Rodney (2018) - Some Questions on Development Flashcards
Chapter in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
What is development?
Present: Increase of skills, capacity, freedom, creativity, self-discipline, material well being. Tied to state of society
Past: Ability to guard indepence of a social group irrespective of the will within a society
Man with increased rationality –> man with tools –> imposition on nature
“The tools with which men work and how they organise labor are important indicators of development” (Wolf, Marx, mode of production)
Economic development
- Development has usually been measured in economic terms as an index for other social factors
- Developing economically increases the capacity for members to deal with the environment
- A long term perspective argues that this has happened since the beginning of man
a. stone tools to metal
b. hunting and gathering to domestication of animals and farming crops
c. indivudialistic acts to organization of man
= continuous change of character of society
Hence
Exploiting resources of nature = economic development = live more satisfactorily. (happened on every single continent)
This is not a linear process (like modernization suggests) but has setbacks and reduction in capacity (wars, famines, imperialism, genocide etc)
Development in China
- Began with fire and food growth (primitive communism) to silk, porcelain, ships etc
- Led to plitical stat,e specialisation, division of labor
- inequality in distribtuion, section that did the least labor got the most of the share hence OWNING means of production
- this was not purely an economic affair but a “social process dependent on the outcome of man’s efforts to deal with nature, environment (relations, social stratifications etc)
Hence,
change in economic base led to a change in superstructure (Marx)
Marx on development
Observed that the expansion of economy leads to change in social relations and gave a set of stages
- Communalism
- Slavery
3.Feudalism (serfs tied to land) - Capitalism (serfs free to leave land and search employment in capitalist enterprises
- Socialism (prediction), economic equality
Freedom also came with violence and power imbalance and ignored moral questions
Why change?
1) When social relations in society does not promote advancement but prevents it
a. eg slavery - open mines and
agricultural labor prevents
peasants labor and did not
require specialisation and slave
revolts
2) Occasionally accompanied by violence
Rates of development
- Differed between continents and within continents
eg. Egypt produced wealth in abundance due to invention of technology and extraction of minerals whilst other African nations still hunted with bows
Why are there different rates of development?
1) Geographic environment
2) Superstructure of society (affected by political and religious belief, eg sacred natural elements)
These are never the same in two societies.
Why is China not capitalist?
- Different superstructure in feudal Europe and feudal China.
- China’s superstructure held religous beliefs, educational values, bureaucratic qualifications as of utmost importance - greater EGALITARIAN tendencies, eg state owning more land properties
- European superstructure - landlords held more property and hence power over social relations –> change is not stifled by state the same way
Weaknesses of capitalism
1) Underutilisation of productive capacity (eg bullshit jobs)
2) Permanent sector of unemployed people
3) Occasional economic crisis related to “market” nor related to the need for commodity, but people’s ability to pay
4) Vicious white racism
5) Waste associated with advertising
6) Irrationality of incredible poverty
7) Intensified own political contradictions when subjugating nations outside Europe so workers have become self-conscious
Capitalism
How to profit most money from laws of science in machinery
- political level: responsible for most features of Western democracy
- peasants and workers has paid the price of this - the real profit lies in human labour behind the machines
- contradicts other faces of development which has liberation of man as a feature (from workers standpoint) as they suffer and can only develop by overthrowing capitalism
- argues thus that the social relations of capitalism are outmoded today.
Expiration of capitalism
- All phases of development are temporary
- Modes of production seen as successive stages is too simple (eg how capitalism and socialism lives alongside each other now)
- But capitalism will end one day
Consequences of clash of societies with different stages of development
1) the weaker society (less economic capacity) is adversely (harmfully) affected. the bigger the gap = the more detrimental consequences. eg European capitalism met indigenous hunting societies in America/Caribbean led to extermination
2) If they survive, they can assume developing if proceeding to a higher level than the dominating economy. eg Soviet Union, China, Korea. Required socialist revolution to overcome capitalist colonization by Europe and Japan. Soviet and China has reached further than Britain and France through socialist dvt.
Imperialism
Phase of capitalist development establishing political, economic, cultural and military hegemony over “lower level” of other parts of the world
- Exploiters vs exploited, making one part dependent
Socialism in Asia and Eastern Europe
- Goal of production from money to satisfaction of human needs
- Realized some of implicit Western democracy promises - equality in economic condition
- Implementation of planned development. Capitalism fails to do tis (eg consequences of AI, robots, climate change etc)
A critique not mentioned in the text - no mention or nuance of Soviet imperialism? Or the internal exploitation of workers in China? If this is not connected to internal capitalism or external capitalism, what is it then?
Problem of economic development
Does not mention
1. exploitation of majority
2. social relations of production or classes
3. varying historical modes of production
4. imperialism’s role in capitalism
these must be considered to make sense of underdevelopment.
(connection to Wolf, Wallerstein’s critique of static explanations of today’s society)
What is underdevelopment?
NOT the absence of development.
1) Only understood relative/comparative to other levels of development
2) Expresses relations of exploitation by other countries
US would be the most underdeveloped country if one did not use an economic defintion for it.
“Developing” vs underdeveloped?
“developing” implies backwardness and an emancipation from relations of exploitation. This is FALSE,rather intensified by the metropoles in new ways.
National income per capita
1)Average can be misleading in countries with extremes of wealth
2) Gap in per capita income allows one to be developed and another underdeveloped. This gap is increasing.
Indications of developed nations
- Industrialized over agriculture
- The agriculture that exist is advanced and efficient
- Advanced technology and skills lead to high output of labor per man
- More goods, both necessaries and luxuries
The misuse of resources
- UD countries have the greatest wealth in natural resources yet poorest in terms of goods and services provuded by or for them (eg have 28% of world mineral prod)
- wealth being produced is not retained in Africa to benefit africans - either flows outside or to non-Africans within the country
Indications of underdeveloped nations
- Large, unscientific agricultural areas
- Less consumption (eg steel and sugar, calories and protein comparison
- The availability of goods and services are dependent on nearly absent states
- Low life expectancy
- High child mortality
- High rates of illiteracy
- Malnutrition
- Health - lack of enough doctors per citizen
- Brain-drain from Africa, Asia, Latin Americato get better pay and opportunities whilst the UD countries pay massively for foreign expertise in return.
- Salaries to elected politicians are high and the number of people sitting in govt = high disproportion of locally distributed wealth.
The paradox of underdevelopment
The countries rich in resources are poor and the countries poor in resources are rich.
Explanation and consequences of paradox of underdevt.
Often biblical or “god-given” explanations to justify this. However, it is a racist “Innately superior mentality” and “economic backwardness stems from race backwardness” argument.
The worst part - people of Africa and colonized world has culturally and psychologically (partially) accepted the European logic.
Other non-african “experts” claim that consequences of underdevelopment, such as lack of skilled engineers, are the reasons for UD, when the reason is often or always found outside the nation.
Prejudice and narrow thinking are the things leading to this wild conclusions.
Relations of explotation
- Through imbalanced trade (price of things established by developed countries)
- Ownership means of production in one country by the citizens of another (Europe owning land or mines in Africa)
Foreign investment and influences
- Loans that increase annually
- Aid
- Management of local African companies
Socialist vs capitalist investments in Africa
1) Socialist countries never owned a part of Africa or invested to extract profit
2) Capitalist bourgeois avoid terms like “capitalist and socialist” in favor of “industralized and not” to confuse the issue
critique - nr 1 has to be false.
Pierre Jale and UN terms for socialist vs capitalist
Pierre:
1. socialist (not engaging in international capitalism)
2. imperialist, including both exploiters and exploited.
UN
1. “centrally planned economy”
2. “market economies”
Africa and the capitalist system
- Trade (several cent. ago)
- Colonial domination (19-20th cent)
- Capitalist investmtns (present=
Two outcomes
- European wealth
- Restricted African national capacity to develop
“Dependent nations can never be considered developed”
- need economic independence
- exercise choice in external relations
- self-reliant and self-sustaining
Metropoles are also dependent on the exploited countries
- but diff in tech advancement hence determine direction of change
- eg how developed countries can now make fabrics manufactured in metropoles replacing fabrics from raw material in colonies.
Instruments for cultural penetration and dominance
- Christain chruch
- education - producing Africans serving capitalist system
- language - communication with exploiters
- music - transformed by colonizers as propaganda
Political puppets for colonialism
Frantz Fanon studied this well- The minority Africans who are transmission line between dependencies and exploiters which was and is crucial for underdvt.
Who and what is responsible for African underdevelopment?
- Imperialist system draining African wealth and stagnating development
- Those who manipulate the system and accomplice
Every African has the responsibility to understand the system and overthrow it.
