Hershberg and Moreno-Brid(2003), and, Solimano(2005) suggest, for instance, that the socio - economic structure of most Latin American countries remains defined by vast inequalities in income and wealth distribution, poverty, volatile growth, high mortality rate and a high level of economic vulnerability. In Asia, a number of countries including the large economies of India and China have made improvements in the 21st century in terms of reducing poverty. Yet, 22% of the developing countries in Asia live on a dollar a day . The situation is bleaker in the South and Southeast Asia region where 38% leave on less than a dollar a day and over 48% of the population living below the regions individual country poverty line . Likewise, absolute poverty is on the rise in Africa - generally recognised as the world’s richest continent in terms of natural resources - despite a recorded decline in global poverty rates (Bhattacharyya: 2005).
Globalization over the past twenty has become an issue in many countries. This industrialization of second and third world countries by Western Civilization creates many opportunities for the inhabitants. Not only does it expand trading markets, but also promotes productivity and efficiency; thus improving the country and integrating it into the industrial world. This process not only benefits third world counties, but also industrialized nations by allowing them to export goods to the developing world and increase their profit margin.
Due to the phenomenon of globalization, a substantial part of manufacturing has been moved overseas and goods are constantly being shipped all over the world. These processes are contributing to the advancement of international trade and economic improvement of many lesser developed countries. Unfortunately, globalization has also led to a significant growth of worldwide inequality. While the Western world has largely benefited from the changes, many countries in the developing world are facing great troubles adjusting to the new reality of global interconnectedness. Economic constrictions, unemployment, the weakening of government, corruption, and military conflicts are pushing people to leave their homes and seek better lives elsewhere.
According to this concept despite the end of colonialism, the underlying economic relations of the modern world system had not changed. The economic system of developed countries is still structured to extract resources from less developed countries .Theorists believe that poor countries are not poor because of some fundamental structural flaw ( such as inadequate natural resources) , but because participation in the global economy which left them under
As Escobar points out in The Problematization of Poverty, one of the many changes in the post-WW2 era was the "discovery" of mass poverty throughout the world. This "discovery" had massive implications for development discourse. Prior to WW2, development discourse was limited to the colonial experience. But with the end of colonial rule lurking on the horizon, western academics began to formulate theories of economic growth and "modernization." As a result, an entire genre of academic research emerged: the development discourse. The aim of development discourse was to chart out patterns of growth (which were based on the historical successes of the West) that newly independent countries could use, primarily to escape vicious cycles of poverty, famine, etc.
In international parlance, development encompasses the need and the means by which to provide better life for people in poor countries and it includes not only economic growth, although that is crucial, but also human development like...
Rodney’s argument is broken down into six chapters each consisting of several subdivisions and case studies supporting his principle argument. The first chapter works towards defining the terms of development and underdevelopment and argues the comparative nature of these terms; a country is only ‘underdeveloped’ by European standards. This chapter begins by tracing European development from its early stages of communalism through feudalism and finally capitalism. Then, he works towards developing an understanding of the term ‘underdevelopment’ and through an analysis of a variety of development indices what it constitutes in present day society: “In Niger, one doctor must do for 56, 140 people; in Tunisia one doctor for every 8,320 Tunisians”(18). The Marxist concept of inherent inequalities within the international capitalist system un...
All the countries deemed as third world has had a history of colonial rule, most were exploited through colonialism, imperialism, neo colonialism etc. while the third world countries were annexed and had direct government of a first country through colonialism; it was seen as a cost by the imperial powers rather than a benefit and one that was unavoidable. Imperialism was creating the condition for industrial capitalism and a modern nation-state and would produce the same consequences as it had of the colonizers i.e. the development of the society’s productive force s and misery and degradation for its workers. It failed to complete the institution of private property, and drained the colonies of capital while enforcing the dependence on agriculture to supply the needs of the industrial world. Neo – colonialism appeared on the outside to grant the c...
Stallings, B. (2000), pp. 7-8, ‘Globalization and Liberalization: A View from the Developing Countries, U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.’ Available at: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/econ/stallings.pdf. Accessed: 30th November, 2011.
Many factors can lead to the underdevelopment of a country. The most common sign of underdevelopment is that of a “Dual Economy”, this takes place when a “small modern elite and middle class make up about 20-30% of a country’...
Globalization, love it or hate it, but you can’t escape it. Globalization may be regarded as beneficial from an economic and business point of view, but however cannot be perceived the ditto when examined from the social sciences and humanities side of it. Globalization can be argued as a tool for economic growth, advancement and prosperity through co-operation between the developed and developing countries. The pro-globalization critics argue that the benefits that globalization brings to developing nations surpasses or outcasts the negative impacts caused by globalization and may even go a step further to state that it is the only source of hope for developing nations to prosper and stand out. However, the real question to be asked is as to what extent are the positives argued upon without taking into account the negative aspects of globalization towards developing countries. Moreover, how many developing countries out of many are exactly benefiting or even prospering from globalization is another question to consider. Therefore, my paper will dispute that indeed growth and advancement provided by globalization to developing countries is beneficial in short-term, but in the long-run, it will only bring upon negative impacts and challenges due to the obstacles involved such as exploitation of labour and resources, higher increase in poverty, and effects of multi-national corporations on local businesses and the economy, and to an extent the effects on the developing country itself.
Prebisch, formerly the head of the Central Bank of Argentina, saw the world as two distinct areas: a center of economic power in Europe and the United States and a periphery of weaker countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Prebisch concluded that Latin America’s underdevelopment was because of its importance on primary exports. The periphery was underdeveloped because it needed to create more sustenance and raw materials for export in order to import a specific amount of industrial imports. Andre Gunder Frank expressed that external monopoly resulted in the foreign expropriation, and thus local unavailability, of a significant part of the actual economic surplus produced in Latin America. Therefore, the region was actively underdeveloped by not generating at its potential and losing its surplus to Europe and North America. Peripheral countries were kept from accomplishing development because they sold their products at prices below their value, while rich countries sold products at prices above their value (Peet and Hartwick pp. 188 -199). Thus, in contrast to modernization theory, which emphasized the benefits of free trade, foreign investment, and foreign aid, these theorists argued that free trade and international market
Also, the current irregular financial growth tendency has widened the breach between the rich and poor such as, South Africa and other further developed nations. According to financial forecasts if the existing blueprint of uneven monetary growth persists, one of the poorest nation of the world such as, South Africa will raises to be even poorer will a power plant or not. The second question has made social scientists, policy creators, and worldwide institutions to reorganize ideas about the impact of globalization on nations such as, the above.
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Print.
...hat: poor countries are separated from the world economy. It ignores the possibility that one country's prosperity may mean another countries poverty. Further, modernization theory ignores the roles that powerful state governments play in helping with wealth-creation as they support, regulate, and direct economic growth.