Unlike Marxism, Dependency theory sees capitalism as a system of market relationship blocking the progress of poor countries. It claims also that the growth of rich countries has impoverished third world as an active process. I think that dependency theory has the most relevant explanation of poverty in the world because it has many facts hard to refute. For instance, historically, the third world countries have been changed because of their contact with the rich countries, or more than just a contact; specifically, Africa had never experienced starvation before the western colonization. And since then, the active process of impoverishment progressed with a change in the social structures. It was simply exploitation and still undergoing today in the form of unequal exchange as third world countries give up much more than they get back from the world capitalist system. Another group within the dependency school focuses on that World System, which divides the world countries in three categories: the core, the semi-periphery, and the periphery. The core, being the industrial countries that produce manufactured good, profit from the periphery in two manners; they extract the raw materials and then sell them the manufactured products because these poor countries have neither the skill nor the knowledge to produce these needed goods. Commodities used to be extracted from colonies, but with the independence of all Africa, the new leaders took the same position of the former colonial powers serving them with no alternative than to maintain a high production of these resources to satisfy the country’s needs of imports. Even the recent actions to end poverty and help poor countries grow economically such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were revealed to be no more than a new way to control these countries, through loans this time. And most of them are emergency loans that the leaders generally have no choice but accept them with the bundle of conditions that comes with. Life and Debt gave the example of Jamaica; Michael Manley, the former president, was interviewed and revealed the harsh process he has to go through to get some money from the IMF after the seventies petrol crisis. He had to accept, for instance, to stop agricultural subsidies, which worsened the situation. In the same time, the US were spending billions dollars in making dehydrated milk prices competitive even in the local market of Jamaica. And it’s not a unique case; a recent article in the Washington Post written by Jimmy carter, December 10th, says that “A 2002 report by Oxfam International estimates that in 2001 sub-Saharan Africa lost $302 million as a direct result of U.S. cotton subsidies”.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Think !!!
There's so many different political cases in the world that you can understand every one by studying Most Similar Cases and check what makes the wrong things !
I am trying to use that Comparative Approach to understand and find the key solution for some problems!
Heavy thing to carry alone, but becomes just feathers when carried together ! (7imel ejjma3a riish)
I am trying to use that Comparative Approach to understand and find the key solution for some problems!
Heavy thing to carry alone, but becomes just feathers when carried together ! (7imel ejjma3a riish)
No comments:
Post a Comment