Development Raising Lecture 2 Flashcards
Aswan Dam
Not just a development project to build a dam, but a process that shows that Egypt is a developed nation with strong industry.
Two approaches
- Development is fundamentally good but fails in its execution
- Development is not only inherently bad but also corrupts anything it touches.
Modernist theory of Development:
Political Context
Post-Colonial/war era 1945-
The goal being that poverty and ‘backwardness’ can be alleviated thorough economic growth and high rates of production, such as building a strong.
Colonial ideas of superiority, the other can be improved to become like us.
What is a ‘strong economy’?
- Economy has an independent existence
- ‘State’, ‘society’ and ‘culture’ need to stop interfering.
- Allows free competition which results in more efficiency, technology production and creativity to produce more. Including reinvestment of profit, wealth will trickle down (employment)
- Ultimately a theory of human nature.
- State and society should only interfere to keep the market stable. Development aid = injection of capitol to make this growth possible and removing obstacles.
‘Strong economy’ issues
There are some big assumptions, that are based and drawn from the way that economics emerged as a discipline with its internal culture for model making, universal theories of human rationality, roots in enlightened thinking.
Rostow’s stages of economic growth:
1 Traditional Society
- Based on pre-Newtonian science, technology and attitudes.
- A large proportion of the population is focused on agriculture with very few people being considered thinkers, or dedicated to science.
Rostow’s stages of economic growth:
2 Preconditions to take off
- Transitional period to beginning to utilise modern science which can now be applied to everyday life.
- New national identity emerges and so do new ideas, although many are imported or come around as a result of colonialism.
Rostow’s stages of economic growth:
3 Take off
- Rapidity to the modernisation that begins to take place.
- Resistance to growth is overcome and the economic progress dominates the society, with growth being its normal condition.
- Can be driven by technological advances (Industrial revolution).
- Urbanisation and commercialization of agriculture
Rostow’s stages of economic growth:
4 Drive to maturity
- Re-investment of profit
- Expansion of industry, market, output, population.
- Sustained fluctuating progress
- Applied technology
Rostow’s stages of economic growth:
5 Age of mass- consumption
- Consumer goods and services
- Mass consumption beyond basic needs
- Mass education
- Surplus wealth for welfare
- Only democracies can pull this off
Problems of Modernisation theorys
Didn’t work. Often ended up creating even more inequalities. Due to with assumptions about human nature and the tickle down effect.
Image of limited good
There is a fixed amount of wealth in the world, everyone’s trying to gain but one person’s loss is anothers gain.
More Problems of modernist theory
- Assumes all societies follow a western trajectory, this is ethnocentric. Africa is NOT medieval Europe.
- No heed to local knowledge, assume that traditional societies everywhere are the same.
- Local culture is pre-newtonian and therefore inferior and distracts from real development.
- Trickle down does not happen. The rich get richer and poor poorer.
- Closed system, each societies economy is contained, except for positive injections of resources, capital and knowledge.
- Homogenous system, no ethnicity, religion, class etc. Where class exists wealth is expected to do so.
- Ignores history and politics.
Dependency theory 1950-80’s
- Introduces history and politics to the notion of development..social political not intellectual theory of the world.
- Modernisation cannot work because it fails to and actually reproduces the root problems of poverty.
Modernisation reproduces the root problems of poverty
-Capitalist growth is based on exploitation and thus an on equalising process
-Colonialism = capitalism and therefore development = capitalism.
-The third world is not undeveloped but underdeveloped.
Development does not occur through neoliberalism but revolution.
Wallerstein’s world system theory
1. What is a system?
Nation-states are not systems, there are only two types of systems:
- The really, small obscure tribes
- Empires and the world
Even MORE problems with Dependancy/World system theories
Some societies haven’t been colonised, but are still doing badly.
Some societies have been colonisers, but are still doing badly.
Some societies haven’t had colonies, but are ok.
Some societies have been colonies, but are ok.
Most aid actually goes to societies which don’t promise much back.
It’s meta-theory… again assumes universal processes and behaviours.
Migration? (esp of skilled labour?)
Not easy to divide between 1st and 3rd World.
3rd World seen as completely passive.
Local problems (e.g. corruption) ignored or seen as symptoms (you can’t do anything about it).
Local knowledge ignored (people do resist in various ways (e.g. Taussig)
Completely top-down, State main agent, ignores how people react, adopt changes (esp, how some sections of the pop might adopt capitalism)
Both Modernisation + Dependency theories’ solutions (i.e. trickle down + Revolution) unfeasable, unrealistic and take too long…)
