COMPARATIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Smith, A. (1937) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations, New York: Random House.
- Some
nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an exclusive
company, of whom the colonies were obliged to by all such European goods
as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell the whole of their
own surplus produce. It was
the interest of the company, therefore, not only to sell the former as
dear, and to buy the latter as cheap as possible, but to buy no more of
the latter, even at this low price, than what they could dispose of for a
very high price in Europe. It
was their interest, not only to degrade in all cases the value of the
surplus produce of the colony, but in many cases to discourage and keep
down the natural increase of its quantity. Of all the expedients that can well be contrived to
stunt that natural growth of a new colony, that of an exclusive company is
undoubtedly the most effectual.
542
- Other
nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined the
whole commerce of their colonies to a particular port of the mother
country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet and
at a particular season, or, in single, in consequence of a particular
license, which is most cases was very well paid for. This policy opened, indeed, the
trade of the colonies to all the natives of the mother country, provided
they traded from the proper port, at the proper season, and in the proper
vessels. But as all the
different merchants, who joined their stock in order to fit out those
licensed vessels, would find it for their interest to act in concert, the
trade which was carried on in this manner would necessarily be conducted
very nearly upon the same principles as that of an exclusive company. The profit of those merchants
would be almost equally exorbitant and oppressive. The colonies would be ill
supplied, and would be obliged both to buy very dear, and to sell very
cheap. 542-3
- The
law, so far as it gives some weak protection to the slave against the
violence of his master, is likely to be better executed in a colony where
the government is in a great measure arbitrary, than in one where it is
altogether free. In every
country where the unfortunate law of slavery is established, the
magistrate, when he protects the slave, intermeddles in some measure in
the management in the private property of the master; and, in a free
country, where the master is perhaps either a member of the colony
assemble, or an elector of such a member, he dare not do this but with the
greatest caution and circumspection.
The respect which he is obliged to pay to the master, renders it
more difficult for him to protect the slave. 553
- The
general advantages which Europe, considered as one great country, has
derived from the discovery and colonization of America, consists, first,
in the increase of its enjoyments; and secondly, in the augmentation of
its industry. 557
- Through
the encouragement of exportation, and the discouragement of importation,
are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to
enrich every country, yet with regard to some particular commodities, it
seems to follow an opposite plan to discourage exportation and to
encourage importation. Its
ultimate object, however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the
country by an advantageous balance of trade. It discourages the exportation of the materials of
manufacture, and of the instruments of trade, in order to give our own
workmen an advantage, and to enable them to undersell those of other
nations in all foreign markets: and by restraining, in this manner, the
exportation of a few commodities, of no great price, it proposes an
occasion a much greater and more valuable exportation of others. It encourages the importation of
the materials of manufacture, in order that our own people may be enabled
to work them up more cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more
valuable importation of the manufactured commodities. 607
- It
cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this
whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest
has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been
carefully attended to; and among this latter class are merchants and
manufacturers have been by far the principle architects. 626
Hoselitz, B. (1957) “Economic Growth and Development:
Non-economic Factors in Economic Development,” American Economic Review, 47, 28-41, pp. 183-192.
- The
need for capital on a relatively large scale requires the availability of
institutions through which savings can be collected and channeled into
projects of employing productive capital. Hence a banking system or its equivalent in the form of
a state agency collecting revenue and spending it on developmental
projects is required. What is
also required in a society in which investment decisions are made by private
individuals is a legal institution, such as the corporation, which allows
the combination of capitals of various individuals in order to support
enterprises which, for technological reasons, can be undertaken
economically only on a large scale.
In Britain all these institutions were in existence at the time its
industrial revolution began.
184
- These
[skilled labor of various kinds, chiefly entrepreneurial services and the
services of skilled administrators, engineers, scientists, and managerial
personnel] rather than manual skills are the types of labor normally in
short supply in nonindustrialized countries, and it is the overcoming of
bottlenecks in the supply of these kinds of services that a major
developmental effort usually needs to be made. 186
- By
the onset of the industrial revolution, technological research was
widespread and had spilled over from being practiced in the laboratories
of “experimental philosophers” to be carried on also in workshops, mines,
and manufactories. 187
- Entrepreneurship
is a more evasive thing. It
is not so much a particular set of institutions through which it is
brought to bear, but its presence or absence, its vigor or debility
depends rather upon a whole series of environmental conditions and
appropriate personal motivations.
It has been shown—in my opinion successfully—that entrepreneurship
is associated with a personality pattern in which achievement motivation
is strong. But the presence
of strong achievement motivation in a group of individuals does not necessarily
produce an abundance of entrepreneurs unless certain other general
conditions of social structure and culture strongly favor
achievement-oriented individuals to enter economic pursuits. 188
- It is
not too difficult to show that in a society in which the acquisition of
wealth is regarded as a good thing in itself, persons with the appropriate
motivational disposition will tend to enter an entrepreneurial
career. 188
- Economic
growth is a process which affects not only purely economic relations but
the entire social, political, and cultural fabric of a society. The predominant problem of
economic growth in our day is the overcoming of economic stagnation, which
normally takes place through a process of industrialization. In most record cases in which
industrialization took place and led to a level of self-sustaining growth,
this phase of economic development was initiated by a rapidly “explosive”
period which, in concordance with Rostow, we may call the take-off. The rapid structural and
organizational changes affecting the productivity of a society which take
place during the take-off phase are made possible because in a previous
phase social institutions were created which allow the successful
overcoming of supply bottlenecks, chiefly in the field of capital
formation and the availability of a number of highly skilled and
specialized services. The
creation of these social institutions in turn, especially the
“institutionalization” of entrepreneurship, i.e., an innovating
uncertainty-bearing activity, requires the establishment of a social framework
within which these new institutions can exist and expand. 189
- …a
deviant always engages in behavior which constitutes a breach of the
existing order and which is neither contrary to, or at least not
positively weighted in, the hierarchy of existing social values. 190
- deviant
behavior is often exercised by persons who, in some sense, are marginal to
society. 190
- Once
a form of deviant behavior can find the shelter of an institution, it
becomes routinized, it ceases to be deviant, and it tends to become an
accepted mode of social action.
191
- …one
of the most important determinants of the relative success of deviants
will be the system of sanctions which exist in a society. 191
- …rather
than developing entirely new institutions, new meaning may be given to
existing old ones; and whereas in the former process of industrialization
will be preceded normally by a substantial alteration in relations between
social classes, this will not take place, or only to a smaller extent, in
the second case. 192
- Since
the development of new institutions by means of deviance has usually been
outside the control and often even in opposition to the aims of the elite,
it has been designated as an autonomous process. 192
- This
seems to indicate that ultimately a theoretical system may have to be
evolved in which the interrelations between the various processes
determining institutions embodying social change are elucidated. 192
Rostow, W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: A
Non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- in
terms of human motivation, many of the most profound economic changes are
viewed as the consequence of the non-economic human motives and
aspiration. 2
- The
idea spreads that not merely economic progress is possible, but that
economic progress is a necessary condition for some other purpose, judged
to be good: be it national dignity, private profit, the general welfare,
or a better life for the children. 6
- The
revolutionary changes in agricultural productivity are an essential
condition for successful take-off; for modernization of a society
increases radically its bill for agricultural products. 8
Schumpeter, J.A. (1961) The Theory of Economic
Development, New York: Oxford University Press.
- The mere
knowledge of the changed state of affairs is not attained in most cases
with desirable promptness. To draw conclusions from the knowledge is again
a big step, which meets many obstacles in unpreparedness, the lack of
means and so on. 33
- This
stability is indispensable for the economic conduct of individuals. 40
- There
is one kind of economic conduct which, under given conditions, establishes
the equilibrium between means on hand and wants to be satisfied in the
best way possible. 40
- For
the economic state of a people does not emerge simply from the preceding
economic conditions, but only from the preceding total situation. 58
- Every
concrete process of development finally rests upon preceding development.
64
- Development
in our sense is a distinct phenomena, entirely foreign to what may be
observed in the circular flow or in the tendency towards equilibrium. It
is a spontaneous and discontinuous change in the channels of the flow,
disturbance of equilibrium, which forever alters and displaces the
equilibrium state previously existing. 64
- To
produce means to combine materials and forces within our reach. To produce
other things, or the same things by a different method, means to combine
these materials and forces differently. 65 Development in our sense is then
defined by the carrying out of new combinations. 66
- command
over means of production is necessary to the carrying out of new
combinations. 68
- Here
the success of everything depends upon intuition, the capacity of seeing
things in a way which afterwards proves to be true, even though it cannot
be established at the moment, and of grasping the essential fact,
discarding the unessential, even though one can give no account of the
principles by which this is done. 85
Bendix, R. (1964) Nation-Building
and Citizenship: Studies of Our Changing Social Order, Berkely, CA:
University of California Press, pp. 362-434.
- These
changes in the eighteenth century initiated a transformation of human
societies which is comparable in magnitude only to the transformation of
nomadic peoples into settled agriculturalists some 10,000 years
earlier. Until 1750 the
proportion of the world’s active population engaged in agriculture was
probably above 80 per cent.
Two centuries later it was about 60 per cent, and in the industrialized
countries of the world it had fallen below 50 per cent, reaching low
figures like 10 to 20 per cent in countries that have a relatively long
history of industrialization.
In Great Britain, the country
which pioneered in this respect, the proportion of the labor force
engaged in agriculture reached a low 5 per cent in 1950. 361-2
- Trading
as well as the ownership and care of property undermine an individual’s
integrity, because his every act and thought turns on considerations of
money and economic expediency.
368
- “He
must cultivate some individual talent, in order to be useful, and it is
well understood that in his existence there can be no harmony, because in
order to render one talent useful, he must abandon the exercise of every
other.” Thus, to Goethe’s
hero, the aristocrat has high social standing but a cold heart, the Burger may gain distinction by his
attainments, but only the artist is in a position to pursue the harmonious
cultivation of his nature.
(Goethe, J. (1867) Wilhelm
Meister’s Apprenticeship, London: Bell and Doldy.) 368
- Proudhon
also believes that specialization has a destructive effect on the
individual. 371
- This
ability to maintain his family by his own efforts makes the peasant into
the ideal anarchist. By
contrast Proudhon emphasizes that certain industries “require the combined
employment of a large number of workers” involving subordination and
mutual dependence. “The
producer is no longer, as in the fields, a sovereign and free father of a
family; it is a collectivity.
Thus, for Proudhon, industry is a locus of an enforced
collectivism, mutual dependence, and subordination., whereas agriculture
enhances freedom and individualism.
(Proudhon, P.J. (1923) General
Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century, London: Freedom
Press). 372
- The
industrial revolution in England and the contemporary political revolution
in France had a profound cultural impact, frequently leading men of
letters to formulate pervasive and invidious contrasts between the old and
the new social order. As a
result “tradition” and “modernity” came to be conceived in mutually
exclusive terms, not only as a conceptual aid but also as a generalized,
descriptive statement about the two, contrasting types of society. 404.
- …modernization,
once it has occurred anywhere, alters the conditions of all subsequent
efforts at modernization so that “the late arrivals cannot repeat the
earlier sequences of industrial development.”
- …the
internal, historically developed structure of a country and the emulation
induced by economic and political developments abroad affect each
country’s process of modernization.
411
- The
simplified contrast between tradition and modernity shows us that medieval
society was ruled by a landowning aristocracy and capitalist society by a
bourgeoisie owning the means of production. If one conceives of the transition from tradition to
modernity as the decline of one set of attributes and the rise of another,
one gets the simple picture of a declining aristocracy and a rising
bourgeoisie. 420
- The
continuity between tradition and modernity remains a characteristic of
social change throughout, for even the increasing differentiation between
office and family in Western Civilization reveals a variety of
historically conditioned patterns.
424.
- The
division of history into epochs, like the distinction between tradition
and modernity, is a construct of definite, but limited unity. 432
- If
we want to explain this historical breakthrough in Europe, our emphasis
will be on the continuity of intra-societal changes. If we wish to include in our
account the worldwide repercussions of this breakthrough and hence the
differential process of modernization, our emphasis will be on the
confluence of intrinsic and extrinsic changes of social structures. Both emphases are relevant for the
comparative study of stratification.
433
Smelser, N. (1964) “Toward a Theory of Modernization,” in
Amitai and Eva Etzioni (eds.) Social
Change, Sources, Patterns and Consequences, New York: Basic Books, pp.
258-274.
- Economic
development generally refers to the “growth of output per head of
population.” (Lewis, W.A.
(1955) The Theory of Economic Growth,
London: George Allen & Unwin, p. 1.)
- For
purposes of analyzing the relationships between economic growth and the
social structure, it is possible to isolate the effects of several
interrelated technical, economic, and ecological processes frequently
accompanying development: (1) In the real of technology, the change from simple and traditional
techniques toward the
application of scientific knowledge.
(2) In agriculture, the evolution from subsistence farming toward
commercial production of agricultural goods. This means specialization is cash crops, purchase of
nonagricultural products in the market, and frequently agricultural
wage-labor. (3) In industry,
the transition from the use of
human and animal power toward
industrialization proper or “men aggregated at power-driven machines
working for monetary return with the products of the manufacturing
process, entering into a market based on a network of exchange relations.”
(Nash, N. (1954) “Some Notes on Village Industrialization in South and
East Asia,” Economic Development and
Cultural Change, No. 3, p. 271.)
(4) In ecological arrangements, the movement from the farm and village toward
urban centers. 259
- As
the economy develops, several kinds of economic activity are removed from
this family-community complex.
In agriculture, the introduction of money crops marks a
differentiation between the social contexts of production and
consumption. Agricultural
wage-labor sometimes undermines the family production unit. 262
- “Cottage
industry,” …frequently involves a differentiation between consumption and
community, since production is “for the market , for an unknown consumer,
sold to a wholesaler who accumulates a stock,” (Boeke, J.H. (1942) The Structure of the Netherlands Indian
Economy, New York: International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific
Relations). 262
- One
implication of the removal of economic activities from the kinship nexus
is that the family loses some of its previous functions and thereby itself
becomes a more specialized agency.
The family ceases to be an economic unit of production; one or more
members now leave the household to seek employment in the labor market. The family’s activities become
more concentrated on emotional gratification and socialization. While many halfway houses such as
family hiring and migratory systems persist, the tendency is toward the
segregation of family functions and economic functions. 263
- Capitalism
had, by virtue of its conquest of Western society, solidly established an
institutional base and a secular value-system of its own—“economic
rationality,” These secular
economic values no longer needed the “ultimate” justification required in
the newer , unsteadier days of economic revolution. 265
- Differentiation
alone, therefore, is not sufficient for modernization. Development proceeds as a
contrapuntal interplay between differentiation (which is divisive of
established society) and integration (which unites differentiated
structures on a new basis).
Paradoxically, however, the process of integration itself produces
more differentiated structures—e.g.,
trade unions, associations, political parties, and a mushrooming state
apparatus. 267
- Urbanization,
however, frequently creates more anonymity. As a result, one finds frequently in expanding cities a
growth of voluntary associations—churches and chapels, unions, schools,
halls, athletic clubs, bars, shops, mutual aid groups, etc. In some cases this growth of
integrative groupings may be retarded because of the back-and-forth
movement of migratory workers, who “come to the city for their
differentiation” and “return to the village for their integration.” In cities themselves the original
criterion for association may be common tribe, caste, or village; this
criterion may persist or give way gradually to more “functional” groupings
based on economic or political interests. 268
- (1)
Differentiation demands the creation of new activities, norms, rewards and
sanctions—money, political position, prestige based on occupation, and so
on. These often conflict with
old modes of social action, which are frequently dominated by traditional
religious, tribal, and kinship systems. These traditional standards are among the most
intransigent of obstacles to modernization, and where they are threatened,
serious dissatisfaction and apposition arise. (2) Structural change is, above all, uneven in periods of
modernization. In colonial
societies, for instance, the European powers frequently revolutionized the
economic, political, and educational frameworks, but simultaneously
encouraged or imposed a conservatism in traditional religious, class, and
family systems. 270
- Thus
unevenness creates anomie in the
classical sense, for it generates disharmony between life experiences and
the normative framework by which these experiences are regulated. 270
- (1)
Undifferentiated institutional structures frequently constitute the
primary social barriers to modernization. Individuals refuse to work for wages because of
traditional kinship, village, tribal, and other ties. Invariably a certain amount of
political pressure is required to pry individuals loose from these
ties. The need for such
pressure increases, of course, with the rate of modernization
desired. (2) The process of
differentiation itself creates those conditions which demand a larger,
more formal type of political administration. A further argument for the importance of government in
periods of rapid and uneven modernization lies, then, in the need to
accommodate the growing cultural, economic, and social heterogeneity, and
to control the political repercussions from the constantly shifting
distribution of power which accompanies extensive social
reorganization. (3) The
apparent propensity for periods of early modernization to erupt into
explosive outbursts creates delicate political problems for the leaders of
developing nations. We might
conclude this essay of the major social forces of modernization by
suggesting what kinds of government are likely in be most effective in
such troubles areas. First,
political leaders will increase their effectiveness by open and vigorous
commitment to utopian and xenophobic nationalism. The commitment serves as a
powerful instrument for attaining three of their most important ends: (a)
the enhancement of their own claim to legitimacy by endowing themselves
with the mission for creating the nation-state; (b) the procurement of
otherwise impossible sacrifices from a populace which may be committed to
modernization in the abstract but which resists the concrete breaks with
traditional ways; (c) the use of their claim to legitimacy to hold down
protests and to prevent generalized symbols such as communism from spreading
to all sorts of particular grievances. 273
- Differentiation
may arise from sources other than economic development; the requirement of
integration may arise from conditions other than differentiation; and the
sources of social disturbance are not exhausted by the discontinuities
between differentiation and integration. 274
Tocqueville, A. (1966) Democracy in America, J.P.
Mayer (ed.), Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
- Understanding
its own interests, the people would appreciate that in order to enjoy the
benefits of society one must should its obligations. Free associations of the citizens
could then take the place of the individual authority of the nobles, and
the state would be protected both from tyranny and from license. 14
- The
emigrants who colonized America at the beginning of the seventeenth
century in some way separated the principle of democracy from all other
principles against which they contended when living in the heart of old
European societies, and transplanted that principle only on the shores of
the New World. It could there
grow in freedom and, progressing in conformity with mores, develop
peacefully within the law. 18
- It
is not political opinions only, but all the views of men which are
influences by freedom of the press.
180
- The
effective force of any power is increased in proportion to the
centralization of its control.
184
- ...with
their resources restricted, the power of the American press is still
immense. It makes political
life circulate in every corner of that vast land. Its eyes are never shut, and it
lays bare the secret shifts of politics, forcing public figures in turn to
appear before the tribunal of opinion. The press rallies interests around certain doctrines
and gives shape to party slogans; through the press the parties, without
actually meeting, listen and argue with one another. When many organs of the press to
come to take the same line, their influence in the long run is almost
irresistible, and public opinion, continually struck in the same spot,
ends by giving way under the blows.
Each individual American newspaper has little power, but after the
people, the press is nonetheless the first of powers. 186
- Opinions
established in America under the influence of its free press are often
more firmly rooted than those formed elsewhere under censorship. 186
- A
great man has said that ignorance lies at both ends of knowledge. Perhaps it would have been truer
to say that deep convictions lie at the two ends, with doubt at the
middle. 187
- It
has been noted that in ages of religious fervor men sometimes changed
their beliefs, whereas in skeptical centuries each man held obstinately to
his own faith. 187
- The
most natural right of man, after that of acting on his own, is that of
combining his efforts with those of his fellows and acting together. Therefore the right of association
seems to me by nature almost as inalienable as individual liberty. 193
- It
is our inexperience of liberty in action which still leads us to regard freedom
of association as no more than a right to make war on the government. The first idea which comes into a
party’s mind, as into of an individual, when it gains some strength is
that of violence; the thought of persuasion only comes later, for it is born
of experience. 194
- …perhaps
universal suffrage is the most powerful of all the elements tending to
moderate the violence of political associations in the United States. In a country with universal
suffrage the majority is never in doubt, because no party can reasonably
claim to represent those who have not voted at all. 194
- In
democratic eyes government is not a blessing but a necessary evil. Officials must be given certain
powers, for without them how could they be of any use? But the external pomps of power
are by no means essential to the conduct of business; the sight of them
would offend the public uselessly.
203
- …the
art of administration is certainly a science, and all sciences, to make
progress, need to link the discoveries of succeeding generations. One man in the short space of life
notices a fact and another conceives an idea; one man finds a means and
another discovers a formula; as life goes on, humanity collects various
fruits of individual experience and build up knowledge. It is very difficult for American
administrators to learn anything from each other. Thus the lights that guide them in
the direction of society are those to be found widespread throughout that
society, and not any particular administrative techniques. So democracy, pressed to its
ultimate limits, harms the progress of the art of government. In this respect it is better
adapted to a people whose administrative education is already finished
than to a nation which is a novice in the experience of public
affairs. 208
- In
aristocratic governments those who get to the head of affairs are rich men
desiring power only. The
statesmen in democracies are poor, with their fortunes to make. As a result, the rulers in
aristocratic states are little open to corruption and have only a very
moderate taste for money, whereas the opposite occurs in democracies. 220
- So
while rulers of aristocracies sometimes seek to corrupt, those of
democracies prove corruptible.
The first directly attack the morality of the people, whereas the
others exercise on the public conscience an indirect effect which is even
more to be feared. 220
- Nothing
in the world is so fixed in its views as an aristocracy. The mass of the people may be
seduced by its ignorance or its passions; a king may be taken off his
guard and induced to vacillate in his plans; and moreover, a king is not
immortal. But an aristocratic
body is too numerous to be caught, and yet so small that it does not
easily yield to the intoxication of thoughtless passions. An aristocratic body is a firm and
enlightened man who never dies.
230
- The
political constitution of the United States seems to me to be one of the
forms that democracy can give to its government, but I do not think that
American institutions are the only ones, or the best, that a democratic
nation might adopt. So in
pointing out the blessings which the Americans derive from democratic
government, I am far from claiming or from thinking that such advantages
can only be attained by the same laws. 231
- I
have come to the conclusion that all the causes tending to maintain a
democratic republic in the United States fall into three categories: The
first is the peculiar and accidental situation in which providence has
placed the Americans. Their
laws are the second. Their habits
and mores are the third. 277
- Among
the lucky circumstances that favored the establishment and assured the
maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States, the most
important was the choice of the land itself in which the Americans live. Their fathers gave them a love of
equality and liberty, but it was God who, by handing a limitless continent
over to them, gave them the means of long remaining equal and free. General prosperity favors stability
in all governments, but particularly in a democratic one, for it depends
on the moods of the greatest number, and especially on the moods of those
most exposed to want. When
the people rule, they must be happy, if they are not to overthrow the
state. 279-80
- One
cannot clear the wilderness without either capital or credit, and before a
man ventures into the forest his body must be accustomed to the rigors of
a new climate. It is
therefore Americans who are continually leaving their birthplace and going
forth to win vast far-off domains.
281
- Millions
of men are all marching together to the same point on the horizon; their
languages, religions, and mores are different, but they have one common
aim. They have been told that
fortune is to be found somewhere toward the west, and they hasten to seek
it. 282
- Other
nations in America have the same opportunities for prosperity as the
Anglo-Americans, but not their law or mores, and these nations are
wretched. So the laws and
mores of the Anglo-Americans are the particular and predominant causes,
which I have been seeking, of their greatness. I am far from claiming that there is absolute
excellence in the American type of laws: I do not believe that they are
applicable to all democratic peoples, and there are several of them that
strike me as dangerous even in the United States. 307
- When
towns and provinces form so many different nations within the common
motherland, each of them has a particularist spirit opposed to the general
spirit of servitude. But now
that all parts of a single empire have lost their franchises, usages,
prejudices, and even their memories and names and have grown accustomed to
obey the same laws, it is no longer more difficult to oppress them
altogether than do to this to each separately. 313
- It
is hard to make the people take a share in government; it is even harder
to provide them with the experience and inspire them with the feelings
they need to govern well. 315
- But
I do think that if we do not succeed in gradually introducing democratic
institutions among us, and if we despair of impairing to all citizens
those ideas and sentiments which first prepare them for freedom and then
allow them to enjoy it, there will be no independence left for anybody,
neither for the middle classes nor for the nobility, neither for the poor
nor for the rich, but only an equal tyranny for all; and I foresee that if
the peaceful dominion of the majority is not established among us in good
time, we shall sooner or alter fall under the unlimited authority of a
single man. 315
- General
ideas have this excellent quality, that they permit human minds to pass
judgment quickly on a great number of things; but the conceptions they
convey are always incomplete, and what is gained in extent is always lost
in exactitude. 437
- In
ages of equality all men are independent of each other, isolated and
weak. One finds no man whose
will permanently directs the actions of the crowd. 439
- I
have shown before how equal standards induce each man to look for truth
himself. It is easy to see
how such a method insensibly directs the human spirit towards
generalizations. 439
- The
main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that
excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of
equality, but I think it would be a mistake for them to attempt to conquer
it entirely and abolish it.
They will never succeed in preventing men from loving wealth, but
they may be able to induce them to use only honest means to enrich
themselves. 448
- The
more people are assimilated to one another and brought to an equality, the
more important it becomes that religions, while remaining studiously aloof
from the daily turmoil of worldly business, should not needlessly run
counter to prevailing ideas or the permanent interests of the mass of the
people. 448
- …by
respecting all democratic instincts which are not against it and making
use of many favorable ones, religion succeeds in struggling successfully
with that spirit of individual independence which is most dangerously
enemy. 449
- Freedom
is found at different times and different forms; it is not exclusively
dependent on one social state, and one finds it elsewhere than in
democracies. It cannot
therefore be taken as the distinctive characteristic of democratic ages. The particular and predominating
fact peculiar to those ages is equality of conditions, and the chief
passion which stirs men at such times is the love of this same
equality. 504
- I
think democratic peoples have a natural taste for liberty; left to
themselves, they will seek it, cherish it, and be sad if it is taken from
them. But their passion for
equality is ardent, insatiable, eternal, and invincible. They want equality in freedom, and
if they cannot have that, they still want equality in slavery. They will put up with poverty,
servitude, and barbarism, but they will not endure aristocracy. 506
- Egoism
is a passionate and exaggerated love of self which leads a man to think of
all things in terms of himself and to prefer himself to all. Individualism is a calm and
considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the
mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends;
with this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater
society to look after itself.
Egoism springs from a blind instinct; individualism is based on
misguided judgment rather than depraved feeling. It is due more to inadequate understanding than to
perversity of heart. Egoism
sterilizes the seeds of every virtue; individualism at first only dams the
spring of public virtues, but in the long run it attacks and destroys all
the others too and finally merges in egoism. Egoism is a vice as old as the world. It is not peculiar to one form of
society more than another.
Individualism is of democratic origin and threatens to grow as
conditions get more equal.
506-7
- Despotism,
by its very nature suspicious, sees the isolation of men as the best
guarantee of its own permanence.
So it usually does all it can to isolate them. Of all the vices of the human
heart egoism is that which suits it best. A despot will lightly forgive his subjects for not
loving him, provided they do not love one another. 509
- He
[a despot] calls those who try to unite their efforts to create a general
prosperity “turbulent and restless spirits”, and twisting the natural
meaning of words, he calls those “good citizens” who care for none but
themselves. 509
- Americans
of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are
forever forming associations.
They are not only commercial and industrial associations in which
all take part, but others of a thousand different types—religious, moral,
serious, futile, very general and limited, immensely large and very
minute. 513
- …the
most democratic country in the world now is that in which men have in our
time carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the
objects of common desires and have applied this new technique to the
greatest number of purposes.
514
- The more
government takes the place of associations, the more will individuals lose
the idea of forming associations and need the government to come to their
help. 515
- Among
laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it
seems to me, than all the others.
If men are to remain civilized, the art of association must develop
and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions
spreads. 517
- When
no firm and lasting ties any longer unite men, it is impossible to obtain
the cooperation of any great number of them unless you can persuade every
man whose help is required that he serves his private interests by
voluntarily uniting his efforts to those of all others. That cannot be done habitually and
conveniently without the help of a newspaper. Only a newspaper can put the same thought at the same
time before a thousand readers.
517
- As
equality spreads and men individually become less strong, they ever
increasingly let themselves glide with the stream of the crowd and find it
hard to maintain alone an opinion abandoned by the rest. The newspaper represents the
association; one might say that it speaks to each of its readers in the
name of all the rest, and the feebler they are individually, the easier it
is to sweep them along. The
power of newspapers must therefore grow as equality spreads. 520
- One
must understand that unlimited political freedom of association is of all
forms of liberty the last which a people can sustain. If it does not topple them over
into anarchy, it brings them continually to the brink thereof. 524
- One
hears it said that such and such a nation could not maintain internal
peace, inspire respect for its laws, or establish a stable government if
it did not set strict limits to the right of association. These are undoubtedly great
benefits, and one can understand why, to gain or keep them, a nation may
agree for a time to impose galling restrictions on itself; but still a
nation should know what price it pays for these blessings. To save a man’s life, I can
understand cutting off his arm.
But I don’t want anyone to tell me that he will be as dexterous
without it. 524
- American
moralists do not pretend that one must sacrifice himself for his fellows
because it is a fine thing to do so.
But they boldly assert that such sacrifice is as necessary for the
man who makes it as for the beneficiaries. 525
- Love
of comfort has become the dominant national taste. The main current of human passions
running in that direction sweeps everything along with it. 532
- It
might be supposed, from what has been said, that the love of physical
pleasures would continually lead the Americans into moral irregularities,
disturb the peace of families, and finally threaten the stability of
society itself. But it does
not happen like that. The
passions for physical pleasures produces in democracies effects very
different from those it occasions in aristocratic societies. 532
- But
love of physical pleasures never leads democratic peoples to such
excesses. Among them love of
comfort appears as a tenacious, exclusive, and universal passion, but
always a restrained one.
There is no question of building vast palaces, of conquering or
excelling nature, or sucking the world dry to satisfy one man’s
greed. It is more a question
of adding a few acres to one’s fields, planting an orchard, enlarging a
house, making life ever easier and more comfortable, keeping irritations
away, and satisfying one’s slightest needs without trouble and almost
without expense. 533
- Where
physical pleasures are concerned, the opulent citizens of a democracy do
not display tastes very different from those of the people, either
because, themselves originating from the people, they really do share them
or because they think they ought to accept their standards. 533
- The
nations of our day cannot prevent conditions of equality from spreading in
their midst. But it depends
upon themselves whether equality is to lead to servitude or freedom,
knowledge or barbarism, prosperity or wretchedness. 705
Myrdal, G. (1968) Asian Drama: An Inquiry Into the
Poverty of Nations, New York: The Twentieth Century Fund.
- The
bests interests of the United States, for instance, dictate the
establishment and growth in the underdeveloped countries of what many
people there themselves strive for: a stable and, where possible,
democratic regime in a consolidated nation capable of economic
development. 13
- Economic
theorists, more than other social scientists, have long been disposed to
arrive at general propositions and then postulate them as valid for every
time, place, and culture. 16
- Economists
operate to a great extent within a framework that developed early in close
relationship with the Western philosophies of natural law and
utilitarianism and the rationalistic psychology of hedonism. Only with
time has this tradition been adapted to changing conditions, and then
without much feeling of need for radical modifications. 17
- When
we economists, working within this tenacious but variegated but flexible
tradition of preconceptions that admittedly are not too badly fitted to
our own conditions, suddenly turn our attention to countries with
radically different conditions, the risk of fundamental error is
exceedingly great. 17
- The
lack of mobility and the imperfection of markets in underdeveloped
countries rob the analytical method of aggregation of magnitudes -
employment, savings, investment, and output - of much of its meaning. This
conceptual difficulty is in addition to the statistical one already
pointed out: that the data aggregated are frail and imperfect, partly
because their categories are unrealistic. 19
- while
in the Western world an analysis in "economic" terms - markets
and prices, employment and unemployment, consumption and savings,
investment and output - that abstracts from modes and levels of living and
from attitudes, institutions and cultures may make sense and lead to valid
inferences, an analogous procedure plainly does not in underdeveloped
countries. 19-20
- …the
tendency to use the familiar theories and concepts that have been used
successfully in the analysis of Western countries exerts influences in the
same direction. 23
- The
strict logic a non-theoretical approach is scientific work is impossible;
and every theory contains the seed of a priori thought. 24
- Theory,
therefore, must not only be subjected to immanent criticism for logical
consistency but must be constantly measured against reality and adjusted
accordingly. 24
- Theory
is thus no more than a correlated set of questions to the social reality
under study. 25
- Inherent
in all honest research is a self-correcting, purifying force that in the
end will affirm itself. 25
- …we
need not only establish the mechanisms that can explain the unique
properties of these economies but also to build an analytical structure
fitted in the dynamic problems of development and planning for
development. 27
- [Objective
research] The student should have no ulterior motives. He should confine
himself to the search for truth and be as free as possible from both he
pressures of tradition and of society around him and his own desires. More
particularly, he should in his research have no intention in influencing
the political attitudes of his readers, either inside or outside the
countries whose conditions he is studying. His task is to provide factual
information that will help them all reach greater rationality in following
out their own interests and ideals, whatever those are. In his scientific
work he should have no loyalties to any particular country or group of
countries or any particular political ideology, whatever his own
preferences. Indeed, he should have no loyalties at all except to the
professional standards of truth-seeking. 31
- The
only way in which we can strive for objectivity in theoretical analysis is
to lift up the valuations into the full light, make them conscious and
explicit, and permit them to determine the viewpoints, the approaches, and
the concepts used. In the practical phases of a study the stated value
premises should then, together with the data - established by theoretical
analysis with the utilization of those same value premises - form the
premises for all policy conclusions. 33
Frank, A. (1969) Latin America: Underdevelopment or
Revolution--Essays on the Development of Underdevelopment and the Immediate
Enemy, New York: Monthly Review Press.
- We
cannot hope to formulate adequate development theory and policy for the
majority of the world's population who suffer from underdevelopment
without first learning how their past economic and social history gave
rise to their present underdevelopment. 3
- …historical
research demonstrates that contemporary underdevelopment is in large part
the historical product of past and continuing economic and other relations
between the satellite underdeveloped and the now developed metropolitan
countries. 4
- …the
economic, political, social and cultural institutions and relations we now
observe there are the product of the historical development of the
capitalist system no less than are the seemingly more modern or capitalist
features of the metropoles of these underdeveloped countries. 5
- …a
whole chain of constellations of metropoles and satellites relates all
parts of the whole system from its metropolitan center in Europe or the
United States to the farthest outpost in the Latin America countryside. 6
- …tendencies...which
lead to the development of the metropolis and the underdevelopment of the
satellite. 7
- …underdevelopment
was and still is generated by the very same historical process which also
generated economic development: the development of capitalism itself. 9
- Though
science and truth know no national boundaries, it is probably new
generations of scientists from the underdeveloped countries themselves who
most need to, and best can, devote the necessary attention to these
problems and clarify the process of underdevelopment and development. It
is their people who in the last analysis face the task of changing this no
longer acceptable process and eliminating this miserable reality. 15
- They
[people from underdeveloped countries] will not be able to accomplish
these goals by importing sterile stereotypes from the metroplis which do
not correspond to their satellite economic reality and do not respond to
their liberating political needs. 16
Prebisch, R. (1970) Change and Development: Latin
America's Great Task, Washington, DC: The Inter-American Development Bank.
- There
is a direct link between the increase of marginality and the incapacity of
urban activities to absorb the population increment in productive employment.
2
- considerable
capital formation effort [is] required in order to give the economy the
additional dynamism it needs. It is not conceivable - much less desirable
- that this should be done mainly with foreign capital. A great internal
effort will be an imperative and inescapable necessity. 14
- In
reality, socialism has been a method of development rather than a method
of transforming an advanced economy. 15
- Any
system which fails to imbue the economy with the required degree of
dynamism, and to promote more equitable income distribution, will have
irrevocably forfeited the right to survive. 16
Tilly, C. (1970) “The Changing Place of Collective
Violence,” in Melvin Richter (ed.) Essays
in Theory and History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp.
139-164.
- Collective
violence is especially likely to occur when and where new groups are
acquiring membership in the political community or old groups are losing
it. The idea rests on an
interest-group conception of political life. The main elements of that conception are: 1) Every polity consists of a
limited number of identifiable groups with known but shifting relations to
one another. Collectively
they control the principal organized means of coercion within a
society. 2) Those groups—the
“members” of the polity—do not include all identifiable groups within a
society and need include all persons within the society. 3) Every polity establishes tests
of membership. All polities
include among such tests the ability to mobilize or coerce significant
numbers of people. 4) Within
the polity, members constantly test one another in partial ways; repeated
failures of partial tests lead to fuller tests and/or to exclusion from
the polity. 5) Membership in
the polity gives important advantages to a group; exclusion is
costly. 6) Members of the
polity resist the entry of new members and use their control over the
organized means of coercion to do so. 7) Groups acquiring the means of membership in the
polity define their demands or aspirations as rights which ought to be
recognized or extended to them.
8) Groups losing the means of membership in the polity define their
demands or aspirations as rights or privileges which they should retain. 9) The entry of a new group into
the polity tends to produce collective violence because: a) the existing
members resist with the coercive means under their control; b) the
aspiring members make or reinforce their claims to membership by use of
violence; c) each one defines the action of the other as illegitimate and
as thus requiring and justifying extraordinary means of coercion. 10) The departure of a member from
the polity also tends to produce collective violence because: a) among the
fuller tests applied by other existing members are applications of violent
coercion; b) the departing member state their claims to continued
membership by the use of violence; c) again, each party defines the action
of the other as illegitimate and as thus requiring and justifying
extraordinary means of coercion.
11) Peaks of collective violence therefore occur when multiple
entries into the polity and exits from it go on simultaneously. 12) The incorporation of smaller
polities into some larger unit and the disintegration of a polity into
smaller units both produce effects similar to the simultaneous entries and
exits from several groups into the same polity, because they both shift
the loci of important political identities. … 13) Each entry into a polity and each exit from it
redefines the criteria of membership in a sense favorable to the
characteristics of the new set of members. 14) The structural conditions favoring multiple entries
or exits therefore vary from society to society and period to period. In general, however, they include
rapid changes in the means of political communication, in the groups
defined by economic activity and in the society’s coercive apparatus. 15) Every society also produces a
significant amount of nonpolitical violence, which can for the short run
of any particular society be treated as constant. However, long changes and
international variations in the “culture of violence”—in the ways in which
aggression is acted out and violence institutionalized—to produce
important differences among societies in the level of collective
violence. Furthermore, this
nonpolitical culture of violence affects the form taken by political
violence. 16) The mutual
testing on the part of members also produces violence continuously, even
when no exist or entries are occurring. Still, “testing violence” grows especially frequent
around the entries and exist of members of the polity. 142-4
- …the
distinctive pattern of behavior we know as the Western European food riot
seems to have taken shape during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. It remained the
most frequent form of collective violence in some parts of Europe at the
end of the nineteenth century.
More exactly, it took two shapes—one urban and one rural. 147
- …the
predominant forms of collective violence during the first half of the
century embodied, to an important degree, angry reactions to the growth of
centralized nation-state organized around free markets, factory
production, and capitalist property.
The men who made the collective protest came largely from
established classes being squeezed out by the big change. 155
- …their
very classes created by the growth of centralized, capitalistic industrial
nation-state were acquiring political identity by means of collective
violence, if not by that means alone. Like their basic conditions of existence, their forms
of violence were shaped by their willy-nilly implication in such a
nation-state. Hence the
fundamental traits of the new forms of collective violence: complexity and
durability of organization, growth and formal associations,
crystallization around explicit programs and articulated ideologies. 163
- The
expectation-achievement line catches some important features of what we
have met as the modern forms of violence in France: their emergence from
newly developing aspirations, their frequent ideological character, their
recruitment of groups just acquiring political identities. 163
- Obviously,
urbanization and industrialization transform the basic divisions within
societies and change the means different groups have of acquiring or maintaining
political identities. Less
obviously, but not less surely, urbanization, industrialization, and the
emergence of a powerful state transform the very character—the form
itself—of collective violence.
Schumacher, E. (1973) Small Is Beautiful: A Study of
Economics as if People Mattered, London: Abacus.
- Small-scale
operations, no matter how numerous, are always less likely to be harmful
to the natural environment than large-scale ones, simply because their
individual force is small in relation to the recuperative forces of
nature. 29
- [Dorothy
Sayers] "War is a judgment that overtakes societies when they have
been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing
the universe ... Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they
happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable
situations." Creed or Chaos, Methuen and Co, London, 1947. 30
- An
entirely new system of thought is needed, a system based on attention to
people, and not primarily attention to goods. It could be summed up in the
phrase - 'production by the masses, rather than mass production'. 61
- …that
the key factor of all economic development comes out of the mind of men.
64
- Marx
does not say that some parts of history are made up of class struggles;
no, 'scientific materialism', not very scientifically, extends this
partial observation to nothing less than the whole of 'the history of all
hitherto existing society'. 73
- Every
country, no matter how devastated, which had a high level of education,
organization, and discipline, produced an 'economic miracle'. 140
- Education
does not 'jump'; it is a gradual process of great subtlety. Organization
does not 'jump'; it must gradually evolve to fit changing circumstances.
And much the same goes for discipline. All three must evolve step by step,
and the foremost task of this development policy is to speed this
evolution. 140-1
- If
new economic activities are introduced which depend on special education,
and special organization, and special discipline, such as are in no way
inherent to the recipient society, the activity will not promote healthy
development but will more likely to hinder it. 141
- The
task, then, is to bring into existence millions of new work-places in the
rural areas and small towns. ... The real task may be formulated in four
propositions. First, that workplaces have to be created in the areas where
people are living now, and not primarily on metropolitan areas into which
they tend to migrate. Second, that these workplaces must be, on average,
cheap enough so that they can be created in large numbers without this
calling for an unattainable level of capital formation and imports. Third,
that the production methods employed must be relatively simple, so that
the demands for high skills are minimized, not only in the production
process itself but also in matters of organization, raw material supply,
financing, marketing, and so forth. Fourth, that production should be
mainly from local materials and mainly for local use. These four requirements
can be met only if there is a 'regional' approach to development and,
second, if there is a conscious effort to develop and apply what might be
called an 'intermediate technology'. 146-147
- Economic
development is something much wider and deeper than economics, let alone
econometrics. Its roots lie outside the economic sphere, in education,
organization, discipline and beyond that, in political independence and
national consciousness of self-reliance. 171
- Economic
development is primarily a question of getting more work done. For this,
there are four essential conditions. First, there must be motivation;
second, there must be some know-how; third, there must be some capital;
and fourth, there must be an outlet: additional output requires additional
markets. 172
- Planners...proceed
on the assumption that the future is not 'already here', that they are
dealing with a predetermined - and therefore predictable - system, that
they can determine things by there own free will, and that there pans will
make the future different from what it would have been had there been no
plan. 188
- The
best formulation of the necessary interplay of theory and practice, that I
know of, comes from Mao Tse-tung: Go to the practical people, he says, and
learn from them: then synthesize their experience into principles and
theories; and then return to the practical people and call upon them to
put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their
problems and achieve freedom and happiness. Selected Works by MTT,
V.III.
Tilton, T. (June 1974) “The Social Origins of Liberal
Democracy: The Swedish Case,” APSR, Vol. 68, pp. 561-571.
- Democratic
development, at least for cases analogous to Germany, requires that
economic development produce a broad, independent, assertive class of
entrepreneurs capable of formulating a liberal program and imposing it
upon the pre-industrial ruling classes. 562
- For
democracy to triumph, the monopoly of power by a small clique of arbitrary
rulers must be broke. 562
- This
model [a radical liberal model of democratic development] postulates, and
Swedish experience confirms, the existence of a distinctive set of
conditions and tactics for democratic development--the availability of
another "path to the modern world." It incorporates Dahrendorf's emphasis upon the
avoidance of an industrialization fueled by vast military outlays and
promoted by a soldier- aristocracy, but it rejects the notion that a
liberal laissez-faire society constitutes an essential prerequisite for
democratic development. The
model also employs three of Moor's preconditions: the preservation of a
balance between monarchy and aristocracy in the early stages of
development; the subsequent weakening of the landed aristocracy in the
early stages of development; the subsequent weakening of the landed
aristocracy and the permeation of its thinking by bourgeois values; and
the prevention of a reactionary alliance of the aristocracy and
bourgeoisie against the peasants an workers. Sweden's development demonstrates, however, that massive
emigration may substitute (in large measure, if not wholly) for the growth
of commercial agriculture as a means of eliminating a financially unstable
and politically dangerous peasantry.
The Swedish case further demonstrates that…a radical reform can
substitute for revolutionary violence. The radical liberal model thus specifies tactics
as well as conditions for relatively non-violent democratic
modernization. 569
- …the
radical liberal model does not imply the political modernization--in
America as elsewhere--must proceed by either practice of violent
revolution or by "institution building" and purely parliamentary
tactics("working through the system"). The Swedish case points to a path between timid
liberalism and revolutionary violence. 569
- When
the popular movement is able to persuade its governors that they face a
choice between radical reform and revolution, when the insurgents are able
(as the Social Democratic leader Branting was in 1918) to keep their
revolutionary wing relatively small, and when the diehard conservatives
perceive the futility of repression, the radical liberal path to
democratic development opens.
569
Girvan, N. (1975) Conference on an Appraisal of the Relationship
Between Agricultural Development and Industrialization in Africa and Asia,
Dakar: United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning.
- …for
industrial growth to begin, and to proceed smoothly in a closed economic system,
agricultural workers must feed not only themselves but also the growing
proportion of the total labor force employed in industry; thus technical
conditions must be such as to bring about a rise in labor productivity in
agriculture while institutional conditions ensure that the agricultural
workers do not directly consume their increased food production per person
and the agricultural food surplus is transferred to industry. 2
- …many
of the techniques used in raising agricultural productivity themselves
require manufactured inputs, such as more and better agricultural
implements, machinery, fertilizer and building materials. 3
Tilly, C., Tilly, L. and Tilly, R. (1975) The
Rebellious Century: 1830-1930, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp.
2-86.
- “Participation—a
vague word, but one with power—expressed the hope for a communitarian life
which our hierarchical and segmented society, with its juxtaposition of
different sorts of privilege, only offers the French in fleeting moments
of lyrical illusion” (Raymond Aron, 1968: 167). 2
- There
is plausible—although not entirely convincing—evidence that the people
most “readily drawn into such movements are those suffering most severely
under the displacements created by structural change… Other theoretical and empirical
data suggest that social movements appeal most to those who have been
dislodged from old social ties by differentiation without also being
integrated into the new social order” (Smelser, 1966: 44). 5-6
- In this view [solidarity theory] the
conditions that lead to violent protest are essentially the same as those
that lead to other kinds of collective action in pursuit of common
interests. Violence grows out
of the struggle for power among well-defined groups. In the baldest, vulgar-Marxist
version of the theory, changes in a society’s organization of production
realign the fundamental class divisions within the society, define new
interests for each class, and (through an awakening awareness of those
interests promoted by interaction with both class allies and class
enemies) eventually produce new, expanding forms of class conflict. 7
- …every
event is an anticipation or preparation of events that have not yet
occurred, all actions are judged according to the standards of a later era
than the one in which they happened, and Historic Tendencies are always
being blocked or advanced. 11
- If
the measure of class consciousness is, let us say, the adoption of a mass
revolutionary movement instead of small-scale attempts to change working
conditions, then the circularity of the argument linking political advance
to class consciousness is complete.
11
- …an
explanation of protest, rebellion, or collective violence that cannot
account for its absence is no explanation at all; an explanation based
only on cases where something happened is quite likely to attribute
importance to conditions which are actually quite common in cases where
nothing happened. That is the
characteristic defect of the many theories being bandied about today which
treat rebellion as a consequence of frustrated rising expectations without
specifying how often (or under what conditions) rising expectations are
frustrated without rebellion.
12
- Group
violence ordinarily grows out of collective actions which are not
intrinsically violent—festivals, meetings, strikes, demonstrations, and so
on. Without them the
collective violence could hardly occur. People who do not take part in them can hardly get
involved in the violence. The
groups engaging in collective action with any regularity usually consist
of populations perceiving and pursuing a common set of interests. And collective action on any
considerable scale requires coordination, communication, and solidarity
extending beyond the moment of action itself. The urbanization and industrialization and political
rearrangement of France from the revolution onward utterly transformed the
composition of the groups capable of collective action, the nature of
their opponents, and the quality of collective action itself. The transformation of collective
action transformed violence.
46
- …the
greater the repression, the les the collective violence. 82
- Years
in which the governmental budget is large tend to be years of collective
violence at least as measured by participants and arrests. This is also true of election
years, although the number of cabinet changes in a year shows no relation
to the extent of collective violence. Finally, the number of union members (in years in which
we have a good estimate) turns out to be a fairly good predictor of the
number of violent incidents and of participants, if not of the number of
arrests. 82
- Rather
than inciting protests through breakdown and hardship, “modernization”
changed the prevailing forms of collective action. That in turn altered the character
of collective violence.
Second, in the short run rapid urbanization and industrialization
alike generally depressed the level of conflict. They destroyed various contenders’ means and bases of
collective action faster than they created new ones. Peasants who moved to cities, for
example, ordinarily left settings in which they were sufficiently
organized and sufficiently aware of common interests to throw up repeated
resistance to taxers, drafters, and grain-buyers. In the industrial city it generally
took them and their children a full generation to form the new
organization, and the new consciousness, essential to renewed collective
action. Third, urbanization
and industrialization nevertheless directly stimulated political conflict
when they diverted resources and control over resources from established
groups which retained their internal organization… Fourth, the emergence of
industrial capitalism, the development of a class structure organized around
relations to a national market and the means of industrial production, the
rise of bureaucracies and other formal organizations as the principle
means of accomplishing collective ends combined to transform the
identities and the interests of the major contenders for power, as well as
the form of their concerted action.
84-5
- In general, justice—and conflicting
conceptions of justice, at that—lies at the heart of violent
conflict. Violent conflict
remains close to politics, in origin as well as in impact. 85
Lewis, W. A. (1977) The Evolution of the International
Economic Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- …the
dependence of an industrial revolution on a prior or simultaneous
agricultural revolution. 9
- In a
closed economy, the size of the industrial sector is a function of agricultural
productivity. 9
- The
distinguishing feature of the industrial revolution at the end of the
eighteenth century is that it began in the country with the highest
agricultural productivity - Great Britain - which therefore already had a
large industrial sector. 10
Bendix, R. (1978) Kings or People: Power and the
Mandate to Rule, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 176-214.
- Though
royal supremacy and aristocratic dependence was the norm, the
centralization and decentralization of authority varied in practice. If it was true of kings that they
delegated authority but wished to control its exercise, it was true of
aristocrats that they accepted such authority but sought to make it
autonomous. This tension
between central authority and local government but be continually managed
but is never resolved. 4
Bernstein, H. (ed.) (1978) Underdevelopment and
Development: The Third World Today, New York: Penguin.
"The Crisis of Development Theory and the Problem of
Dependence in Latin America," T. Dos Santos, pp. 57-80
- A
change from development towards the 'outside' to development towards the
'interior' would relieve underdeveloped countries of their dependence of
foreign trade and give to a locally controlled economy. These changes were
described as a 'transfer of centers of decision-making towards the
interior' of underdeveloped economies, and as replacing a development
'induced' by uncontrollable foreign trade situations by national
development as conceived by those in power within the country. 64
- D.S.
Dependence is not the 'external factor' which it is often believed to be.
"The international situation in which this movement occurs is taken
as a general condition but not as a demiurge of the national process
because it is the elements within a nation which determine the effect of
international situations upon the national reality." 72
- …dependence
is a conditioning situation in which the economies of one group of
countries are conditioned by the development and expansion of others. A
relationship of interdependence between two or more economies or between
such economies and the world trading system becomes a dependent
relationship when some countries can expand through self-impulsion while
others, being in a dependent position, can only expand as a reflection of
the expansion of the dominant countries, which may have positive or
negative effects on their immediate development. 76
- The
concept of dependence itself cannot be understood without reference to the
articulation of dominant interests in the hegemonic centers and in the
dependent societies. 78
- For
if dependence defines the internal situation and is structurally linked to
it, a country cannot break out of it simply by isolating herself from
external influences; such action would simply provoke chaos in a society
which is of itself dependent. The only solution therefore would be to
change its internal structure - a course which necessarily leads to
confrontation with the existing international structure. 79
"Planning Economic Development," O. Lange, pp. 207-215
- The
strategic factor is investment, or more precisely productive investment.
Consequently the problem of development planing is one of assuring that
there be sufficient productive investment, and then of directing that
productive investment into such channels as will provide for the most
rapid growth of the productive power of national economy.
Delacroix, J. and Ragin, C. (1978) “Modernizing
Institutions, Mobilization, and Third World Development: A Cross National
Study, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 123-150.
- [Inkles,
A., and Smith, D. (1974) Becoming Modern: Individual Change in Six
Developing Countries, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p
4.] "…There is more to
national development than a high GNP per capita. Some of the new nations have become aware of the
critical importance of institution building as a concomitant of, indeed,
as a prerequisite for sustained national development." 125
- …modernization
is in fact "Westernization" and that it retards economic
progress in three distinct ways.
(1) Competent individuals with modern attitudes are more likely to
emigrate than others, thereby depriving their countries of their skills. (2) Modernized individuals must be
consumption rather than savings oriented. This orientation undermines capital accumulation. (3) The individual secularism
inherent in a modern outlook diverts energies from the mobilizing
ideologies used by successful elites to induce the population to greater
effort. 126-7
- The
cinema clearly illustrates one of the outstanding features of modernizing
institutions considered from a policy viewpoint: they are very
"politically available."
Their political availability is manifested in two distinct
ways. (1) their expansion is
only moderately limited by structural or economic factors, and (2) the
content of the influences disseminated by them can be manipulated toward
particular objectives. 130
- Education
can be a destroyer of tradition, or it can be used as a bulwark of
tradition. 130
- …modernizing
institutions cans be used to reformulate modern values so that they are
more compatible or consistent with indigenous cultures. 130
- A
regime lacking a mobilizing orientation…may fail to utilize the positive
potential of modernizing institutions. A nonmobilizing regime may fail as well to bar the
entry of Western values… 131
- According
to mainstream modernization theory, the psychological modernity of the
populations of poor countries is an important factor in these countries'
economic progress. It is argued
that individuals can be modernized by being exposed to modernizing
institutions. 131
- …the
greater the exposure of the populations of poor countries to the school
and the cinema, the greater should be these countries' economic progress
in a subsequent period. 132
- Regimes
that are oriented toward social mobilization may develop or expand
modernizing institutions more than nonmobilizing regimes in order to
facilitate overall mobilization efforts. 136
- State-sponsored
social mobilization in most likely to occur in systems that are oriented
toward participation and authoritarianism. 136
- To
argue that modernizing institutions are used deliberately to further
economic development is absurd if, in fact, their expansion requires that
poor countries first become rich.
137
- Education
furthers the economic progress of poor countries. However, we cannot say whether the
positive effect of the school operates through the individual-level
mechanisms. 145
- What
we do know is that education is an institution relatively free from the
usual constraints of underdevelopment and therefore should be eminently
responsive to voluntaristic intervention. In most underdeveloped countries, the state appears as
the most likely agent of such intervention. Thus, whatever attitudes and skills the schools may
instill, it is a secular institution that may be used to mobilize
individuals for political and economic action. The magnified influence of education on economic
development under mobilizing regimes (but not under others) suggests that
this may be precisely how the school is used. 145
- We
argue that the cinema, according to the logic of modernization theory, is
a modernizing institution of prime importance as far as underdeveloped
countries are concerned. Yet simple
exposure to its institution (attendance per capita) seems to have no
effect on economic growth.
145
- Western
films appears to impede economic growth to a considerable extent. This is contrary to the
expectations of mainstream modernization theory since (1) Western films
should have the greatest modernizing impact because of their
"modern" content and (2) the modernization of individuals is
expected to contribute to economic progress. This finding, however, is fully consistent with Porte's
speculation that some of what passes for modernization (actually
Westernization) is what underdeveloped countries need least. He argues in particular that the
modernization of individuals contributes to the emigration of skilled
persons and stimulates prematurely high levels of personal
consumption. 146
- …there
have been few escapes from underdevelopment since the end of the 19th
century that have been unaided by the nonmaterial incentives offered by
mobilizing ideologies. 147
- …the
principle obstacle to self-generated development is not the traditionalist
orientation of either masses or elites, as mainstream modernization seems
to imply. Instead the main
obstacle is the inadequacy of modern attitudes as means to modernist ends,
among which economic development looms large. Accordingly, the advancement of the culturally diverse
countries of the Third World does not require the uniform establishment of
modernizing institutions aimed at the eradication of traditional mentalities. 147
Bollen, K. (August 1979) “Political Democracy and the
Timing of Development,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 44, pp.
572-587.
- The
time in world history when a country begins to develop will affect its
social, economic and political systems. Britain, the first to "take off" into rapid
economic growth, altered the path to development for all the countries
that were to follow it. It
established a model of economic development that influenced France,
Belgium, America and numerous other countries. As the number of successful economies grew, the pool of
potential models for the industrial development of other countries
grew. At the same time the
relevance of traditional development models became questionable. Part of the reason for the
irrelevance is that the first developers were largely from a similar
western cultural heritage. In
contrast, the later developers represent a more heterogenous set of
sociocultural systems, some of which are not easily malleable to the
transformations required to begin and maintain economic development. It is an open question whether
democratic forms of government are consistent with the diverse
sociocultural systems of these countries. 573
- In
addition the birth control policies, economic and social changes that are
considered essential to development are viewed as nearly impossible to
achieve within a democratic framework. Instead, an authoritarian government with a
concentrated distribution of political power is seen as a likely and
necessary response to the tensions of late development. The earlier developers did not
have to cope with the same strains that are faced by the latecomers. They could afford to develop with
a more diffused distribution of political power. 574
- [Taylor,
C. and Hudson, M. (1972) World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators
II, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan.]
"The consolidation [of modernizing leadership] is marked by
three characteristics: (1) the assertion of the determination to
modernize; (2) an effective and decisive break with the institutions of an
agrarian way of life; and (3) the creation of a national state with an
effective government and a reasonably stable consensus on political means
and ends by the inhabitants."
577
- Like
many complex and abstract concepts in the social sciences, there are a
number of possible definitions of political democracy. Common to many of these
definitions are two dimensions: (1) popular sovereignty, and (2) political
liberties. The first
dimension, popular sovereignty, implies that the elites of a country must
be accountable to the nonelites.
The most common institution through which the nonelites exercise
their control is through elections.
In order for elections to represent popular sovereignty, there must
be as wide a franchise as possible, equal weighting of votes and fair
electoral processes. The
second dimension, political liberties, is also essential to political
democracy. Political
liberties include the rights of free speech, a free press, and the right
to organize against any officeholders or their policies. 578
- A
measure of the percentage of the population eligible to vote (the
franchise) is a much better indicator of political democracy but an
accurate measure of it is even more difficult to find than accurate
participation statistics.
These and other arguments suggest that using voting participation
as an indicator of political democracy raises a number of difficulties. Political democracy should also be
distinguished from social democracy.
A strong socialist or labor party in power may be crucial to
reducing the inequalities in the distribution of social and economic
goods, but such indicators of social democracy are analytically distinct
from indicators of political democracy. 580
- …three
indicators of popular sovereignty and three of political liberties. The three measures of popular
sovereignty are: (1) fairness of elections, (2) effective executive
selection, and (3) legislative selection. The indicators of political liberties are: (4) freedom
of the press, (5) freedom of group opposition, and (6) government
sanctions. 580
Coughlin, R. (1979) "Social Policy and Ideology:
Public Opinion in Eight Rich Nations," Comparative Social Research,
Vol. 2, pp. 3-40.
- …social
policy originates in government intervention in social and economic
affairs in order to mitigate the effects of the "free market" on
individuals and families. The
actual forms that this intervention can take are varied--as are, of
course, the possible consequences--but underlying the diversity of
particular strategies are some characteristics which, take together,
constitute the essence of modern social policy. Briefly, these are: (1) the guarantee of minimum
standards of living (employment, income, health, housing, etc.) for all
citizens and political rights; (2) the assumption of collective
responsibility for attaining or maintaining these standards; and (3) the
implementation of this collective responsibility through government
action, involving obligatory participation of all (or most)
individuals. The full
expression of these principles in public policy coincides with what is
generally identified as the "welfare state." 8
- Active
government involvement in providing for the well-being of individuals and
families is everywhere a matter of majority public acceptance; in most
nations, the data suggest, it is strongly preferred over laissez faire
alternatives. 10
- In
sum: Americans are not alone in their sanctification of individualist
values. Similar tendencies
can be detected in Sweden, Denmark, West Germany, and other "welfare
leaders" of Western Europe.
Conversely, support for the collectivist principles of social
policy is not restricted to nations with strong social democratic
traditions. Americans--and
Canadians too--pay their respects to the values of security, social
protection, and collective risk-sharing. 12
- …the
structural props of mass ideologies are complex, and that explanations
based solely on crude self-/or class interest are not very useful in
sorting out the relationship between ideology and social structure. 13
- Successive
increments of legislation during the past seventy years or so have
established the welfare state as a permanent fixture of modern
society. 15
- The
ideological debate recurs, but it does so increasingly in terms of the
equity of social programs and the implications of high levels of taxation
for economic health, and political stability. 16
- Indeed,
probably more than any other single type of governmental activity, the
old-age pension aspect of Social Security has achieved almost unanimous
public regard as an American "birthright." 17
- Numerous
surveys have documented the negative components of American public
attitudes toward "welfare." Included here is the pervasive belief that "relief
rolls are loaded with chiselers (66 percent agreement), that public
assistance programs serve as work disincentives (60 percent agreement),
and that eligibility rules for "welfare" programs need to be
tightened (about 75 percent agreement, depending on the wording of the
question. 24-5
- …this
research has identified some communalities of modern societies having to
do with prevailing attitudes and opinions, but they are neither themselves
immutable nor independent of powerful forces at work in each nation. 32
- …where
cross-national differences in the content, structure, and distribution of
social policy attitudes are found, the search for the sources of these
variations must go beyond the study of social welfare institutions
themselves, to the exploration of the historical, political, and economic
factors that have mediated the formation and development of public
opinion. 32
- The
strong support among American blacks for collectivist social and economic
policy seems clearly linked to the subordinate position that they have
occupied in American society dating back to the time of slavery. Other American minorities who have
suffered discrimination also appear more receptive to
government-guaranteed minimum standards. 33
- We have
some evidence that where social mobility ideology has been strong (e.g.,
in the United States and Canada), public support for collectivist social
guarantees is lower and undercut by the "success ideology" to a
greater degree than where social class boundaries have historically been
more rigid. 33
- The
United States will undoubtedly institute some form of national health
insurance, and all nations may move further toward a system of universal
minimum income maintenance.
It remains to be seen whether this increased structural convergence
will be paralleled by a growing similarity of mass ideologies, or whether
existing differences will persist.
34
Wallerstein, I. (1979) The Capitalist World Economy, New York: Cambridge University Press.
- “[We]
turn to history and only to history if what we are seeking are the actual
causes, sources, and conditions of overt changes of patterns and
structures in society.
Conventional wisdom to the contrary in modern social theory, we
shall not find the explanation of change in those studies which are
abstracted from history: whether these be studies of small groups in the
social laboratory, group dynamics generally, staged experiments in social
interaction, or mathematical analyses of so-called social systems. Nor will we find the sources of
change in contemporary revivals of the comparative method with its
ascending staircase of cultural similarities and differences plucked from
all space and time.” (Nisbet,
R. (1969) Social Change and History,
NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 302-3.) 2
- “Marxism
is a whole collection of models…I shall protest…more or less, not against
the model, but rather against the use to which people have thought
themselves entitled to put it.
The genius of Marx, the secret of his enduring power, lies in his
having been the first to construct true social models, starting out from
the long term (la longue duree). These models have been fixed
permanently in their simplicity; they have been given the force of law and
they have been treated as read-made, automatic explanations, applicable to
all paces to all societies…In this way has the creative power of the most
powerful social analysis of last century been shackled. It will be able to regain its
strength and vitality only in the long term.” (Braudel, B? (1972) “History and the Social Sciences,”
in Peter Burke’s (ed.) Economy and ?
in Early Modern Europe, London: Routledge and Paul Kagan, pp.
38-9.) 3
- Revolution
is not an event but a process.
12
- “Capitalism,
emerging in the 16th century, became a world economic system
only in the 19th century.
It took the bourgeois revolutions 300 years to put an end to the
power of the feudal elite. It
took socialism 30 or 40 years to generate the forces for a new world
system.” (Sdobnikov, Y. (1971) Socialism and Capitalism: Score and
Prospects (Moscow: Progress Publications, p. 20). 13
- The
meaning of ethnic consciousness in a core area is considerably different
from that of ethnic consciousness in a peripheral area precisely because
of the different class position such ethnic groups have in the world
economy. 25
- …industrial
production required access to raw materials of a nature and in a quantity
such that the needs could not be supplied within the former
boundaries. At first,
however, the search for new markets was not a primary consideration in the
geographic expansion since the new markets were more readily available
within the old boundaries… 27
- Russia
entered in semi-peripheral status, the consequence of the strength of its
state machinery (including army) and the degree of industrialization
already achieved in the eighteenth century. The independences in the Latin American countries did
nothing to change their peripheral status. 27
- Asia
and Africa were absorbed into the periphery in the nineteenth century,
although Japan, because of the combination of the strength of its state
machinery, the poverty of its resource base (which led to a certain
disinterest on the part of the world capitalist forces), and it geographic
remoteness from the core areas, was able to quickly graduate to
semi-peripheral status. 27-8
- The
absorption of Africa as part of the periphery meant the end of slavery
world-wide for two reasons: First of all, the manpower that was used as
slaves was now needed for cash-crop production in Africa itself, whereas
in the eighteenth century Europeans has sought to discourage just such cash-crop production. In the second place, once Africa
was part of the periphery, and not the external arena, slavery was no
longer economic. 28
- Slaves
receiving the lowest conceivable reward for their labor are the least
productive form of labor and have the shortest life span, both because of
undernourishment and maltreatment and because of lowered psychic
resistance to death.
Furthermore, if recruitment from areas surrounding their workplace
the escape rate is too high.
Hence, there must be a high transport cost for a product of low
productivity. 28
- Once...Africa
was part of the periphery, then the real cost of a slave in terms of a
production of surplus in the world-economy went up to such a point that it
became far more economical to use wage labor, even on sugar or cotton
plantations, which is precisely what transpired in the nineteenth-century
Caribbean and other slave labor regions. 29
- The
Russian Revolution was essentially that of a semiperipheral country whose
internal balance of forces had been such that as of the late nineteenth
century it began on a decline towards a peripheral status. This was the result of the marked
penetration of foreign capital into the industrial sector which was on its
way to eliminating all indigenous capitalist forces, the resistance to the
mechanization of the agricultural sector, the decline of relative military
power (as evidenced by the defeat by the Japanese in 1905). 30-1
- …the
decline of Britain which dates from 1873 was confirmed and its hegemonic
role was assumed by the United States. 31
- Chinese
Revolution meant that this region, which had been destined for much
exploitative activity, was also cut off. Three alternative areas were available and each was
pursued with assiduity.
First, western Europe had to be rapidly ‘reconstructed’, and it was the Marshall plan which
thus allowed this area to play a primary role in the expansion of world
productivity. Secondly, Latin
America became the reserve of US investment from which now Britain and
Germany were completely cut off.
Thirdly, southern Asia, the Middle East and Africa had to be
decolonized. 32
- Colonial
rule…had been an inferior mode of relationship of core and periphery, one
occasioned by the strenuous late-nineteenth century conflict among
industrial states but one no longer desirable from the point of view of
the new hegemonic power. 32
- …whenever
the tenants of privilege seek to coopt an oppositional movement by
including them in a minor share of the privilege, they may no doubt
eliminate opponents in the short run; but they also up the ante for the
next oppositional movement created in the next crisis of the
world-economy. Thus the cost
of ‘cooption’ rises ever higher and the advantages of cooption seem ever
less worthwhile. There are
today no socialist systems in the world-economy and more than there are
feudal systems because there is only one-world-system. It is a world-economy and it is by
definition capitalist in form.
Socialism involves the creation of a new kind of world-system, neither a
redistributive world empire nor a capitalist world-economy but a socialist
world government. I don’t see
this projection being the least utopian but I also don’t feel its
institution is imminent. It
will be the outcome of a world struggle in forms that may be familiar and
perhaps in very few forms, that will take place in all the areas of the world economy (Mao’s continual ‘class
struggle’). 35
- To
be very concrete, it is not possible theoretically for all states to
‘develop’ simultaneously. The
so called ‘widening gap’ is not an anomaly but a continuing basic
mechanism of the operation of the world economy. 73
- There
is an alternative system that can be constructed, that of a socialist
world government in which the principles governing the economy would not
be the market but rather the optimum utilization and distribution of
resources in the light of a collectively arrived at notion of substantive
rationality. 73
- Even
if every nation in the world were to permit only state ownership of the means of production, the world
system would still be a capitalist system. 74
- I am
not suggesting that it does not matter if a country adopts collective
ownership as a political requirement of production. The moves in this direction are
the result of a series of progressive historical developments of the
capitalist world-economy and represent themselves a major motive force for
further change. Nor am I in
any way suggesting the immutability of the capitalist system. I am merely suggesting that
ideological intent is not synonymous with structural change, that the only
system in the modern world that
can be said to have a mode of production is the world-system, and that
this system currently (not eternally) is capitalist in mode. 74
- “[technological
dependence] leads, on the one hand, to the emergence of a monopolistic
structure because the scales of output that must be adopted to introduce
modern methods are large relative to the extent of the initial market; and
on the other hand, these markets will be only practically expanded through
some income generated by investment, since a large portion of capital
goods must be imported. In
addition, the monopolistic structure itself will restrict the volume of
investment…So that the two effects reinforce each other. (Merhav, M. (1969) Technological Dependence, Monopoly and
Growth, Oxford: Pergamon Press.
pp. 59-60.) 77-8
- State
ownership is not socialism.
Self-reliance is not socialism. Those policies may represent intelligent political
decisions for governments to take.
They may be decisions that socialist movements should endorse. But a socialist government when it
comes will not look anything like the USSR, or China, or Chile, or Tanzania
of today. Production for use
and not for profit, and rational decision on the cost benefits (in the
widest sense of the term) of alternative uses is a different mode of
production, one that can only be established within the single division of
labor that is the world-economy and one that will require a single
government. 91
Organski, A. (1980) The War Ledger, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
- It
has long been believed that the outbreak of major hostilities is connected
to changes in the power structure of the international order. 13
- There
can be little doubt that some of the incendiary factors essential to the
outbreak of wars are lodged in the culture of elites, their belief
systems, their skill in negotiation, there ability to decipher signals
from other leaders, as well as in the constraints and opportunities
imposed on and provided for all elites by the institutions in which they
must operate. 14
- The
balance-of-power model suggests that power is more or less equally
distributed among great powers or members of major alliances peace will
ensue. 14
- …the
trinity of beliefs that constitute the balance-of-power model: equality of
power is conducive to peace, the imbalance of power leads to war, the
stronger party is the likely aggressor. 15
- We
lack, in short, the kind of universal behavior that would have to prevail
for the first law of the balance-of-power system to be, as it is held,
immutable. 17
- …collective
security required that all members of the system move against the
aggressor. 17
- If a
peaceful nation failed to do its duty because of uninterest in the
immediate quarrel or in the fate of the victim, or if an aggressor were
able to win over potential defenders of the victim by playing on their
fears or on their greed for booty, the chances of war would grow with each
such defection. 17-18
- A
lopsided distribution of power (with defenders much stronger than the
aggressor) will support peace; an equal or approximately equal
distribution of power will mean war, but the aggressor will be weaker than
the coalition. 18
- According
to the power-transition model, …it is not a desire to maximize power or a
single minded urge to guarantee security in the narrow sense that leads
nations to start major wars, though the later is often the excuse
furnished. In this model, it
is a general dissatisfaction with its position in the system, and a desire
to redraft the rules by which relations among nations work, that move a
country to begin a major war.
23
- …balance-of-power
predicts that the stronger will attack, collective-security posits that
the aggressor will be weaker than the coalition, while power-transition
argues that the attacker will be the weaker party. 27
- Two
factors predominate in bringing about any conflict where dominant nations
and challengers contend for first place: the power position of the two
nations relative to each other, and the speed with which the challenger is
passing the dominant nation.
The interaction of these two factors accounts for 57 percent of the
proportion to be explained.
55
- Our
probes point firmly to the fact that the basic propositions in the
balance-of-power model miss most if not all of the critical behaviors our
data show to be responsible for moving a whole system of nations toward
major war. It is not only
details in the model that are in error. The conception of the system that underpins this model
seems to be wrong. It is the
model based on the concept of the power transition that specifies
correctly the behaviors, and the connections between behaviors, that our
data show to be the necessary conditions for major wars to break out. 61
- The
fundamental problem that sets the whole system sliding almost
irretrievably toward war is the differences in rates of growth among the
great powers and, of particular importance, the differences in rates
between the dominant nation and the challenger that permit the latter to
overtake the former in power.
It is this leapfrogging that destabilizes the system. 61
McConnell, S. (1981) Theories for Planning,
London: Heinemann.
- Planning
theory needs to be prescriptive as well as explanatory. Explanatory theory
by itself is insufficient to guide the action inherent in the activity of
planning. Prescriptive theory is insufficient if it is divorced from related
explanatory theory which explains the phenomenon the future of which is
being planned. Thus planning theory needs both explanatory and
prescriptive components. xiii-xiv
- Because
planning practice is dependent on the sanction of those with political power
at each level of government with a responsibility for planning, planning
theory must be related to political theory if it is to relate to practice.
Xiv
- Because
planners and politicians are concerned with a kind of decision-making
which affects the well-being of others - it is an activity with ethical
aspects, and for this reason planning theorizing should be moderated by
ethical reasoning. Xiv
- It is
believed that theoretical statements for planning should be
'tested' for: falsifiability, responsiveness, justice, and potential
effectiveness. Xiv
- …more
interested in the contexts and the processes of planning and
decision-making than with the plans. 2
- …planning
is a political activity which changes its nature under different political
systems and in accordance with different ideologies. 7
- Social
theorists, not least those with Marxian leanings, are very critical of
approaches to theory which do not include consideration of who decides,
who benefits, and who loses as a result of action based on different theories.
13
- Leonardo
da Vinci warned that those who practice before they have learned the
theory resemble sailors who go to sea without a rudder. 13
- …ethical
and political theories are held to have a direct relationship with
theories for planning. 2
- It
will be claimed by man that revolutionary praxis is for politicians and
not for planners: that planners have neither the power nor the authority
to prescribe fundamental changes in society, except in their private, away
from work, existence. 25
- Positivism
has been explained as an attempt to systematize human life upon the basis
of such knowledge as is available, and is thus said to be based on
positive and certain knowledge as opposed to imaginary knowledge. 26
- Auguste
Comte (1789-1857) related the workings of human society to animal life and
to chemistry, emphasizing the systemic connectivity between phenomena.
Comte rejected the economics of his day as unscientific because it
abstracted 'wealth' from its social context and therefore the nature of
economic activity was stripped of its political and social contexts and
connections. 26
- Pragmatism,
like the word 'practical', derives from the Greek word pragma which
means action. 27
- …"genuine
democracy cannot be achieved in America without some greater economic,
social and political equality and that this requires initially a concerted
attack on poverty and segregation." (Gans) 31
- …"planning
is inside the political system, and, hence, a growing political force in
itself. I would wish it to use its growing power toward assuring that the
goods, services and facilities supplied are sufficiently diverse to
satisfy even the smallest minority's wants." (Webber) 32
- …the
Marxian approach is concerned with the influence of productive agencies in
the historical evolution of society and with class conflict. 32
- In
Aristotle's usage 'dialectic' referred to the mental activity related to
examination of the presuppositions lying at the back of sciences. 32
- In
the Hegelian sense, which influenced Marx, the word 'dialectic' has been
said to refer to the intellectual process whereby the inadequacy of
popular conceptions is exposed. 32
- In
dialectical logic, contradictions have been explained 'as fruitful
collisions of ideas from which a higher truth may be reached by way of
synthesis.' 32 (BIB)
- The
principle meaning of dialectic is that thought develops in a way
characterized by the 'dialectical triad': thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
The idea is that each thesis has its weaker aspects. This an antithesis is
developed to this thesis and to related theses, or to the social actions
based on these theses. In the end the desire for recognition by exponents
of each thesis and each antithesis will result in the creation of a new
idea, a synthesis, which retains some of the virtues of these theses and
antitheses, without their weaknesses or limitations. However each
synthesis has, in turn, the characteristics of a thesis to which people
will develop antitheses. Thus proceeds the evolution of ideas and the
social actions related to these ideas. 33
- [Marx]
the mode pf production in material life determines the character of the
social and political processes of life; and sooner or later the material
forces of production come into conflict with the existing relations of
production. 34
- …'the
materialistic conception of history starts with the proposition that the
production of the means to support human life, and next to production, the
exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure.' 34
(Engel)
- 'And
if freedom is lost, everything is lost, including "planning".
For why should plans for the welfare of people be carried out if the
people have no power to enforce them? ... If we plan too much, if we give
too much power to the state, then freedom will be lost, and that will be the
end of planning." (Popper) 42
- 'The
traditional view of scientific method had the following stages in the
following order each giving rise to the next: 1, observation and
experiment; 2, inductive generalization; 3, hypothesis; 4, attempted
verification of hypothesis; 5, proof or disproof; 6, knowledge. (Magee)
- Land-use
planning is based on the normative theory that the future development of
land uses and their associated activities should be in accordance with a
plan which has regard to environmental, physical, social, and economic
considerations. 71
- 'Fundamentally,
the land use plan as a part of an overall plan embodies a proposal as to
how land should be used as expansion and renewal proceed in the future.'
(Chapin) 73
- Political
theory is a systematic thinking about the purposes of government and power
relationships. 104
- Because
the elected representatives of the people in fact cannot represent equally
the interests of all groups, especially the minority groups, in a large
and heterogenous area, it is now accepted that it is in the interest of
the people most effected by urban planning if they can share in the whole
planning process from the early stage of identification of problems to the
stage of choice of solutions and the means of implementation. 113
- Public
participatory theories arising from the model of populist democracy give
people the right to participate in decision-making relating to planning
matters in so far as they may be directly or indirectly affected by such
decisions. 113
- …pluralism
is a grand term for the age-old game in which powerful groups in a society
maneuver to get what they want through a bargaining or trade-off process.
But in the end, as with representative democracy, it is the groups with
the most power which succeed. 114
- 'Rousseau
claims that the general will in action is sovereignty and since the
general will emanates from the community as a whole, so sovereignty must
reside in the community as a whole. He argues that sovereignty cannot be
surrendered, or delegated to any one person or group of people. It cannot
be exercised at all through elected representatives.' (Thomson) 115
- Each
decade brings change in attitudes. It can be argued that before the
mid-1960s planners in the USA tended to believe in consensus more than
they did after the student and race upheavals of the later 1960s.
Participation was then perceived as a way to resolve conflict. However
participation as a way of arriving at decisions in any community can only
replace decision-making by those in power in those in power permit it, or
have to permit it as a condition of remaining in power. 117
- In
the Marxian approach the class conflicts in capitalists societies are
stressed and are seen as the condition or fuel for social change, finally
evolving in a harmonious form of society. Such a view has elements of
Idealism and Utopianism. 118
- …'the
problem is in convincing enough people, both those in power and ordinary
citizens, that peaceful relations with others provide the most satisfying
and beneficial ways of life and are worth striving for, even when
immediate, personal sacrifices are necessary (e.g. relinquishing power,
reducing material gains, or admitting and attempting to correct
unjustified actions). Also, these persons must realize that these kinds of
relations can be achieved'. (Nye) 118
- …if
the norm of participation is not widespread for one reason or another, the
fostering of participation will not in itself create a participatory
democracy. 121
- The
ideology of public participation as it is being developed in theory and practice
is then becoming the ideology of opposition to the status quo, and this is
inevitably leading to more and more reluctance to accede to claim for
public participation. ... Public participation...will exist only on terms
acceptable to the governing elite, i.e. that its function is to aid and
assist the operation and management of government and not to challenge or
'disrupt' it.' 124 (McAuslan)
- 'The
State is differentiated from other associations by its universal
jurisdiction, its negative function, and the spacial character of law in
being backed by force and having special authority. ...we may therefore
define the State as an association designed primarily to maintain order
and security, exercising universal jurisdiction within territorial
boundaries, by mean of law backed by force and recognized as having
sovereign authority. 126 (Raphael)
- Has
every person in the locality to be planned been given a reasonable
opportunity: (a) at the initial stage of the planning process to identify
their needs and aspirations, and thus their perception of the problems?
(b) to generate their proposals or conjectural solutions? (their tentative
theories)? (c ) to register their perception of the errors or problems in
the first et of alternative proposals which have been developed by the
planners after stage (b)? (d) to record their choice as between the
preferred alternatives? (e) to offer their views as to the means and the
program of implementation. 131
- Has
every person, wherever he or she lives in the region, but who visits the
area regularly, and who will be directly affected by the proposals , been
given a reasonable opportunity to be involved in the decision-making
process. 132
- …we
cannot expect to find in our society a simple set of moral concepts, a share
interpretation of the vocabulary. Conceptual conflict is endemic. ... Each
of us therefore has to choose both with whom we wish to be morally bound
and by what ends, rules and virtues we wish to be guided. ... In choosing
to regarding this end or that highly I make certain moral relationships
with some other people, and other moral relationships with others
impossible. ... I must choose between alternative forms of social and
moral practice... (MacIntyre) 146
- The
primary aim of planning for justice is that planning decisions should be
biased towards the greatest benefit of the least advantaged: there should
be positive discrimination in favor of the most disadvantaged. A second
aim is that any inequality in the distribution or allocation of resources
should only be allowed when it is t the benefit of the least advantaged.
There are two conditions in such an aim. First, that any one person's
liberty be restricted only in the interest of ensuring the freedom for
others to enjoy their well-being or to have their opportunities for a
'better' life and environment protected; and, secondly, that any scarce
resource be safeguarded for future generations.
- Justice
in this context is defined as fairness in the distribution or the
allocation of whatever spatial resources and other welfare benefits are at
the 'command' of the planning system. It is argued that in the event of
there being a conflict between the objectives of responsiveness and the
objectives of justice in decision-making, the latter should prevail. 155
- 'Justice,
it is often said, is an idea and an ideal. Like law and morality, it rests
on the tension and contradiction between what is and what at least some
men think ought to be. It represents or presupposes a criticism of an
existing reality or state of affairs allegedly in the light of principles
or an idea-end state; it is in that sense said to be both transcendent and
a guide to action and evaluation.' (Kamenka) 156
- From
the 'Left Wing' viewpoint such savings are seen as capitalist accumulation
which distinguish people and classes from each other, and which are
especially divisive when inherited from one generation to another. 158
- [United
Nations Organization Article No. 29] Everyone has duties to the community
in which alone the free and full development of his personality is
possible. In the exercise in his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be
subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the
purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and
freedoms of others and for meeting the just requirements of morality,
public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. 163
- The
United Nations Research Institute for Social Development in 1966 and 1970
listed nine basic components of social well-being: nutrition; shelter;
health; education; leisure; security of person and human rights; stability
in economic and social senses; physical environment with ecological and
aesthetic care of resources; surplus income, i.e. additional to
satisfaction of basic need. 166 (Coates)
- …'in
order to treat all persons equally, to provide genuine equality of
opportunity, society must give more attention to those with fewer native
assets as to those born into the less favorable social positions. The idea
is to redress the bias of contingencies in the direction of equality.' 170
(Rawls)
- There
is a need for a socialism that would increase domestic ownership, and that
would attack inequality and alienation by giving to every household, as
far as scarcity and environmental prudence allow, the fullest control of
the resources it can use.
- First
Principle Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive
total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of
liberty for all. Second principle Social and economic inequalities are to
be arranged...to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent
with the just savings principle.' (Rawls) 175
- Rawls's
idea of 'just saving' is that there is a duty on one generation to
uphold institutions and resources generally for future generations,
including each nation's heritage. 178
- 'Since
the market is not suited to meet the claims of needs, these should be met
by a separate arrangement. Whether the principles of justice are
satisfied, then, turns on whether the total income of the least advantaged
(wages plus transfers) is such s to maximize their long-run expectations
(consistent with the constraints of equal liberty and fair equality of
opportunity).' 185 (Rawls)
- Policy-making
within and between levels of government is fragmented in every country of
the world. 188
MacIntyre, A., A Short History of Ethics, Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1971, p.268
Gans, H., People and Plans, Basic Books, 1968, and Penguin Books, 1972, p.266
Webber, M., 'Planning in an environment of change', in Problems of an Urban
society, vol.3, Planning for change, ed. J.B. Cullingworth, Allen & Unwin,
1973, p.5
Bullock, Alan & Stallybrass, O., eds, The fontana Dictionary of Modern
thought, Fontana/Collins, 1977, p.170
Engels, F., 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific', in Karl Marx and F. Engels,
op.cit. p.411
Popper, K.R., The open society and its enemies, vol. II, Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1945, 130
Magee, B., Popper, Fontana/Collins, 1973, p.56
Chapin, S., Urban land use planning, p. vi, 1963
Thomson, D., Political Ideas, Penguin, 1966, p.98
Nye, R., Conflict Among Humans, Springer, 1973, p.184
McAuslan, P., The Ideologies of Planning Law, Pergamon, 1980, pp.296
Raphael, D., Problems of Political Philosophy, Macmillan, 1976, p.53
Kamenka, E., 'What is Justice', in Justice, eds. E. Kamenka & Alice Tay,
Arnold, 1979
Verzijil, J.H.W., (ed) Human Rights, Haarlem, 1958
Coates, B.E., Johnston, R.J. & Knox, P.L., Geography and Inequality, Oxford
University Press, 1977
Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Oxford University Press, 1971, p 100-101,
302-303, 277
Bollen, K. (August 1983) “World System Position,
Dependency, and Democracy: The Cross-National Evidence,” American
Sociological Review, Vol. 48, pp. 468-479.
- The
greater the political inequality, the lower is the political democracy of
a nation. 468
- Increases
in education lead to greater participation in the mass media. Widespread access to newspapers,
magazines and radios heightens awareness of national political processes. This increased awareness may then
lead to greater demands for political power by groups formerly outside the
central power circles. 469
- [Chirot,
D. (1977) Social Change in the Twentieth Century, New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, p. 13] "Core societies: economically diversified…rich,
powerful societies that are relatively independent of outside
controls. Peripheral
societies: economically overspecialized, relatively poor and weak
societies that are subject to manipulation or direct control by the core
powers. Semi-peripheral
societies: societies midway between the core and periphery that are trying
to industrialize and diversify their economies." 249
- Generally,
economic dependency is greatest in the periphery and semiperiphery and
least in the core. Of course
in certain sectors where non-core societies have organized the export of
primary goods (e.g., OPEC) the core may be very dependent. 470
- The
world capitalist system, driven by the core, expands to the semiperipheral
and peripheral countries in search of cheaper raw materials, cheaper
labor, and less regulated investment environment. The penetration of the core into
the noncore countries cannot be accomplished without the cooperation of at
least some segments of the noncore.
A common interest emerges between landowners, merchants, and other
traditional elites and the core elites. 470
- [Chirot
1977:22] "…outside the
core, democracy is a rarity."
- The
present analysis reveals that both peripheral and semiperipheral countries
are less democratic than core nations. 477
- Another
significant finding is the persistence of the positive relationship
between economic development and political democracy. 477
Coughlin, R. and Armour, P. (1983) “Sectoral
Differentiation in Social Security Depending in the OECD Nations,” Comparative
Social Research, Vol. 6, pp. 175-199.
- There
are a number of ways to conceptualize the sectoral components of social
security. The most frequent
distinctions are based on: (1) the historical timing of major program innovations,
(2) current legislation and administrative arrangements governing various
types of benefits, (3) the nature and coverage of a range of “risks”
across all or part of the population, or (4) some combination of the
above. 178
- The
crisis of rising structural unemployment may have only tangential effects
on insurance schemes for the jobless, but it poses important problems for
policymakers who must create effective industrial redevelopment and
retraining schemes while also managing the burden of pension and health
care spending. 195
- …our
analysis reveals that public assistance—historically the most politically
volatile of social security programs—is paradoxically the least cause for
concern. 195-6
- …the
welfare state is not a featureless monolith, nor is it an edifice
constructed out of interchangeable program building blocks. Sectoral analysis helps to delve
beneath the surface of aggregate social security development, revealing a
deeper structure that is both richer and more difficult to understand. 196
Kelly, W., Poston, D. and Cutright, P. (1983)
“Determinants of Fertility Levels and Change Among Developed Countries:
1958-1978,” Social Science Research,
12, pp. 87-108.
- Recent
cross-nationals studies of fertility decline have established the
importance of socioeconomic development and family planning programs as
major determinants, but their focus has been exclusively on less developed
countries. 87
- Below
replacement level total fertility rates and even negative rates of
population growth have stimulated some governments of developed countries
to consider and initiate policies to increase birth rates. 88
- …change
in fertility from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s is directly and closely
related to the nature of population policy and the availability of family
planning services. 88-9
- Generally,
the “low” rates of the early 1970s remained stable or declined as the
decade passed into history.
…one and then another European country moved to a negative rate of
natural increase… 90
- …explanation
of the decline emphasizing changes in age at marriage, and at the
reluctance of the young to marry and start family building at an early
age. Others focused on trial
marriage (or cohabitation) as a response to changing economic conditions
that depressed employment and income opportunities of younger
workers. Declining stigma on
childbearing outside wedlock, increasing prevalence of non-marital sex and
rising illegitimacy in some countries have been interpreted as a change
that reduces general fertility because today’s unwed mother is less likely
than yesterday’s mother-wife to have a second, third, or higher order
birth. Further, some have
suggested that among ever-married women, increasing rates of separation and
declining rates of remarriage should depress completed fertility of women
in broken families, in contrast to wives in stable unions. Because divorce rates have been
rising in many developed nations and marriage rates have been declining,
the proportion of women aged 15-44 in marital unions has declined.
Some scholars suggest that the
post-1960 declines in fertility in developed countries are not simply an
adjustment to continuing change in institutional arrangements related to
development, such as rising rates of labor force activity by women and
pressures for equalitarian sex roles that increase opportunity costs to
women. In addition to these
factors, the causes of the recent declines in fertility may well also include
changes in population policy, the availability of new and more effective methods
of temporary and permanent contraception, and legalization of abortion in many
developed countries.
The new methods to control
contraception have tended to replace traditional and less effective,
contraceptive methods, thus reducing rates of unplanned and unwanted
pregnancies. Also, in the case of
unwanted pregnancy, many women in developed countries now have a choice between
carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term or terminating the pregnancy, a decided
change from the situation in the early 1960s, excepting the Soviet Union and
Japan. 90-1
- Socioeconomic
development is conceptualized as a multidimensional process involving the
following dimensions: education, health, communications, economic
conditions, and urbanization.
93
- Earlier
we argued that socioeconomic development should not have direct effects on
fertility. Rather its effect
should be mediated by more proximate determinants of fertility. We found that, in fact, the effect
of development on fertility was totally mediated by contraceptive use and
a nation’s population/family planning policy. These results suggest that although past research
(primarily among LDCs) has established a direct link between socioeconomic
development and fertility, further thought should be given to the
specification and estimation of direct effects of development through the
more proximate determinants of fertility. 100-1
- Remedies
to the population problems faced by low fertility nations range from child
allowance programs, liberal maternal leaves from the workplace, low
interest marriage loans, and restrictions on access to legal
abortion. At best these
policies have minor impacts on fertility. Restrictions on legal abortions are generally
ineffective. They increase
fertility in the short run but couples quickly adjust to such changes by
practicing more efficient contraception and seeking illegal abortion. And several acknowledge that child
allowances and maternity leaves have only temporary effects and primarily influence
the timing rather than the quantity of fertility. 101
- …fertility
experts conclude that pronatalist population policies alone are
ineffective. 102
- Most
experts agree that a major source of recent fertility declines in
developed nations is the increased participation of women in the labor force. It would seem then that countries
wishing to encourage larger families should start by making the role of
the wife/mother more compatible with alternative roles of women. However, if the past is any
indication, such policies may be ineffective in increasing fertility. 102
- “The
most appropriate policy response and the most effective…is likely to be
one which focuses on the adjustment of social institutions to the
implications of low fertility rather than one which attempts to modify the
behavior of individuals.” (O’Neill, C.J. (1981) Populations Policy
Considerations and Low Fertility in Western and Northern Europe, paper
presented at the IPC, Manila: December 9-16.) 102
Wallerstein, I. (1983) Historical Capitalism and Capitalist Civilization, London: Verso,
pp. 13-137.
- Historical
capitalism is…that concrete, time bounded, space-bounded integrated locus
of productive activities within which the endless accumulation of capital
has been the endless accumulation of capital has been the economic objective
or ‘law’ that has governed or prevailed in fundamental economic
activity. It is that social
system in which those who have operated by such rules have had such great
impact on the whole as to create conditions wherin the others have been
forced to conform to the patterns or to suffer the consequences. It is that social system in which
the scope of these rules (the rule of value) has grown ever wider, the
enforcers of these rules ever more intransigent, the penetration of these
rules into the social fabric ever greater, even while social opposition to
these rules has grown ever louder and more organized. 18-9
- …when
national statistics began to be compiled, itself a product of a capitalist
system, all breadwinners were considered members of the economically
active labor-force, but no housewives were. Thus was sexism institutionalized. The legal and paralegal apparatus
of gender distinction and discrimination followed quite logically in the
wake of this differential valuation of labor. 25
- …in
addition to fostering the gender/age division of labor, they [employers of
wage labor] they also encouraged, in their employment patterns and through
their influence in the political arenas, recognition of defined ethnic
groups, seeking to link them to specific allocated roles in the
labor-force, with different levels of real remuneration for their
work. Ethnicity created a
cultural crust which consolidated the patterns of semi-proletarian
household structures. That
the emergence of such ethnicity also played a politically divisive role
for the working classes has been a political bonus for the employers but
not, I think, the prime mover in this process. 28
- One
way…to affect the rules about what may or may not cross frontiers, and under
what terms, was to change the actual frontiers—through total incorporation
by one state of another (unification, Anschluss,
colonization) through seizure of some territory, through secession or
colonization. 50-1
- The
states controlled the relations of production. They first legalized, later outlawed, the particular
forms of coerced labor (slavery, public labor obligations, indentures,
etc.). They created rules
governing wage-labor contracts, including guarantees of the contract, and
minimum and maximum reciprocal obligations. They decreed the limits of the geographical mobility of
the labor force, not only across their frontiers but within them. All these state decisions were
taken with direct reference to the economic implications for the accumulation
of capital. 52
- Taxation
was by no means an invention of historical capitalism; previous political
structures also used taxation as a source of revenue for the
state-machineries. But
historical capitalism transformed taxation in two ways. Taxation became the main (indeed
overwhelming) regular source of state revenue, as opposed to state revenue
deriving from irregular requisition by force from persons inside or
outside the formal jurisdiction of the state (including requisition from
other states). Secondly,
taxation has been a steadily expanding phenomenon over the historical
development of the capitalist world-economy as a percentage of total value
created or accumulated. This
has meant that the states have been important in terms of the resources
they controlled, because the resources not only permitted them to further
the accumulation of capital but were also themselves distributed and
thereby entered directly into the further accumulation of capital. 53
- …the
power to tax was one of the most immediate ways in which the state
directly assisted the process of the accumulation of capital in favor of
some groups rather than others.
53
- …redistribution
has in fact been far more widely used as a mechanism to polarize
distribution than to make real incomes converge. 54
- …they
[official subsidies] have also taken the less direct form of the state
bearing the costs of product development which could presumably be
amortized by later profitable sales, only to turn over the economic
activity to non-governmental entrepreneurs at nominal cost at precisely
the point of completion of the costly developmental phase. 54
- …governments
have redistributed to the wealthy by utilizing the principle of the
individualization of profit but the socialization of risk. Over the whole history of the
capitalist system, the larger the risk—and the losses—the more likely it
has been for governments to step in and prevent bankruptcies and even to
restitute losses if only because of the financial turmoil they wished to
avoid. 54-5
- Sovereignty
however was never really intended to mean total autonomy. The concept was rather meant to
indicate that there existed limits on the legitimacy of interference by
one state-machinery in the operations of another. 57
- Progress
is not inevitable. We are
struggling for it. And the
form the struggle is taking is not that of socialism versus capitalism,
but that of a transition to a relatively classless society versus a
transition to some new class-based mode of production (different from
historical capitalism but not necessarily better). 107
- Socialism…is
a realizable historical system which may one day be instituted in the
world. There is no interest
in a ‘socialism’ that claims to be a ‘temporary’ moment of transition
towards Utopia. There is interest
only in a concretely historical socialism, one that meets the minimum
defining characteristics of a historical system that maximize equality and
equity, one that increases humanity’s control over its own life
(democracy), and liberates the imagination. 110
- Over
the past 5,000 years, humanity has developed an array of religions, all of
which have shared at least one basic feature. They have attempted to give some response to, some
solace for, the perceived material miseries of the world. 117
- In a
sense, one could argue that ‘civil war’ is an invention of the capitalist
world-economy. It is a
product of the complex relationship between the construct “people’ and the
construct ‘state’ in a system whereby there is an extremely high degree of
admixture and propinquity in urban zones of groups defined socially as
different ‘peoples’. This is
not accidental, but is derived from the intrinsic structuring of the
capitalist world-economy. 121
- In
capitalist civilization, the number of persons who have shared in the
surplus-value has been much larger.
This is the group referred to as the middle class. They are a significant stratum. But it would be quite in error to
exaggerate their size. This
group worldwide, has probably never exceeded one-seventh of the world’s
population. To be sure, many
of these ‘middle strata’ are concentrated in certain geographical zones,
and thus, in the core countries of the capitalist world-economy, they may
be a majority of the citizenry.
123
- Perhaps
as much as 85 per cent of the people who live within the structures of the
capitalist world-economy are clearly not living at standards higher than
the world’s working populations of 500 to 1,000 years ago. Indeed, it can be argued that
many, even most, of them are materially worse off. 124
- In
no previous historical system did there exist the concept that people,
even wealthy and powerful people, would spend a part of their lifetime
exempt from income-producing work in order to travel, observe, and enjoy
pleasures that were not part of their ordinary ongoing life pattern. 125
- At
the very most, 5 to 10 per cent of the world’s population can engage even
one in a tourist expedition.
125
- What
has preserved the system thus far has been the hope of incremental
reformism, the eventual bridging of the gap. The debate has itself fed this hope doubly. The assertion of the virtues has
served to persuade many of
the long-term benefits of the system. And the discussion of the vices has made many feel that
they could thereby organize effectively to bring about political
transformation. Capitalist
civilization has not only been a successful civilization. It has above all been a seductive
one. It has seduced even its
victims and its opponents.
137
- Capitalist
civilization...has been built around a geocultural theme which has never
previously been dominant: the centrality of the individual as the
so-called subject of history.
Individualism presents a dilemma, because it has double-edged
sword. One the one hand, by
placing the emphasis on individual initiative, capitalist civilization has
harnessed self-interest both to the flourishing and the maintenance of the
system. 151
- …individualism
encourages the race of all against all in a particular virulent form,
since it legitimizes this race not just for a small elite alone but for
the entirety of mankind. 152
- The
problem for capitalist civilization, from the outset, has been how to
reconcile the positive and negative consequences of having established the
individual as the subject of history. 152
- What
is the praxis of universalism?
It involves theoretically the moral homogenization of mankind. It is not only the assertion that
all persons are endowed with the same human rights but also the assertion
that there are universals of human behavior we can ascertain and
analyze. 153
- The
praxis of racism and sexism is exactly the opposite. It is the assertion that all
persons are not endowed with the same human rights, but are rather arrayed
in a biologically and culturally definitive hierarchy. This hierarchy determines their
rights and privileges, and their place in the collective work
process. It is explained and
justified by the fact that some groups inherently perform differently from
(and better than) others. 153
- The
most extraordinary fact of capitalist civilization over the past 500 years
is that the intensity of belief in these two themes, and the degree to
which they have been implemented in social practice, has grown side by
side, in tandem. 153
- On
the one hand, universalism leads to the conclusion that the contradiction
is not real, since the limitless struggle is in fact the spur to
initiative, and therefore any privilege that emerges is justified as the
consequence of superior performance in a situation where all have equal
opportunity to try. 154
- On
the other hand, racism-sexism becomes the explanation of why those on the
bottom have gotten there.
They have shown less initiative, even when the possibility has been
offered them. They have lost
out in the limitless struggle of all against all because they are
inherently (in not biologically, then at least culturally) incapable of
doing better. 154
- Capitalist
civilization will be over; its particular historical system will be no
more. The most we can say
beyond that is to outline a few alternative possible historical
trajectories—outline them, that is, in broad brush strokes without the
institutional detail that is entirely unforeseeable. Three types of social formulae
seem plausible in the light of the history of the world-system. One is a sort of neo-feudalism
that would reproduce in a far more equilibrated form the development of
the time of troubles—a world of parcellized sovereignties, of considerably
more autarkic regions, of local hierarchies. This might be made compatible with maintaining (but
probably not furthering) the current relatively high level of
technology. Endless
accumulation of capital could no longer function as the mainspring of such
a system, but it would certainly be an inegalitarian system. What would legitimate it? Perhaps a return to belief in
natural hierarchies. A second
formulae might be a sort of democratic fascism. Such a formula would involve a caste-like division of
the world into two strata, the top one incorporating perhaps a fifth of
the world’s population.
Within this stratum, there can be a high degree of egalitarian
distribution. On the basis of
such a community of interests within such a large group, they might have
the strength to keep the other 80 per cent in the position of totally
disarmed working proletariat.
Hitler’s new world order had such a vision in mind, but then it
defined itself in terms of too narrow a top stratum. A third formula might be a still
more radical worldwide highly decentralized, highly egalitarian world order. This seems the most utopian of the
three but it is scarcely to be ruled out. This kind of world order has been foreshadowed in much
intellectual musings of the past centuries. The increased political sophistication and
technological expertise we now have makes it doable, but not at all
certain. It would require
accepting certain real limitations in consumption expenditures. But it does not mean merely a
socialization of poverty, for then it would be politically impossible to
realize. 162-3
- By
the year 3000, we may remember it as a fascinating exercise in human
history—either an exceptional and aberrant period, but just possibly a
historically important moment of very long transition to an egalitarian
world; or inherently unstable form of human exploitation after which the
world returned to more table forms.
163
Chilcote, R. (1984) Theories of Development and
Underdevelopment, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
- "The
permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached to this concept, means
a revolution which makes no compromise with any single form of class rule,
which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist
measures and to war against reaction from without; that is, a revolution
whose every successive stage is rooted in the proceeding one and which can
only in complete liquidation of class society." p.62 in Leon Trotsky,
"The theory of permanent revolution", --62-65 in Isaac
Deutscher, The age of permanent revolution: A Trotsky Anthology,
NY, Dell Publishing. 19
- "By
dependence I mean relations between centers and the periphery whereby a
country is subjected to decisions taken in the centers, not only in
economic matters, but also in matters of politics and strategy for
domestic and foreign policies. The consequence is that due to exterior
pressure the country cannot decide autonomously what it should do or cease
doing. The structural changes bring about an awareness of this phenomena,
and this awareness, this desire for autonomy, is one of the integral elements
in a critical understanding of the system." Raul Prebisch, "The
Dynamics of peripheral capitalism", pp21-27 in Louis and Liisa L.
North (eds.), Democracy and Development in Latin America, No 1
Toronto: Studies on the political economy, society and culture of Latin
America and the Caribbean, p.25. 27
- The
Prebisch approach clearly moves toward an autonomous capitalist solution.
The state must assume a dominant role, but rather than socialize the means
of production, it must work to coordinate private and public enterprise in
order to overcome the obstacles and contradictions between center and
periphery. 27
- "What
we are seeing is the assertion of the national interest of our countries
in their international economic relations. The aim is greater autonomy, in
order to achieve development without "dependencia" and without
marginalization. To achieve this goal, the asymmetrical nature of the
present system of international economic relations must first undergo a
thorough reform." 531 Sunkel, Osvaldo, "Big Business and
Dependencia", Foreign Affairs, 50, (April), 517-531. 30
- "By
dependence we mean a situation by which the economy of certain countries
is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to
which the former is subjected. The relation of interdependence between two
or more economies, and between these and world trade, assumes the form of
dependence when some countries (the dominant ones) can expand and be
self-sustaining, while other countries (the dependent ones) can do this
only as a reflection of that expansion, which can have either a positive
or negative effect on their immediate development". P.231 Theotonio
Dos Santos, "The structure of dependence", American economic
review, 60, May, 231-231. 60
- Such
inequalities produces limits within the dependent countries on the
capacity of the internal market as well as negative consequences for the
people. 61
- "Underdevelopment
is not original or traditional....The now developed countries were never underdeveloped,
though they may have been undeveloped". A.G.F., 17-18
"The Development of Underdevelopment", Monthly Review, 18,
Sept., 17-31. 86
- "Underdevelopment
as we know it today, and economic development as well, are the
simultaneous and related products of the development...of a single
integrated economic system: capitalism". A.G.F., p.43, On
Capitalist Underdevelopment, Bombay: Oxford University Press. 87
- The
definition of development - "At the level of the individual, it
implies increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline,
responsibility and material well-being". Walter Rodney, p.9, How
Europe underdeveloped Africa, London: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications; Dar
es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House. 95
- "Whereas
at the center, growth is development - that is, it has an
integrating effect - in the periphery growth is not development,
for its effect is to disarticulate. Strictly speaking, growth in the
periphery, based on integration on the world market, is development of
underdevelopment." Samir Amin, 1:18-19, Accumulation on a
world scale: A critique of the theory of underdevelopment, 2 vols. New
York: Monthly Review Press.
Skocpol, T. (1984) Vision
and Method in Historical Sociology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 356-403.
- Some
historical sociologists apply a single theoretical model to one or more of
many possible instances covered by the model. Other historical sociologists want to discover casual
regularities that account for specifically defined historical processes or
outcomes, and explore alternative
hypotheses to achieve that end.
Still other historical sociologists, who tend to be skeptical of
the value of general models or causal hypotheses, use concepts to develop
what might best be called meaningful historical interpretations. 363
- The
three major strategies are not hermetically sealed from one another… 362
- Interpretive
historical sociologists—the label I want to give practitioners of this
second strategy—are skeptical of the usefulness of either applying
theoretical models to history or using a hypothesis testing approach to
establish causal generalizations about large-scale structures and patterns
of change. Instead, these
scholars seek meaningful interpretations of history, in two intertwined
senses of the world meaningful.
First, careful attention is paid to the culturally embedded
intentions of individual or group actors in the given historical settings
under investigation. Second,
both the topic chosen for historical study and the kinds of arguments
developed about it should be culturally or politically “significant” in
the present; that is, significant to the audiences, always larger than
specialized academic audiences, addressed by the published works of
interpretive historical sociologists. 368
- Indeed,
whenever interpretive historical sociologists do comparative historical
studies, rather than simply conceptually structured presentations of
single histories, they use comparisons for the specific purpose of
highlighting the particular features of each individual case. 369
- Good
comparative historical sociologists nevertheless must resist the
temptation to disappear forever into the primary evidence about each
case. 383
- Analytic
historical sociology, I believe, can effectively combine the concern to
address significant historically
embedded problems—a concern that most of its practitioners share with
interpretive historical sociologists—with ongoing efforts to build better
general social theories, a concern shared with those who have applied
general models to history.
384
Tilly, C. (1984) Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge
Comparisons, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
- In
the world of education, we still behave as though the effective way to
prepare young intellects for the fight ahead were to divide all youngsters
of a certain age into groups of twenty or thirty, place each group in a
closed room with a somewhat older person, seat the youngsters in rows of
small desks, arrange for the older person to talk to them for hours each
day, have them write various sorts of exercises for the older person to
evaluate, and require them to speak periodically in class about the
exercises they have written, about material they have read, about general
issues the older person has raised.
(Young people who survive a dozen years or so of that treatment
often move on to the even stranger system of the lecture; there the older
person gets to talk at them without interruption for fifty minutes at a
time. Very nineteenth
century!) 1-2
- What,
then, was disorder? At the small
scale, popular violence, crime, immorality, madness. If urbanization,
industrialization, and other differentiating changes occurred without a
corresponding reinforcement of the sense of likeness, shared belief, and
so on, these evils would beset individuals and families. At the large scale, popular
rebellion, insubordination, class conflict. Increasing education, the expansion of markets,
occupational specialization, and other forms of differentiation would
cause these dangers as well, unless respect for authority, fear of moral
deviation, and related forms of integration developed simultaneously--or
at least survived. At either
scale, a victory of differentiation over integration produced a threat to
bourgeois security. 4
- [Alexis
de Tocqueville's in 150-51]
The industrial revolution which in thirty years had made Paris the
chief manufacturing city of France and had brought within its walls a
whole new mass of workers to whom work on fortifications had added another
mass of unemployed agricultural workers. 6
- [Alexis
de Tocqueville's in 150-51]
The love of material satisfactions which, with encouragement from
the government, agitated that multitude more and more, and fomented in it
the democratic illness of envy.
6
- [Editor
of the proceedings of a 1978 conclave in New Delhi] …capitalist
penetration appears to shape the process of urbanization in the Third
World in several distinct ways.
It leads to the eventual disintegration of the rural subsistence
sector and increasing reliance on the urban informal economy; to increasing
internal differentiation within cities, including differentiation within
caste or ethnic groups; to increasing demands on the state for public
services and infrastructure, while the autonomy of the state is
simultaneously weakened by foreign intervention; and to the possibility of
increased collective action and protest focused on the state by the urban
poor who have continually been denied access to adequate housing, jobs,
education and other necessities.
This process has developed much further in Latin America, which has
experienced a longer history of capitalist penetration than Africa or
Asia, where in many areas it is just beginning. 19 (Safa, 1982: 13)
- Real
social movements actually consist of sustained interactions among
authorities and challengers.
Within real social movements, various challengers attempt to create
a coherent actor, or at least its appearance. Furthermore, real social movements always involve a
symbolically constrained conversation among multiple actors, in which the
ability to deploy symbols and idioms significantly affects the outcome of
the interaction. Existing
theories and models do not provide useful accounts of that
interaction. 31
- Over
repeated interactions, even entirely egoistic actors tend to gain from
strategies combining initial cooperation with a sharp discrimination of
subsequent responses depending on whether the other party cooperates or
serves himself. 31
- The
advantage of an initially cooperative strategy increases with (1) the
likelihood of subsequent encounters, (2) the sharp discrimination of
responses, and (3) the certain identification of the other party, his
actions, and their consequences.
31
- Revolutionary
action becomes likely when, in the presence of vulnerable powerholders,
potential opponents to those powerholders communicate with each other
sufficiently to recognize that they have the collective capacity to
overturn the existing structure.
32
- All
societies fell on the same continuum from simple to complex,
differentiation drove societies toward greater and greater complexity, and
complexity created strength, wealth, and suppleness. The fittest--the most
differentiated--survived. 43
- Daniel
Lerner, one of the architects of modernization theory, defined
modernization as "the social process of which development is the
economic component."
…"…there is a single process of modernization which operates
in all developing societies--regardless of their color, creed or climate
and regardless of their history, geography, or culture. This is the process of economic
development, and since development cannot be sustained without
modernization, we consider it appropriate to stress this common mechanism
underlying the various faces of modernization" (Lerner 1968: 82). 46
- …essential
to economic growth: a shift from agriculture to manufacturing and
services, urbanization, educational expansion. 46
- …it
became a progressive process: In general and in the long run,
increasing differentiation meant social advance. 46
- In
the abstract sense, no process in fundamental. In a given era, specific historical processes dominate
the changes occurring in a given population or region. Over the last few hundred years,
the growth of national states and the development of capitalism in
property and production have dominated the changes occurring in increasing
parts of the world. More
generally, alterations in the organization of production and of coercion
have set the great historical rhythms. In other eras, the creation or decline of empires and
the establishment or destruction of command economies have dominated all
other changes. 49-50
- Differentiation
can take the form of industrialization, urbanization, immigration of
people from alien cultures, and any number of other changes. In essence, any change that
increases the variety of social forms having durable connections to each
other qualifies as differentiation.
Integration (alias social control, hegemony, and solidarity in
different versions of the theory) can occur throughout repression,
socialization, mutual obligation, or consensus. Disorder sometimes appears in this formulation as
crime, as war, as emotional disturbance, as rebellion, as alienation, as
family instability, as violence.
50
- Thus
differentiation exceeds integration, disorder results. 50
- "The
very fact that modernization entails continual changes of all spheres of a
society means of necessity that it involves processes of disorganization
and dislocation, with the continual development of social problems,
cleavages and conflicts between various groups, and movements of protest,
resistance to change.
Disorganization and dislocation thus constitute a basic part of
modernization and every modern and modernizing society has to cope with
them" (Eisenstadt 1966:20]
- We
must hold on to the nineteenth century problems, but let go of the
nineteenth century intellectual apparatus. 59
Walton, J. (1984) Reluctant
Rebels: Comparative Studies of Revolution and Underdevelopment, New York:
Columbia University Press, pp. 141-171.
- …a
revolutionary situation is identified by the condition of multiple sovereignty—a government
that has become the object of competing claims to rightful power by two or
more political groupings. 141
- “The
revolutionary moment arrives when previously acquiescent members of that
population find themselves confronted with strictly incompatible demands
from the government and from an alternative body claiming control over the
government, or claiming to be
the government…and those previously acquiescent people obey the
alternative body.” (Tilly, From
Mobilization to Revolution, p. 192.) 141-142
- …incipient
to full blown revolutionary situations existed at the inception of the
national revolts. 143
- Incidents
of protest and violence, however serious, are not inherently revolutionary
apart from the context of the context reaction: “revolt” and “revolution”
are socially constructed categories whose interpretation cannot be
conceptually divorced from the political struggle. 144
- Theories
of revolution that ignore political consciousness on the assumption that
the potential for rebellion is “structurally given” or that the “rational
peasant” bases political action exclusively on some economic calculus
seriously underestimate the cultural basis of political organization. 156
- Revolutionary
movements are successfully organized in proportion to the strength and
relative unity of their cultural bases. 156
- What
became crucial…was the manner in which cultural nationalism and political
consciousness became mobilized immediately prior to the revolts. 156
- Revolution
is less a blind leap into the hands of violence than a miscalculated use
of violence within the political process. 159
- Uneven
development is generated in the first place instance by the penetration of
global capitalism into precapitalist societies that vary widely in their
resources and forms of social organization. The immediate impact of this penetration is affected by
a number of considerations , including what the peripheral society has to
offer (e.g., mineral and agricultural resources, commercial or military
bases), the motives of the colonizer (e.g., for domains plunder, trade,
investment), the timing of incorporation (e.g., during periods of empire
building or commercial competition), and the potential for internal
resistance. In combination these
conditions produce a multiplicity of initial effects ranging from
relatively benign annexation (as in the very early contact between
European explorers and the people of East Africa and the Philippines) to
wholesale destruction of indigenous groups (as in much of Latin
America). Nevertheless, with
the passage of time and the closer integration of the periphery as a zone
of the world economy, characteristic features of underdevelopment appear. The peripheral society is
“developed” not for its own sake but as a complement to the economic and
military needs of the core power: systematic inequalities between the two
are created and perpetuated, constituting the first sense of uneven
development. Typically this
entails fostering export agriculture and an internal market for the
consumption of imports from the core. These, in turn, often require land alienation, coerced
wage labor, and an export-oriented commercial sector. Similarly, it is necessary to
generate (unequally) national income in this process to ensure purchasing
power for imports.
Accordingly, the peripheral economy is unevenly developed in a
second sense of internal class and sectoral disparities. All this produces a massive
transformation of the indigenous economy that entices or forces the
population into new forms of wage labor and services to the international
system or leaves it behind to starve as traditional forms of subsistence
are eliminated or rendered unprofitable. 161-2
- With
superior military and economic weaponry colonial society resists
accommodation save through occasional ameliorative changes in response to
massive unrest. 162
- …linking
organization may be facilitated by state and institutional mechanisms for labor
regulation, migration control, absentee ownership, or segregation of the
rural (in reserves or tenant zones) and urban (in slums or native
quarters) population. The
coalition for popular rebellion is fostered to the extent that rural and
urban grievances are merged in the routine operation of the economy (e.g.,
in the circle of traders or the urban and return migration from
impoverished rural areas to the conditions of unemployment if the urban
slums). 163
- Moving
from the context of uneven development to the conditions of protest
mobilization (the second summary process), a vital development is the
organizational articulation of political consciousness. 164
- Material
achievements, however equally distributed, helped promote the recognition
that poverty could be eliminated, therefore fostering the sense of
noninevitability. 165
- It
was the dominant society that provided the opening, the opportunity to
participate in seemingly sanctioned ways, that coalesced the popular
movement. The new legal norms
designed to promote innocuous participation of popular classes in the
elite plan for modernization failed to mystify as they provided a platform
and vehicle for subversion.
165
- Conceptually,
national revolts rival their celebrated revolutionary cousins in gravity
and scope. 169
- …successful
social revolutions probably emerge from different macro-structural and
historical contexts than do either failed social revolutions or political
transformations that are not accompanied by transformations of class
relations. 170
- …revolution
is not the singular accomplishment of the peasantry or urban
prolitariat. Theories that
counterpose these class ensembles are belied by a great deal of evidence
and reason spuriously by virtue of their failure to recognize the common origins
and differential political expressions and rural and urban dislocations
following from incorporation.
171
Reitsma, H.A., and Kleinpenning, J. (1985) The Third
World Perspective, The Netherlands: Rowman and Allanheld.
- (1)
Development is a never-ending process of change which has progressed
further in some parts of the world than in other. The result is a continuum ranging
from comparatively advanced countries, often referred to as 'core'
countries, via a wide variety of moderately developed countries, which may
be labeled 'semi-peripheral' countries, to comparatively backward or
'peripheral' countries. (2)
The development stage (high, moderate or low) in which a country finds
itself, represents a multidimensional situation in which important needs
(food, shelter, clothing, health, education, recreation, social security,
personal freedom, religion, culture, etc.) are satisfied to a larger or
smaller degree. (3) Since
development is a continuing process, the meaning of developed varies with
place and time. (4) Fully
developed societies do not exist.
All we can say is that a particular society may be moving toward a
higher level of developedness or a higher degree of needs satisfaction for
more people. 24
- …underdevelopment
may be viewed as a growing discrepancy between raised expectations and the
existing level of needs satisfaction, irrespective of how this level of
needs satisfaction may be. By
the same token, if the income gap between two classes in the same society
widens, resulting in greater inequality, the disadvantaged class can be
expected to become dissatisfied and restless even though its standard of
living may be experiencing uninterrupted absolution improvement. 24
- Since
developedness and underdevelopedness are relative concepts, the Third
World is considered underdeveloped simply because the First World is
considered developed. This
statement does not mean that the Third World's underdevelopedness has been
caused by the First World.
Although it is unquestionably true that past and present processes
of development in the First World were/are causally related to past and
present processes of underdevelopment in the Third World, it would be
incorrect to state…that the poverty in the Third World is entirely and
exclusively the result of colonial and neo-colonial activities of the
capitalist First World. 25
- …we
conclude that it is possible to recognize two types of underdevelopedness:
one involving awareness and the other which does not. 25
- It
is highly unlikely that this planet can support Western standards of
living for all humanity. For
that reason, less ambitious development goals would seem much more
realistic. 29
- Poverty
is the inability to satisfy one's needs. In the voluminous literature on underdevelopment far
more attention is paid to material needs than to non-material needs, such
as religious and political freedom and the protection of human
rights. Indicative of this
bias is that basic needs are usually, although not invariably, defined in
terms of such material needs as shelter, food, clothing, clean drinking
water and fuel. Quite apart
from the low level of material well-being, human rights are seriously
violated in virtually all Third World countries…. 30
- The
demographic 'explosion' - with annual growth rates of 2 percent or more,
as compared to less than one percent in the developed countries - heavily
taxes the natural environment and puts an enormous burden on the
economy. 33
- The
basic characteristics of underdevelopment…are not isolated phenomena, but
together form a large and complex system of cause-and-effect
relationships. 35
- Even
if we assume that poverty refers to the inadequate satisfaction of
perceived needs, we are still faced with the problem of how to determine
whether or not a particular needs is adequately satisfied. No less troublesome is the
qualification 'perceived.'
Should a transistor radio or bicycle be considered a need when 30
or 60 percent of the people perceive it as such. In other words, what makes something a need? What should be the quality and
size of a house or hut before it meets the local demands for shelter? Should it have windows, a
fireplace or some other heating system, a bathroom with running water and
a separate kitchen? And what
happens to the meaning of poverty when, perhaps as a consequence of an
increase in income or exposure to Western housing standards, expectations
are raised? When that
happens, people become more demanding, so that a dwelling which used to be
acceptable may become perceived as unfit for proving adequate
shelter. 37
- This
dilemma underlines our earlier conclusion that development and
underdevelopment are time-relative and culture-relative concepts. 37
- Already man years ago economists
'solved' the problem of measuring development by using per capita GNP as
an indicator. This measure
makes sense because the combined value of total domestic and foreign
output claimed by the residents of a given country not only is a
reasonable accurate measure of that country's overall economic
development, but also tells us a great deal about average earnings,
purchaidng power and thus about the general level of prosperity. Using per capita GNP as a
yardstick, however, also has its disadvantages. It may be that one extremely lucrative sector of the
economy, e.g., oil production, is far more developed than other sectors,
thereby raising the value of total output so much that it can no longer
serve as a reliable indicator of overall development. Equally problematic is that per
capita GNP, like every other average value, tell us nothing about the
distribution of wealth. 38-9
- When
trying to decide which countries should be considered underdeveloped and
thus belong to the Third World, we soon discover classifying most of them
presents no problem. No
matter which criterion is used, Ethiopia always qualifies, whereas Sweden
never does. Most problematic
are the high-income oil exporters and such borderline cases as Uruguay,
South Africa, Portugal, Albania and Singapore. In addition, there are countries for which it is hard to
obtain qualitative data, such as Cuba, Mongolia and North Korea. Finally, there are a few special
cases like Taiwan and Puerto Rico which are not members of the World Bank
or the United Nations because they are not considered independent
sovereign states. 42
- Using
our definition of underdevelopment for determining whether a given country
belongs to the Third World, it must be characterized by (1) a weak
economic structure, (2) widespread poverty, (3) a growing awareness among
the people that they are poverty-stricken, and (4) rapid population
growth. 42
- …we
conclude that regardless of how underdevelopment is defined, there will
always be a number of countries which straddle, so to speak, that
definition. 42
- Although
revolutionary changes may lay the foundation for a period of economic
growth and a more equitable distribution of wealth for society at large,
they are just as likely to set the stage for more revolution, instigated
by those individuals or segments of society which suffered most from the previous
revolution. The long-term
result may well be a more or less permanent climate of turmoil and
instability. 212
- Contrary
to what is often believed, Marx considered capitalism as the most advanced
socioeconomic system ever achieved and held that its expansion into the
pre-capitalist (backward) areas of the world was desirable and progressive
- not regressive. He looked
upon capitalism as a superior mode of production and saw the rise of
capitalism as the greatest progress in human history. Understandably, then, he welcomed
its extension to non-European societies by means of direct
colonialism. Since Marx
regarded colonialism as the historical process of capitalist expansion, he
recognized the progressive role of British colonialism in India and other
overseas areas. 216
- "…we
must not forget that these idyllic village communities, inoffensive though
they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental
despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest
possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition,
enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it all of grandeur and
historical energies…. We must
not forget that this undignified, stagnatory and vegetative life, that
this passive sort of existence, evoked on the other part, in
contradistinction, wild, aimless, unfounded forces of destruction, and
rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan. We must not forget that these
little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery,
that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating
man to be of sovereign circumstances, that they transformed a
self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus
brought about a brutalizing worship of nature, fell down on his knees in
adoration of Hanuman the monkey and Sabbala the cow" (Marx, K. (June
25, 1853) New York Daily Tribune). 217
- "Modern
industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the hereditary
divisions of labor, upon which rests the Indian castes, those decisive
impediments to Indian progress and Indian power" (Marx, K. (Augist 8,
1853), New York Daily Tribune). 217
- For
similar reasons, Marx favorably viewed the annexation of Mexican territories
by the U.S., while Engels welcomed the French conquest of Algeria as an
important event in the progress of civilization. 217
- Underdevelopment…must
be seen as a product of an array of…continuously changing interactions
between past and present, between natural and human forces, and between
internal conditions and external relations. The multitude of obstacles to development and the many
retrogressive forces causing underdevelopment vary with place and
time. 222
- During
the 1960s, the results of import substitution industrialization proved to
be disappointing and it became apparent that it contained a number of
obvious disadvantages. These
disadvantages have already been discussed, but will be summarized briefly
here. (1) Industrial
expansion remained rather limited, mainly as a consequence as a small home
market, the impossibility being able to export on a large scale, and the
limited successes in the field of international cooperation or collective
self-reliance. In the smaller
countries, in particular, it was not economically feasible to establish
capital goods industries.
Insufficient domestic purchasing power meant that many factories
could not be operated at full capacity. The result was that they produced at too high a
cost. Faced with widespread
industrial inefficiency, governments decided to subsidize numerous
enterprises. Apart from the
negative effect this had on the national budget, it also tended to
encourage more inefficiency.
(2) Another problem was that the adoption of modern production
processes caused the expansion of much-desired employment opportunities to
be quite small. Consequently,
the rural exodus which had been encouraged by the establishment of
industries led to an increase in unemployment in the cities. (3) Imports of capital goods
needed for the process of industrialization imposed a heavy burden on the
balance of payments. Many
countries were soon confronted with a shortage of foreign exchange and/or
a growing foreign debt. (4)
Owing to inefficiency and high costs of production, industrial goods
generally were unable to compete with foreign-made products, so that the
hoped for increase in manufactured exports normally failed to
materialize. Meantime,
exports o mineral resources and agricultural commodities often suffered
from deteriorating terms of trade, thus putting extra pressure on the
balance of trade. (5) In
order to achieve rapid industrialization, which supposed to reduce
dependence on imports, Latin American countries became ever more dependent
on foreign capital and foreign technology. The result was that foreign capitalists obtained
increasing control over Latin American economies. While they established monopolies
in the more profitable sectors, the less attractive sectors suffered from
a serious lack of investment capital. There also began a considerable outflow of capital in
the form of royalties and profits.
To add insult to injury, already existing domestically owned
industries were exposed to growing competition from subsidiaries on
increasingly influential multinational concerns. (6) In other fields, developments were also
disappointing. For example,
the traditional oligarchy retained its influence and was thus able to
prevent much-needed changes in the countryside - there were virtually no
large-scale redistributions of agricultural land and hardly any radical
agrarian reforms. In general,
the level of prosperity did not rise appreciably; poverty and other social
problems persisted undiminished.
244-5
- The
following individuals may be listed as belonging as the major forerunners
and pioneered dependency theory: (1) The Argentine economist R. Prebisch,
who introduced the double concept of 'center-periphery' in 1949, pointing
out that the economies of peripheral countries were merely geared towards
primary production and benefited much less from international
specialization and technological progress than did the central
countries. Owing to
deteriorating terms of trade, the peripheral countries found themselves in
an increasingly vulnerable position and remained structurally subservient
to the central or core countries.
The situation would in all likelihood continue, if not grow worse,
because the core countries could be expected to maintain, and possibly
strengthen, their exploitation-oriented dominance over the periphery. (2) Experts for the Economic
Commission of Latin America (ECLA).
After the failure of the inward looking development strategy, originally
propagated by ECLA, many of them took a critical look of this
development-through import-substitution-industrialization policy; (3) The
Swedish economic G. Mydal, who noted that economic, social and political
dependency relations existed between regions, not only at the national
level, but also at the international level. More often than not, such relations have favorable backwash
effects (e.g., outflow of surplus production, brain drain and
destruction of domestic craft industries because of external competition),
rather than the positive spread effects, on the weaker, less
developed regions. Like
Prebisch, he regarded underdevelopment not as an early stage of a
universal development process through which all countries had to pass (as
Rostow maintained), but as a phenomenon directly related to development
elsewhere. 246
- It
is above all the American economist A.G. Frank, who is credited for having
integrated the various points of view into a single theoretical
framework. Although it is
debatable whether he should be considered as the founder of dependency
theory, fact is that his books and articles - mostly written in English -
have enjoyed great popularity outside Latin America. 246
- Dependency
theory holds that Latin America's underdevelopment is the result of
external domination which began immediately after 1492. As a consequence, Latin America
has not been able to determine its own development. 247
- …dependency
theory does not make clear why certain countries are underdeveloped while
others are not. "The
failure to enumerate and analyze the essential characteristics of
dependency leads to confusion when it comes to [formulating] policy
(O'Brien 1974, p. 39).
According to critics, dependency's vagueness is due to the fact
that not enough empirical work has been carried out for the explicit
purpose of testing and adjusting the theory. Authors have fallen back on repetition, ultimately
leading to a fair amount of rigidity in dependency thinking. 255
- Dependency
theorists have by no means always made clear which circumstances lead to
underdevelopment, or, conversely, what attitudes the representatives of
the capitalist system need to posses in order to be able to promote
development. 258
- "…if
we accept that the basic determinant of dependency is the use of power in
exchange relations, it follows that dependence may occur in the relations
between socialist states, too.
In such societies, power is redistributed and concentrated in the
hands of a small number of people, but it is not absent" (Galjart
1974, p. 15). 260
- The
present weakness of agriculture in many Third World countries is often
attributed to the failure of colonial powers to encourage native
agriculture as much as they stimulated the production of export
crops. 261
- Quite
another obstacle on the path to development can be the very small size of
a country; the smaller it is, the greater the chance that it lacks
essential natural resources and has a far too small domestic market. Other countries are faced with the
problem of having excessive internal divisiveness resulting from differences
in ethnicity, religion, language and lifestyle, and often leading to
long-lasting 'tribal' jealousies, suspicions and outright
animosities. Then there are
Third World countries whose development is held back by their unfavorable
location. In this respect,
special mention may be made of the more than twenty land-locked countries
which lack their own outlet to the sea and are handicapped by the fact
that they do not have a seaport.
Considering that they cannot compete effectively with countries which
do posses these locational advantages, it is not surprising that they are
among the least developed countries in the world. 261
- A
final consequence of the negative role attributed to the capitalist
penetration is that the Marxist inspired dependency and imperialism
theorists have little or no appreciation for the positive effects of
contacts with the West and of the integration into the world economy. Examples include the provision for
infrastructural improvements, the transfer of modern knowledge, the
establishment of modern education and modern health care, reduction in
internal divisiveness and political unrest, and the creation of larger
political units. Instead, the
pre-colonial situation is often highly idealized, even though it was
frequently characterized by low productivity, famines, epidemics, slave
trade, exploitation of the peasantry by the elite, inefficient
administration, and various other abuses and shortcomings. 262
Apter, D. (1987) Rethinking Development:
Modernization, Dependency, and Postmodern Politics, Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publication.
- We
need to confront the possibility that representative institutions may fail
to work in most modernizing societies and, therefore, will be
discredited. The
pre-occupation of political studies with the strengthening of democratic
practices has obscured the need for an examination of the role of
pre-democratic forms of government, which, as a result, has received
little attention. The
politics of modernization requires us to examine the uses of
pre-democratic and non-democratic institutions so that we can make a
realistic appraisal of those structural principles likely to lead to
representative government.
The dynamic aspect of modernization for the study of politics can
be expressed in the general proposition that modernization is a process of
increasingly complexity in human affairs within which the polity must
act. 55
- The
two most characteristic responses to this state of affairs on the meetings
meeting ground between social theory and philosophy have been, first,
Marxism, with its insistence on the material plane of reality (which
involves the unfolding of historical necessity and the obligation of the
idea of freedom and that can only be genuinely "known" through
action), and a second response that does not have a convenient name. The latter involves theories of
choice that arise from the analysis of alternative situations in
normative, structural, and behavioral terms. This second view depends on a probabilistic rather than
a deterministic universe, and its central principle is that there is a
relationship between freedom and choosing and that the understanding of
this relationship is the object of social analysis. 57
- …Marxism's
insistence on an evolving material universe that proceeds from a lower to
a higher plane.
Modernization, in this view, can be understood as a series of
altering material relationships out of which a more abundant (and
kindlier) world will eventually emerge. 58
- One
important criticism of Marxism is that it cannot present the universe as a
contrived reality. Such a
criticism may sound surprising.
If one accepts the view that there is more than one layer of
reality, however, then the idea that there is a single layer, the
material, on which items of knowledge may be grafted is unacceptable. 58
- The
Marxian-existential leads to a single place of reality, the material. The probabilistic leads to a
factoring of truths observed at each layer of reality - a probabilistic
consensus (not truth but likelihood). The Marxism - existential, by virtue of its emphasis on
"totalization" (synthesis), makes that single reality
all-encompassing and, therefore, too gross to provide answers to questions
that lie within it. 59
- Some
would place the origin of inquiries into modernity in ancient Greece. 60
- …a
political system becomes a system of choice for a particular
collectivity. Government…is
the mechanism for regulating choice.
Different political systems will not only embody different ways of
choosing but vary in their priorities. Governments will vary in the ways they regulate
choice. Thus there are
different systems of choice, and there are choices between systems. One of the characteristics of the
modernization process is that it involves both aspects of choice: the
improvement of the conditions of choice and the selection of the most
satisfactory mechanisms of choice.
61
- …no
government is better than its moral standards, and no valid moral judgment
is premature. 64
- This
is the basis of the modern collectivist community (the scared-collectivity
type): the generation of new power through unity, the unfolding of a moral
and scientific personality through the mystique of developing toward a
higher plane. Politically,
one would not want to represent the people as they are, because "as
they are" is debased by the imperfections of the society. Here is the principle of
legitimacy is potentiality, and its main emphasis is on
development. It is not
surprising, therefore, that many political leaders of modernizing nations
are attracted to the Marxian view.
75
- …just
as in the pure theory of competition there should be no monopoly of power
in the political sphere.
Power needs to be dispersed, and various systems have been devised
to ensure its dispersal.
These include the formal checks and balances of our won system and
the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in Europe. 76
- The
sacred-collectivity model in its broadest implications contains
essentially three elements.
Behaviorally, it is made up of units whose singular characteristic
is potentiality. Individuals,
for example, are perceived as nothing more than potentials. Structurally, the political
community is the means of translating potentiality into some sort of
reality. Hence, the society
is the key to social life.
Moreover, as the primary instrument of socialization, the political
community is essentially an educational body. It exists for the improvement of the community
itself. Normatively, the
sacred-collectivity is an ethical or moral unit. Thus the morality of the individual depends on the
morality of the system, which embodies those higher purposes that may be
enshrined in kinship, political ideals, and so on. Included under the rubric of this
essentially Aristotelian view of the political community would be most
traditional societies, theocracies, and certain modernizing ones as
well. 77
- Seen
as a modernizing force, the sacred-collectivity stresses the unity of the
people, not their diversity.
It depends less on the free flow of ideas than on the disciplined
concentration upon certain political and economic objectives. It claims a "higher"
form of reality than that of the secular-libertarian model, because social
life is directed toward the benefit of the collectivity rather than toward
that of the self. It is more
disciplined because more is concentrated on the priorities of the
polity. Equality in the
economic sphere is often regarded as a goal to be achieved by the eventual
elimination of private property, although not all collectivity systems are
socialist. Political
inequality exists, but for equalitarian reasons. 77
- Pluralism
consists not in the number of individual participants (one man, one vote)
but rather in groups in competition.
These groups (political) try to maximize their power, and
individuals give over their loyalties to them. Group-oriented democracy is to the classic libertarian
tradition what large scale enterprise is to the pure theory of economic
competition, and in theory has the same relationship to the libertarian
model as monopolistic competition has to pure competition. 79
- The
modernizing autocracy tends to have a traditionalist ideology associated
with a monarch or king who
represents the nation.
Authority remains at the top, although, in fact, it may be shared
through a variety of instrumentalities such as councils, parliaments,
party groups, and so on.
Examples are Thailand, Morocco, and Ethiopia. 81
- Reconciliation
systems are likely to attempt to realize modernization through a process
of localized initiative and individualized entrepreneurship, including
private and private-public forms of enterprise. In contrast, mobilization systems are likely to see
modernization as a process of centralized planning and governmental
enterprise. Mobilization
systems are most successful as "conversion" systems, that is, in
(a) establishing a new polity and (b) converting from late modernization
to industrialization. 82
- Modernization
first occurred in the West through the twin processes of commercialization
and industrialization. The
social consequences of these processes can be summed up in the following
rather paradigmatic categories: the growth of lending a fiscal devices,
the need to support modern armies, the application of technologies in
competitive market situations, and the influence of trade and voyages on
the scientific spirit - all of which are evidence that modernity in the
West attacked religion and superstition, family and church, mercantilism
and autocracy. Indeed, we
have come to consider science as the antidote of faith, with Galileo as a
kind of folk hero of modernization.
His triumph is the triumph of reason, and reason as applied to
human affairs is the foundation of modernity. In many non-Western areas, modernization has been a
result of commercialization and, rather than industrialization,
bureaucracy. Some of the
values appropriate to industrial countries have been spread by
enterprising men, sometimes in the context of politics and trade and at
other times in the context of religion and education. Modernization can thus be seen as
something apart from industrialization - caused by it in the West causing
it in other areas. 89
- Elements
of marginality can…be regarded as a critical factor in the development of
modernization skills. A
second factor is the accessibility of innovative roles, a condition that
affects youth primarily. In
particular, education in the form of either apprenticeship or more formal
schooling has been important in stimulating an interest in the roles of
modernity, as have the power and prestige consequences of the roles
themselves. Third the mass
media and…the growth of communications in general have made it possible to
conceive of modernity even in the absence of many of its qualities. 90-1
- Political
modernization came to have two meanings in colonial systems. First, it meant that there had to
be a "Westernized" secular elite that could participate in
political life; and, second, there had to be "Westernized" forms
of government so that the elites could be represented. This was characteristic of the
British pattern of political evolution in colonial territories, although
there were some profound exceptions to the genral rule itself is of very
recent origin. 95
- Modernization
employs particular roles that have been drawn from various industrial
societies (and ordinarily associated with Western industrial society,
although modernization can no longer be claimed as peculiarly
Western. 100-1
- Development,
modernization, and industrialization, although related phenomena, can be
placed in a descending order of generality. Development, the most general, results from the
proliferation and integration of functional roles in a community. Modernization is a particular case
of development. Modernization
implies three conditions - a social system that can constantly innovate
without falling apart (and that includes among its essential beliefs the
acceptability of change); differentiated, flexible social structures; and
a social framework to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for
living in a technologically advanced world. Industrialization, a special aspect of modernization,
may be defined as the period in a society in which the strategic
functional roles are related to manufacturing. It is possible to attempt the modernization of a given
country without much industry, but is not possible to industrialize
without modernization. It is
possible for a modernizing country to have a large manufacturing sector
and yet fail to develop an industrial infrastructure because its industry
is merely an extension of the industrial system of another country. This is a common problem in many
Latin American countries.
They have a large number of foreign firms involved in processes,
assembly, and light industry. These activities build up a local body of
workers and technicians, whose operations, however, are integrated with
the system of the metropolitan country rather than with their own. This is a normal characteristic of
late modernization and represents a classic case of imperialism. 105
- Industrialization
is that aspect of modernization so powerful in its consequences that it
alters dysfunctional social institutions and customs by creating new roles
and social instruments, based on the use of the machine. 106
Kohn, M. (December 1987) “Cross-National Research as an
Analytic Strategy: 1987 Presidential Address,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 52, pp. 713-731.
- Many
discussions of cross-national research contrast two research strategies—one that looks for
statistical regularities, another that searches for cultural and
historical differences. 716
- Finding
cross-national similarities greatly extends the scope of sociological
knowledge. Moreover,
cross-national similarities lend themselves readily to sociological
interpretation; cross-national differences are much more difficult to
interpret. 716
- …the
lawful explanation of cross-national differences requires more explicit
consideration of historical, cultural, and political-economic
particularities than does the lawful explanation of cross-national
similarities. Ultimately, the
distinction between cross-national similarities and differences breaks
down, and the issues cannot be so simply and neatly dichotomized. 717
- In
the absence of appropriate cross-national evidence, though, there would be
no way of knowing whether this (or any other) interpretation applied
outside the particular historical, cultural, and political contexts of the
United States. No analyses
based solely on U.S. data could tell us whether the relationship between
social stratification and personality are an integral part of the social-stratification
system typical of industrial societies, or are to be found only in the
United States, or only in countries that have capitalist economies, or
only in countries characterized by Western culture, with its purportedly
higher valuation of self-direction.
718
- The
key, of course, is the truism that if consistent findings have to be
interpreted in terms of how the countries—or the studies—differ. 719
- Finding
a cross-national difference often requires that we curtail the scope of an
interpretation, by limiting our generalizations to exclude implicated variables or relationships or types of
countries from a more encompassing generalization. 721
- …cross-national
research has been used in the service of political oppression. In a less dramatic way,
cross-national research has too often been a mechanism by which scholars a
mechanism by which scholars from affluent countries have been employed
scholars in less affluent countries as data-gatherers, to secure
information to be processed, analyzed, and published elsewhere, with
little benefit either in training or in professional recognition for those
who collected the data. 724
- This
flexibility…comes at a price: When one finds cross-national differences,
it may not be clear whether the crucial “context” that accounts for the
differences is nation or culture or political or economic system. Still one can at least try to
assess which of these contexts might logically be pertinent to explaining
a particular cross-national difference. And, for many types of research, one can then proceed
to design new studies to differentiate among contexts. 725
- Establishing
collaborative relationships that can be sustained and will develop
throughout the course on what can be counted on to be difficult research
is much more problematic. 727
- Even
when such collaboration exists, sharing knowledge, interpreting within a
common framework, even having enough time together to think things through
at the crucial junctures, does not come easily. Unless one has a good reason why research should be cross-national, it generally isn’t worth the
effort in making it cross-national.
728
- I
would not wish to mislead anyone into thinking that its very considerable
advantages do not come at equally considerable cost. 728
- The
intent in all analyses of cross-national similarities is to develop
generalizations that transcend particular historical experiences in a
search for more general explanatory principles. In short, the method may be historical, the
interpretations should be sociological. 728
Simpson, E.S. (1987) The Developing World: An
Introduction, Essex, England: Longman Scientific and Technical.
- Essentially
development strategies are concerned with making a country more productive
by making a fuller use of its resources with the aid of more efficient
economic processes. The
strategy implements a certain pattern of investment designed to initiate
certain forms of economic activity, to stimulate particular sectors which,
it is hoped, will create a favorable economic, social psychological
environment to bring about the "quick emergence of a political,
social and institutional framework which exploits the impulses to
expansion" (Rostow, 1956).
The mechanics of the strategy are capital investments in the land for
agriculture, in forestry, mineral and energy resources to make a fuller
use of these resources and also to make a fuller and more productive use
of the resource of labor. The
productivity of labor is this increased by a considerable margin, be it in
agriculture, mining or in manufacturing, to a level over and above the
previous pertaining. These
developments make infrastructural demands. Capital is required to be invested in the transport
infrastructure in road, rail networks, rolling stock and vehicle
resources, in ports and ports facilities. Energy supplies of a scale vastly greater than those
made available by wood fuel, become necessary as factory production is
introduced and as transport modernizes. Power stations, transmission and distribution networks,
appear in sectoral development plans. Beyond these directly productive investments come the
demands of the social infrastructure for education, training, health
facilities, and for administrative functions. All these investments, these economic injections and
activities, are interrelated.
116
- Indeed
it is of interest that inflexibility is not only characteristic of primary
industry economies of the Developing World but also of the least successful
countries and areas among the industrial nations of Europe and the
continuing industrial revolution.
The situation is made particularly difficult in developing
countries where populations are not only increasing but where the resource
base is diminishing as soils are over-utilized. There would seem, therefore, to be a case for
instituting developments which would broaden the range of economic
activities away from those characterized by diminishing returns to those
where inputs of capital and labor were more significant than natural
resources and where scarce capital could be used more effectively. 119
- In a
broad front approach aiming at setting up a range of consumer goods
industries, essentially substituting for imports, producing for and creating
a market by enlarging the industrial wage-labor force, it is not possible
to keep them advancing at the same rate. Adjustments and re-adjustments will have to take place
continuously due to differing levels of efficiency and productivity
resulting in differential movements of prices which in turn will result in
changes in expenditure and demand patterns. It is a form of industrially based development which is
subject to a number of constraints.
121
- Over
the longer term a pool of industrial labor would have been created which
by its very existence would facilitate industrial changes. 122
- If
agricultural production cannot meet the needs of the enlarging industrial
and urban population as well as those of the vast rural community, then
food imports become necessary and the economic development, so earnestly
desired, may fall behind.
What is vitally necessary is a planned development which
incorporates agriculture and the rural sector. It must be part of any balanced growth program. It rarely is. Development planning, therefore,
requires, first, a balance between components in the productive sectors of
industry, second, a balance between industry and agriculture, between
urban and rural communities, and third, a balance between investments in
the directly productive sector and infrastructural investments. 122
- …infrastructural
investment presents problems.
Unavoidably it makes too great a demand on scarce capital at first
without immediate returns but if it is neglected it creates bottlenecks
which impede subsequent developments. 123
- Trade
can…generate finance for capital investment and promote growth. However, as has been seen, the
creation of this situation is not without its difficulties. Time lags in returns on
infrastructural investments may, for example, hold up other developments
intended to generate productive capital. Trade may not be able to develop sufficiently, for
external reasons, to generate the necessary income for investment. These and other bottlenecks which
balanced-growth policies need to avoid are common occurrence so much so
that the majority of developing countries have had to seek external
finances to maintain their development programs. The problems of the Developing World's countries and
their development paths thus require an external or international
dimension. 127
Weber, M. (1987) General Economic History, New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
- The
monopoly of raw material may be conditioned by the exclusive occurrence of
certain materials - stone, metals, or fibers, most commonly salt, metal,
or clay deposits - within the territory of the tribe. The result of exploitation of a
monopoly may be the appearance of wandering trade. It may be carried on by those who
conduct the industry, as in the case of many Brazilian tribes or the
Russian "kustar," who in one part of the year as a farmer
produces products and in the other part peddles them. Again, it may be qualities of
workmanship that are monopolized, as frequently in the case of wool
products of artistic distinction, the worker being in the possession of a
trade secret or special skill not readily transferred. 122
- Through
the combination of individual tribal groups under an overlordship, tribal
industries which originally lay side by side horizontally have here become
arranged vertically in a stratification, and the ethnic division of labor
is now found around persons subjected to a common master. 123
- …the
special features of slave holding made for the possibility of the
development of such an establishment into a modern factory. The human capital consumes more in
the very moment when the market fails, and its upkeep was a very different
matter from that of a fixed capital in machines. Slaves were especially subject to vicissitudes and
exposed risk. When a slave died
it meant a loss, in contrast with present conditions where the risks of
existence are shifted onto the free workers. 128
- Slavery
was profitable only when the slave could be cheaply fed. This was not the case in the
north, where in consequence slaves were preferably exploited as rent
payers. 132
- Wage
work is always the rule where the work is done for the wealthy classes,
price work where it is done for the mass of the people. The mass buys single, ready-made
articles; hence, the growth in the purchasing power of the mass is the
basis for the appearance of price work, as later for that of
capitalism. 134
- Commercialization
involved, in the first place, the appearance of paper representing shaes
in enterprise, and, in the second place, paper representing rights to
income, especially in the form of state bonds and mortgage
indebtedness. This
development has taken place only in the modern Western world. Forerunners are indeed found in
antiquity in the share-commandite companies of the Roman publicani,
who divided the gains with the public through such share paper. 279
- Ritualistic
considerations were responsible for the concentration of Jewish economic
life in monetary dealings.
Jewish piety set a premium on the knowledge of the law and
continuous study was very much easier to combine with exchange dealings
than with other occupations.
In addition, the prohibition against usury on the part of the
church condemned exchange dealings, yet the trade was indispensable and
the Jews were not subject to the ecclesiastical law. Finally, Judaism had maintained
the originally universal dualism of internal and external moral attitudes,
under which it was permissible to accept interest from foreigners who did
not belong to the brotherhood or established association. Out of this dualism followed the
sanctioning of other irrational economic affairs, especially tax farming
and political financing of all sorts. In the course of the centuries he Jews acquired a
special skills in the matters which made them useful and in demand. But all this was pariah
capitalism, not rational capitalism such as originated in the west. In consequence, hardly a Jew is
found among the creators of the modern economic situation, the large
entrepreneurs; this type was Christian and only conceivable in the field
of Christianity. The Jewish
manufacturer, on the contrary, is a modern phenomenon. If for no other reason, it was
impossible for Jews to have a part in the establishment of rational
capitalism because they were outside the craft organizations. 360
- …Judaism
was nonetheless of notable significance for modern rational capitalism, in
so far as it transmitted to Christianity the latter's hostility to
magic. Apart from Judaism and
Christianity, and two or three Oriental sects (one of which is in Japan),
there is no religion with the character of outspoken hostility to
magic. 360
- Since
Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the character of a religion
essentially free from magic, it rendered an important service from the
point of view of economic history.
For the dominance of magic outside the sphere in which Christianity
has prevailed is one of the most serious obstructions to the
rationalization of economic life.
Magic involves a stereotyping of technology and economic relations.
When attempts were made in
China to inaugurate the building of railroads and factories a conflict
with geomancy ensued. The
latter demanded that in the location of structures on certain mountains,
forests, rivers, and cemetery hills, foresight should be exercised in
order not to disturb the rest of the spirits. 261
Evans, P. and Stephens, J. (1988) "Studying
Development Since the Sixties: The Emergence of a New Comparative Political
Economy," Theory and Society, No. 17, pp. 713-745.
- The
modernization approach projected a trajectory for developing countries
that replicated the experience of the advanced capitalist countries. Variations from this track were
theorized as aberrations, deviations to be corrected. This left proponents of the theory
open to charges of ethnocentrism and created problems for those trying to
explicate the apparently deviant paths of particular cases. 715
- Instead
of assuming that increased contact between core and periphery would foster
more rapid development as modernization theorists and traditional Marxists
had, the "dependency school" made the opposite assumption. 717
- The
principle obstacle to change at the local level was not irrational
attachments to traditional values, it was the very rational attempts of
local elites and their foreign allies to defend their own power and
privilege. 717
- The
world-system approach provides a vision in which the logic of capital
accumulation dictates not just relations among classes but also those
among states and geographically defined zones of production. The position of individual states
and societies within the world system may shift, but the structure of the
system as a whole defines the pattern of development both globally and
within individual societies.
718
- The
new comparative political economy has not aimed at charting progress along
a presumed unilinear path of societal development but rather an
uncovering, interpreting and explaining distinctive patterns of
development. 719
- Versions
of the dependency perspective in which the interests of international
capital are implacably opposed to Third World interests and cutting ties
with international economy is the best development strategy can no longer
be sustained. 725
- From
the way in which it treats questions of "dependency" to its attempt
to include geopolitics in the analysis of North-South relations, the
approach of the new comparative political economy to the international
system is clearly consistent with its approach to class analysis and the
state. A more interactive
view of the dynamics connecting domestic and international factors that
gives greater weight to geopolitical motivations complicates the analysis
of development, just as the approach taken to class analysis and the state
complicates earlier perspectives on domestic dynamics. 727
- To
apply the apparatus of rational choice to a process of social change, the
relevant decisions and the social actors who have the power to effect them
must already have been identified.
731
Evans, P. and Stephens, J. (1988) “Development and the
World Economy, in Neil Smelser’s Handbook of Sociology, Newbury Park,
CA: Sage Publications, pp. 739-773.
- The
emergence of “modernization theory” in the late fifties and early sixties
set the stage for the contemporary synthesis. The body of literature built around the concept of
modernization was the first substantial set of writings by mainstream
sociologists and political scientists that focused on what was happening
in the Third World. Interest in
modernization clearly stemmed in part from America’s new position of
international hegemony, but it also grew out of a rediscovery of the
central themes of classical nineteenth-century sociology. 739
- Thomas
Kuhn is responsible for the most dramatic model of how theoretical visions
evolve. In his view,
scientific paradigms always generate, along with evidence that confirms
their validity, anomalies that they cannot explain. When the burden of the anomalies
grows too great, e new paradigm eventually emerges, which views the same
evidence in a new light, interprets it in different ways, and opens new
avenues for amassing additional knowledge. 740
- Originally
designed to model American society, Parsonian-structural functionalism
became the underpinning for an important stream of what came to be known as
“modernization theory.” His
reconstruction was both an exegesis of the nineteenth-century classics and
an original model in his own right.
741
- Marx
seemed to believe that “the country that is more developed industrially
only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future (Marx,
1867, pp. 8-9). 743
- [Dependency
and the World System] Ties
with developed countries was the problem, not the solution. 745
- The
principle obstacle to change at the local level was not irrational
attachments to traditional values, it was the very rational attempts of
local elites and their foreign allies to defend their own power and
privilege. 745
- It
is not that industrialization produces the working class, which in turn
produces the welfare state; rather, it is that the variable strength of
working-class organizations, which is in turn dependent on other
political, economic, and historical factors, is responsible for variations
in the distributive impact and expenditure patterns of the welfare state. 747
- All
social institutions are transformed by development. New forces of production create
new relations between gender and work that in turn restructure family
roles. The intrusion of the
market disrupts communities and stimulates new social movements. Technological advances in
information processing alter both the content of cultural communication
and the possibilities for political repression. The increasing intensity of interconnection between the
international political economy and domestic social structures produces an
equally wide range of effects.
International migration restructures the labor markets of both
sending and receiving countries while the growth of international capital
markets creates new constraints on social welfare policies. Any selection of a few “issues and
debates” out of myriad possibilities must be considered in some respects
arbitrary. 748
- Traditional
reading of neoclassical economic theory suggested that the state’s
developmental role was best limited to ensuring property rights and eliminating
obstacles to the emergence of efficient markets. Modernization theory appeared to offer the same
prescription. 749
- …dependency
theorists argued that reliance on markets domestically meant the eventual
dominion of transnational capital and that the “unequal exchange” that
occurred as a result of participation in international markets prejudiced
the developmental prospects of the Third World. 749
- Lipset
argued that there is a functional interdependence between various aspects
of development and democracy: industrialization and urbanization are
associated with increases in wealth, education, and literacy, mass
communication, income equality, and the size of the middle class, and
these in turn facilitate the development of political democracy. 752
- Scholars
using comparative historical case studies to attack the problem rejected
the results of cross-national statistical studies, arguing that the
general prediction accounted for neither the timing of the emergence of
democracy in Europe, the regression to authoritarian rule in major
European powers in the interwar period, nor the fact that a number of
major developing countries had shown an “elective affinity” for
authoritarian rule rather than democracy as their economic development
proceeded. 752
- At
the beginning of this period [1870-1920] no country was democratic; by the
end, three-quarters were. As
Therborn (1977) points out, in almost all these countries, the organized
working class and the socialist parties representing them played a key
role in pressing for the breakthrough of democracy. The strength of the working class
in itself does not, however, explain the emergence of democracy. Success in the struggle for
democracy depended on the ability of the working class to find allies;
failure was predicated on the emergence of an antidemocratic coalition
with agrarian roots. 752
- The
war and its outcome accelerated the transition to democracy because it
changed the balance of power in society strengthening the working class
and weakening the upper class.
752
- Since
both Marxist theory and the modernization approach have assumed a secular
trend toward large-scale , bureaucratically organized production, this
research suggests either that both theories are wrong or that the
internationalization of labor has a regressive effect on the way in which
work is organized in the advanced countries. Instead of being able to benefit from the more
protective institutions that prevail in the labor markets they were
entering, immigrants find themselves unable to escape the organizational
form that prevailed in the labor markets they left behind. The consequences of transitional
capital flows from labor are also symmetrical. Even in the NICs, which have received the largest
influx of international capital, informal labor markets that allow labor
little protection persist. In
addition, repressive institutional arrangements in these countries
drastically curtail the extent to which the increased supply of capital
improves labor’s bargaining.
756-7
- Because
the modernization of productive capacity has not been accompanied by
commensurate advances in local labor organization, Third World workers
have not benefited to the degree that the modernization approach might
have predicted. 757
- The
combined effects of the internationalization of markets for labor,
capital, and commodities increase the degree to which First World workers
while undercutting the historically constructed institutional arrangements
that characterize advanced industrial countries. 757
- …modernization
approach, which sees links between developed and developing countries as
simply channels for the infusion of modern cultural traits or
opportunities to benefit the workings of comparative advantage. The contemporary synthesis of
these two positions views positive effects of international ties as
possible but contingent on the ability of Third World states to
renegotiate the nature of their links to the industrial north. 757
- north-south
economic ties are not simply given to the structure of the international
economy but also depend on the political will and skill of Third-World
states, which in turn depend on patterns of alliance and conflict among
local classes and economic groups as well as the nature of the state
apparatus itself. 757
- The
aim is rather to explicate the political and social structural factors
that enable individual countries to transform ties to their benefit, while
simultaneously analyzing the way in which the changing structures at the
international level facilitate or limit possibilities for
transformation. 757
- Dependency
and world-system theories, following the lead of Marxist theories of
imperialism tended to reduce geopolitical maneuvering to economic
interests and motivations.
758
- Overall,
recent work on the interaction of national development and the world
political economy has four salient characteristics. First, it has attempted to examine
the consequences of international flows for domestic institutions and how
these are different in different regions of the world system. Second, it has moved towards a
synthesis of the modernization and dependency positions on the
consequences of international ties for developing countries, emphasizing
the contingent character of these consequences. Third, it has moved toward a more recursive view in
which the world political economy both shapes and is shaped by the
historical trajectories of development within individual
nation-states. Finally, it
has brought geopolitics back into the traditional economic analysis of
core-periphery relations.
758-9
Singer, H., and Ansari, J. (1988) Rich and Poor
Countries: Consequences of International Disorder, 4th ed.,
London: Unwin Hyman.
- A
slowing-down of growth and rising unemployment combined with speeded-up
inflation expressed itself in a major recession in the industrialized
countries. 'Stagflation' was an entirely new experience because the
foundation of the Bretton Woods system was a trade-off between
unemployment and inflation. 10
Arrighi, G. (1989) “The Developmentalist Illusion: A
Reconceptualization of the Semiperiphery,” pp. 11-42.
- Semiperipheral
states (often referred to as "semi-industrial" or
"semi-industrialized") are then defined as states that occupy an
intermediate position in this network of unequal exchange: they reap only
marginal benefits when they exchange with core states, but they reap most
of the net benefits when they exchange with peripheral states. This conceptualization is based on
a number of assumptions that in my view are highly questionable on both
priori and historical grounds.
The first questionable assumption is that
"industrialization" is the equivalent of "development"
and the "core" is the same as "industrial." Interestingly enough, this
assumption cuts across the great divide between the dependency and the
modernization schools. For
both schools, to "develop" is to "industrialize" by
definition. 11
- Following
Marx and Schumpeter, world-systems analysis conceives of capitalism as an
evolutionary system in which the stability of the whole is premised on the
perennial change in and of the parts. 15
- Processes
of exploitation provide core states and their agents with the means to
initiate and sustain processes of exclusion. Processes of exclusion generate the poverty necessary
to induce the rulers and subjects of peripheral and semiperipheral states
to continually seek reentry into the world division of labor on conditions
favorable to core states. 17
- The
very success of struggle against exploitation leads to self-exclusion from
access to the wealthiest markets and the most dynamic sources of
innovations. Individuals
states can and do succeed in crossing the gulf that separates the modest
wealth of the semiperiphery from the oligarchic wealth of the core, as
Japan has recently done and few others did before Japan. But individual successes lead to a
tightening of the exclusionary and exploitative tendencies of core states
and thereby deepen and widen the gulf for those who are left behind. It therefore becomes inherently
more and more difficult to change status upward. 18
- Wealth
is long-term income. 18
- While
industrialization was used to develop military capabilities comparable to
those of core states, proletarianization was a key instrument in providing
the resulting military-industrial complexes with the human and natural
resources required by their development, maintenance, and competitive
expansion. 29
- What
kind of world-system will emerge out of this turmoil is hard to say. On the one hand, the escalation of
racial, ethnic, and religious animosities in the semiperiphery may link up
with and enhance similar trends in the core and periphery. Left unchecked, this tendency may
well plunge the world into a situation of systematic chaos worse than that
of the first half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, the attempts and struggles to
contain and counteract this escalation may create in the semiperiphery new
forms of popular democracy capable of laying the foundation of less exploitative
and exclusionary world-system.
35
Chase-Dunn, C. (1989) Global Formation: Structures of
the World Economy, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, pp. 201-333.
- It
has been discovered that the so-called developed and undeveloped regions
are often in interaction with one another, and that this interaction often
importantly alters the structures of both partners. 201
- Much
of the literature about the evolution of states and empires supports the
notion that core/periphery systems have been important dimensions of
organization in the ancient world systems. 202
- …core
states are internally and externally strong, contain relatively integrated
nations, and have articulated national economies in which production is
relatively capital intensive and ages are relatively high. Core states have relatively less
internal economic and political inequality than do peripheral states. 203
- …in
comparison with historically previous world-systems, this world system is
much less reliant on direct political-military coercion, and more reliant
on economic exploitation which is organized through the production and
sale of commodities. 204
- Wallerstein
and other theorists have criticized the notion that equates the
core/periphery dimension with a division of labor between processed
manufactures and the production of raw materials or agricultural
commodities--the level of processing. Both raw material and agricultural production may be
carried out as core production if capital intensive technology is combined
with skilled, well paid labor, it is argued. Thus the distinction between core agriculture and
peripheral agriculture, and also core industry and peripheral industry, is
made possible, with the underlying difference having to do with the level
of profits and wages, and these are assumed to be associated with the relative
degree of capital intensity.
205
- Arrighi
and Drangel argue that core activity consists in the ability of some
actors to capture relatively greater returns by protecting themselves to
some extent from the forces of competition. Peripheral activity, on the other hand, is exposed to
strong competition and thus the levels of returns (profit, rent, and
wages) is low. 206
- I
will define core activity as a certain kind of production of relatively
capital intensive commodities (core commodities) which employ relatively
skilled, relatively high paid labor.
This is a relational idea because the level of capital intensity
which constitutes core production during a specific period is defined as
relative to the average level of capital intensity in the world-system as
a whole. Since average
capital intensity is a rising trend, forms of production which once were
core production may become peripheral production at a later time. 207
- Rather
than core/periphery dimension is a continuous variable between constellations
of economic activities which vary in terms of their average relative
levels of capital intensity versus labor intensity. 207
- …in
the sense of completely self-contained economic systems, there are no
national economies in the world-system. But regions and nation states do differ in terms of
their relative levels of economic integration, as pointed out by
dependency theorists and Marxists scholars such as Amin and de
Janvry. 208
- It
is worthwhile to remember that core states are also dependent on the existence
of the larger world-economy, but it is important to recognize the very
different extent and nature of this dependence. 208
- As
suggested by Galtung's terms, "the periphery of the center" and
"the center of the periphery," there are important regional inequalities
within countries. Many of the
processes of uneven development which we study at the level of the world-
system also occur within countries… . 209
- The
semiperiphery idea is an important one because it enables us to focus on
how the existence of intermediate regions affects core/periphery dynamics
in the world system as a whole.
It also encourages us to examine the ways in which intermediate
actors have different strategies, and intermediate states have different
developmental possibilities--different in the sense of systematically
differentiated from either typical core or typical peripheral
regions. Wallerstein does not
claim that the semiperiphery is a homogenous zone or set of states. Rather he contends that being in a
semiperipheral location vis-ŕ-vis the core/periphery is a condition
which encourages certain kinds of behavior. 211
- The
idea of semiperipheral states containing a balance of both core and
peripheral activities is useful because this condition is likely to
produce contradictory economic and political interests within the
boundaries of a single state.
Wallerstein argues that this was an important reason why France was
unable to make a more effective bid for hegemony in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Though
France was definitely a core power, the effort to hold together a vast
territory with conflicting and regional interests reduced the resources
available for competition with England for hegemony, and produced an
ambivalent and vacillating international economic policy. 211
- The
definition of core and periphery described above focuses on relative
levels of the capital intensity of commodity production. This is an indicator of the
economic basis of national power in a capitalist world-economy, but other
theorists conceptualize the core/periphery hierarchy more directly in
terms of power relationships among states. 215
- It
is somewhat ironic that the very measure which is most often used by
modernizationists as an indicator of national "development"--GNP
per capita--is also arguably an indicator of world-system position. 216
- …in
most cases high GNP per capita designates high productivity per labor hour
due to the employment of capital intensive production techniques. 216
- …capitalist
imperialism (the export of capital to peripheral areas, the extraction of
raw materials, and the penetration of new markets) is simply an
alternative which exists for core capital, but is not necessary to the
reproduction and expansion of capitalist social relations. This supposes the possible
existence of a world in which the core/periphery hierarchy has disappeared
and yet capitalism remains the dominant mode of production. 221
- …the
core areas of the world-system remain dominated by capitalists. Socialists revolutions have
happened, not in the core as Marx predicted, but rather in the
semiperiphery and the periphery.
221
- [Marx] "The discovery of gold and
silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of
the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of
the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial
hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist
production."
- This
direct use of coercive force has moved slowly in the direction of
institutionalized economic power based on law and private property,
although the element of coercion in core/periphery relations and within
the periphery is still greater than within the core. 225-6
- It
is simply not the case that world-system theory only has implications for
processes which operate at the level of the whole system. 313
- There
is only one world-system now, but historically there have been many and a
social scientist may make systematic comparisons across these cases in
order to bring evidence to bear on a hypothesis. 315
Gereffi, G. (1989) “Rethinking Development Theory:
Insights East Asia and Latin America,” Sociological
Forum, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 505-533.
- Japan
and its regional neighbors South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore,
have made the most impressive economic strides of any nations in the world
in the postwar era. They
registered record economic growth rates not only during the prosperous
1960s when international trade and investment were expanding worldwide,
but they also have managed to sustain their dynamism throughout the 1970s
and 1980s in the face of severe oil price hikes, a global recession, and
rising protectionism in their major export markets. 506
Stephens, J. ( March 1989) “Democratic Transition and
Breakdown in Western Europe, 1870-1939: A Test of the Moore Thesis,” American
Journal of Sociology, Vol. 94, No. 5, pp. 1019-77.
- The
condition for the development of a peasant revolution leading to communism
is the existence of a weak bourgeoisie, a powerful agrarian elite, a
highly centralized state, and high peasant revolutionary potential owing
to increased traditional forms of exploitation in noncommercialized
agriculture, the existence of solidaristic peasant communities, and weak
ties to the (often absentee) landlords. 1021
- The
critical condition for the development of fascism is the development of a
coalition of large landholders, the crown (the monarch, bureaucracy, and
military—i.e., the state), and a politically dependent bourgeoisie of
medium strength. 1) The landed
upper classes must be strong, or, more precisely, they must be the
politically dominant force into the modern era (i.e., late 19th
century), and must retain a significant amount of that power in a
“democratic interlude.” 2) …
The method of labor control leads the landlords to seek an alliance with
those in control of the means of coercion, the state, and it accounts for
the strong antidemocratric impulse of the aristocracy. 3) The country has to have experienced
sufficient industrialization so that the bourgeoisie is a politically
significant actor, but it cannot be more politically powerful than the
landed classes. … 4) The
bourgeoisie is kept in a politically dependent position as
industrialization is aided, and to some extent directed, by the state through
protection, state credits to industrialists, state development of
infrastructure, promotion of modern skills, and even state development of
enterprises later handed over to private entrepreneurs. … 5) … The dependence of the
bourgeoisie on the state in the German case was conditioned by the
top-down nature industrialization, which was made possible by the
existence of a strong bureaucratic state. … 6) Finally, there must be no revolutionary break with
the past. Thus, peasant
revolutionary potential must be low (for the obverse reasons pointed to in
the case of peasant revolution), or else the whole process, in particular
the power of the landlords, would have been broken earlier. 1021-3
- Lipset
(1960) argued that there is a strong relationship between socioeconomic
development and democracy… (S.M. Lipset, 1960, Political Man, Garden City, NY: Anchor). 1024
- Lipset
argued that industrialization leads to increased wealth, education,
communications, and equality, which, in turn, are associated with a more
moderate lower and upper class and a larger middle class (which is by
nature moderate); and this in turn increased the probability of democratic
politics. Subsequent,
considerably more elaborate, cross-national statistical studies all
confirmed that there was a strong relationship between socioeconomic
development and democracy.
1024
- Industrialization
in early industrializers, such as Britain, France, and Belgium, was
propelled by the light consumer goods industries, especially
textiles. The relatively
small amount of capital required for the development of these industries
facilitated industrialization without dependence on the state… 1025
- …military
success was one factor that distinguished the successful state builders
from the unsuccessful ones, and success in war was greatly facilitated by
“strong coalitions between the central power and major segments of the
landed elite” (Charles Tilly, 1975, Reflections on the History of European
State-Making,” pp. 3-83, in The
Formation of National States in Western Europe, edited by C. Tilly,
Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp. 40-44) 1028
- By
the eve of World War I, Switzerland (1880s), Norway (1898), and France
(1875-84 for the consolidation of parliamentary government based on male
suffrage and rights of assembly, etc., or 1913 for the secret ballot
reform) had become democratic, and in 1915 Denmark joined this group. 1029
- The
change in the underlying class structure as indicated by labor-force
figures is significant enough: between 1870 and 1910, the nonagricultural
workforce grew in these countries by one-third to one-half, to an average
of 61%. The change at the
level of class formation and class organization was even more significant:
in no country in 1870 were the socialists a significant mass-based party,
and the trade unions organized a miniscule proportion of the labor force…
1034
- In
the immediate postwar elections, the socialists’ electoral share increased
to an average of 32%, while trade union organization grew spectacularly, increasing
two and a half-fold. The
organized working class were also the most consistently prodemocratic
force in the period under consideration: at the onset of World War I,
European labor movements, all members of the Second International, had
converged on an ideology that placed the achievement of universal suffrage
and parliamentary government at the center of their immediate
program. 1034
- First,
in the two agrarian democracy cases (Switzerland and Norway), the role of
the working class was secondary or nonexistent even in the final push to
democracy. Second, in other
cases, not only did the working class need allies in the final push; in
earlier democratic reforms, multiclass alliances were responsible for the
success of the reform (France, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, and
Belgium). 1035
- [In
Italy] Forces internal to the state, particularly the security forces,
also contributed to the fascist victory. Most army officers were sympathetic to the extreme
nationalist organization, and, at crucial points, such as the Fiume
invasion and the march on Rome, the government was reluctant to order the
army to act against the radical nationalist for fear that they would not
obey. The police generally
tolerate, often facilitated, and sometimes even participated in the
violent attacks of the Fascists on the Socialists, peasant organizations,
and trade unions. Without
such help from the security forces, the tremendous growth of the movement
in the critical winter-spring of 1920-21 would have been impossible. 1044
- Eley
(1984) argues that the origins of Imperial Germany’s authoritarianism lie
in the combination of an aristocratic enclave in the state, the threat of
a powerful socialist labor movement, and important economic and religious
divisions in the bourgeoisie that prevented the presentation of a united
political front. In addition,
the high degree of concentration in the Germany economy gave large
employers a capacity for repression on the industrial front, which manifested
itself in a largely successful anti-union drive in the late Imperial
period. This made compromise
with labor a less necessary and attractive alternative. (Geoff Ely, 1984,
“The British Model and German Road: Rethinking the Course of German History
Before 1914,” pp, 39-158, in The
Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in
Nineteenth Century Germany, by David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.)
- …the
Swedish Bourgeoisie did not have the option of allying with an agrarian
upper class with an electoral base in the countryside. Thus, it was relatively isolated,
and resistance to democratic reform was a less realistic option. 1048
- An
examination of election results in this period indicates that the Nazis
received votes from everyone who was not absorbed in the socialist/working
class or Catholic countercultures.
I contend that the authoritarian and militaristic ideology of the
ruling groups of Imperial Germany contributed to the susceptibility of
every other sector of the population to the reactionary appeals of
Naziism. Under the influence
of the increasingly desperate economic conditions of the Depression, these
social groups turned from the traditional conservative authoritarianism of
their old parties to the radical racist authoritarianism of the
Nazis. 1051
- …the
Nazis failed to penetrate the socialist and Catholic countercultures. 1052
- The
overview of the transition to democracy conformed Therborn’s (1977)
contention that the working class, represented by socialist parties and
trade unions, was the single most important force in the majority of
countries in the final push for universal male suffrage and responsible
government, though in several of the small holding countries the small
peasants or the urban middle class played the major role. This contradicts the modernization
view, as advanced by Lipset (1960), which argues that economic development
and democracy are connected primarily through the expansion of education,
the growth of the middle class, and so on. Rather, it was the growth of the working class and its
capacity for self-organization that were most critical for the final
breakthrough of democracy.
(Goran Therborn, 1977, “The Rule of Capital and the Rise of
Democracy,” New Left Review,
103:3-41) 1064
- …by
focusing only on the final step of the process, Therborn rather
exaggerates the role of the politically organized working class. The working class needed allies in
the final push, and earlier suffrage extensions that incorporated substantial
sections of the lower classes, rural and urban, were often led by other
social groups, usually the urban middle class or small peasantry, with the
working class playing only a supporting role. 1065
- Rokkan
argued that the overlapping of nation building and mass mobilization
created a climate favorable to the development of mass
hypernationalism. One can add
to this the experience of World War I, which was also a component in the
fascist trajectory, as it was directly related to the development of the
right-wing paramilitary organizations that fed into fascism. Thus as I argued in my initial
discussion of Moor’s work, fascism was only one form of modern capitalist
authoritarianism; it is not equivalent to it, as Moore indicates. (Stein Rokkan, and Jean Meyriat,
1969, International Guide to Electoral
Statistics, The Hague: Mouton.) 1069
- …agricultural
modernization was a necessary feature of all successful developers because
of the macroeconomic function of agriculture as a market for manufactured
goods and because of industry’s contribution to rising agricultural
productivity. Land
concentration, and thus income concentration, impeded the former. 1072
- …though
autonomous state action contributed to the outcome and adequate state
repressive capacity was essential to it, the capacity to intervene
effectively in the economy, to develop modern skills in the population,
and so on was not essential for the installation of modern
authoritarianism. 1073
Amin, S., Arrighi, G., Frank, A., and Wallerstein, E.
(1990) Transforming the Revolution: Social Movements and the World System,
New York: Monthly Review Press.
- We
believe that we cannot make an intelligent analysis of the various states
taken separately without placing their so called internal-life in the
context of the world division of labor, located in the world economy. Nor
can we make a coherent analysis that segregates "economic",
"political" and "social" variables. 9
- We
believe that we cannot begin to appreciate this history or these current
dilemmas without placing these movements within the framework of the
historical evolution of the capitalist world-economy as a whole, of which
these movements themselves have been an integral part. 10
"Conclusion: A Friendly Debate," pp. 233-243
- Lenin's
concept of imperialism (a transformation of competition from market
competition among enterprises into military competition, i.e., war, among
core states. 235
- For
Amin, nationalism today cannot develop significantly in the absence of
socialist content.238
- it
is capitalism's success that will breed it failure; that the more
capitalism expands, recuperates oppositions, and adjusts difficulties, the
more its is led into impasses from which there is no exit. 243
Inglehart, R. (1990) Culture Shift in Advanced
Industrial Society, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, chapters 1,
2, and 13.
- From
a Marxist perspective, nationalization of industry and state control of
the economy constituted the core solution to all other social problems:
Abolishing private ownership of the means of production would eradicate exploitation,
oppression, alienation, crime, and war. 8
- In
the American context, the liberals were those who supported a growing role
for the state; the conservatives were those who opposed it, Well into the
1970s, Western political elites continued to define the meanings of “Left”
and “right” in terms of state intervention in the economy and
society. 8
- It
no longer seems self-evident that the expansion of state authority
constitutes progress—even to those on the Left. One of the key developments of recent years has been a
growing skepticism about the desirability and effectiveness of state
planning and control, a growing concern for individual autonomy, and a
growing respect for market forces.
8
- …the
growth of the welfare state has begun to reach its limits: when government
expenditures reach 60 percent of gross national product (as is now the
case in a number of Western societies), there is virtually no room for
further expansion; taxation becomes massive, and the majority of the
public feels the burden. 10
- Because
populations tend to increase until they meet the available food supply,
most cultures have been forced to deal with problems of scarcity. For human beings, cooperative
behavior is generally a more effective response to this problem than a war
of all against all—and virtually all societies tend to temper ruthless
economic competition by inculcating norms of sharing, mutual obligation,
and cooperation. 13
- …rational
choice models have fruitfully analyzed the relationships between economics
and politics, but left unexplored the linkages that culture has with both
politics and economics. 15
- The
recent economic history of advanced industrial societies has significant
implications in light of the scarcity hypothesis. These societies are a remarkable
exception to the prevailing historical pattern: The bulk of their
population does not live under conditions of hunger and economic
insecurity. This fact seems
to have lead to a gradual shift in which needs for belonging, esteem, and
intellectual aesthetic satisfaction became more prominent. As a rule, we would expect
prolonged periods of high prosperity to encourage the spread of
Postmaterialist values; economic decline would have the opposite effect. 68
- The
unprecedented economic and physical security of the postwar era has led to
an intergenerational shift from Materialist to Postmaterialist
values. The young emphasize
Postmaterialist goals to a far greater extent than do the old, and cohort
analysis indicates that this reflects generational change far more than it
does aging effects. 103
- Given
that gradual impact of replacement, it seems likely that even by the year
2000 Materialists will still be about as numerous as
Postmaterialists. 103
- …surveys
carried out repeatedly over many years show enduring cross-national
differences in levels of overall life satisfaction, happiness, political
satisfaction, interpersonal trust, and support for the existing social
order. 422
- …the
younger and better-educated birth cohorts consistently showed high levels
of politicization than did the older groups in their country; and
politicization levels have been gradually rising in most countries as
younger cohorts replace older ones in the adult populations. 423
- …intergenerational
population replacement during this period led to a gradual decline in the
proportion of Materialists and an increase in the proportion of
Postmaterialists among Western publics. 423
- Materialist/Postmaterialists
values seem to be part of a broader syndrome of orientations involving
motivation to work, political outlook, attitudes toward the environment
and nuclear power, the role of religion in people’s lives, the likelihood
of getting married or having children, and attitudes toward the role of
women, homosexuality, divorce, abortion, and numerous other topics. 423
- Wars
of conquest seemed inevitable because they were potentially
profitable. Throughout
history, tribes and nations have fought to control hunting grounds, water,
agricultural land, and other natural resources. Under conditions of extreme scarcity, such wars might
be the only means for a given people to survive. 424
- …for
one high-technology society to attack another would be irrational because
the costs would vastly outweigh any conceivable gains: Nuclear weapons,
together with equally deadly bacteriological and chemical ones, enable
both sides to destroy in minutes far more than they would gain even in the
event of total victory and enslavement of the enemy. 424-5
- Imperialism
loses its cost-effectiveness for societies with a high technological
level, which may be why the last Western power to give up her colonial
empire was Portugal—by far the poorest country in Western Europe, with a
per capita income about one-quarter of that of Britain and France. 425
- With
economic development and the rise of Postmaterialist values, people not
only have less need to plunder their neighbors, but seem to become less
willing to do so. 425
- …not
only does the cost/benefit ration become unfavorable to imperialism at
high levels of technology; even more important, safer and easier ways to
get rich become available.
425
- Throughout
the communist world, carious regimes are experimenting with ways to
diminish the stultifying effects of excessive centralized control and to
give greater scope to individual initiative. 427
- Evidence
from numerous countries makes it clear that Postmaterialists are far
likelier than Materialists to give a high priority to self-expression, not
only on the job and in the community, but in national politics as
well. 429
- Postmaterialists
have markedly lower rates of economic growth, much high divorce rates, and
much lower birth rates, than do societies that remain predominantly
Materialists. Culture not
only responds to changes in the environment; it also helps shape the
social, economic, and political world. Culture provides maps of the universe. The maps are crude, but we use
them because they provide some guidance on how to get where we want to go
and a sense of what life means.
432
- …the
desire to know and understand is inherent in human nature. How to make a living may be the
first question people ask, but the question of why we live will
probably always be with us.
433
- The
story of humanity may turn out to be a cruel joke, if we use our
technological cleverness to exterminate the species. Or we could go onto heights still
undreamed of, reaching a mobility a little lower than the angels. The answer is not yet in. 433
So, A. (1990) Social Change
and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-Systems Theory, Newbury
Park, CA: Sage Publications.
- Without
theories, social scientists would find it difficult to carry out empirical
research. Scientists use theories to help them define what needs to be
studied, and to guide them in sharpening research questions and in
deciding what evidence is necessary to support their arguments. In this
respect, theories are very powerful research tools. Theories shape
researchers’ thinking
processes, lay the foundation for their analytical frameworks,
guide their research theses, and set their research agendas. In addition,
theories lead researchers to adopt certain methodologies, attract them to
examine certain data sets, and influence them to draw certain conclusions
and policy implications.11
- Theories
are not static entities. They attack other theories, and they defend their
own arguments. After engaging in heated theoretical debates, they can
transform themselves into better research tools than they were before. The
field of development offers a perfect example of the dynamics of change in
theoretical perspectives.12
- In
presenting these three schools, I have adopted an approach that can be
called “a generous interpretation”. For example, in reviewing the key
theories of the modernization school, I take on the perspective of a
modernization researcher. I take the position of an advocate, presenting
modernization theories in as strong a light as impossible, trying to
convince the reader of the merits of the modernization school.14
- It
is appropriate to characterize modernization studies as belonging to a
school because their researchers formed an energetic “social movement with
its own sources of funds, close interpersonal links and rivalries, its own
journals and publication series, a sense of shared mission and
camaraderie, and, of course, its hangers on, peripheral allies, and even
its acceptable heretics.” (Chirot, D. (1981) “Changing Fashions in the
Study of Social Causes of Economic and Political Change,” pp.259-282 in
James Short (ed.) The State of Sociology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage,
p. 261.) 18
- The
classical evolutionary theory had the following features (see Comte 1964).
First, it assumed that social change is unidirectional; that is, human society
invariably moves along one direction from a primitive to a advanced state,
thus the fate of human evolution is predetermined. Second, it imposed a
value judgment on the evolutionary process the movement toward the final
phase is good because it represents progress, humanity, and civilization.
Third, it assumed that the rate of social change is slow, gradual, and
piecemeal evolutionary, not revolutionary. The evolution from a simple,
primitive society to a complex, modern society will take centuries to
complete.19
- For
Parsons, human society is like a biological organism and can be studied as
such. The organism metaphor
provides the key to understanding Parsons ’s work. 20
- Just
as the parts that make up a biological organism (such as the eye and the hand)
are interrelated and interdependent in their interaction with one another,
so the institutions in a society (such as the economy and the government)
are closely related to one another. Parsons uses the concept of “system”
to denote the harmonious coordination among institutions. Second, just as
each part of a biological organism performs a specific function for the
good of the whole, so each institution performs a certain function for the
stability and growth of the society. Parsons formulates the concept of
“functional imperatives,” arguing that there are four crucial functions
that every society must perform, otherwise the society will die:
- Adaptation
to the environment performed by the economy
- Goal
attainment performed by the government
- Integration
(linking the institutions together) performed by the legal institutions
and religion
- Latency
(pattern maintenance of values from generation to generation) performed
by the family and education. 20
- If
one of the parts changes, then the other parts will change accordingly in
order to restore equilibrium and reduce tension. 21
- When
one institution experiences social change, it causes a chain reaction of
changes in other institutions so as to restore equilibrium. From this
angle, Parsons’ social system is not a static, stationary unchanging
entity; rather, the institutions that constitute the system are always
changing and adjusting. 21
- As
the left hand of the human body will not fight with the right hand, so
Parsons assumes that institutions will generally be in harmony, rather
than in conflict, with one other. Furthermore, as a biological organism
will not kill itself, so Parsons assumes that society will not destroy its
existing institutions. 21
- For
Levy, modernization is defined by the extent to which tools and inanimate
sources of power are utilized. 24
- Levy
further argues that all relatively nonmodernized societies have more in
common with each other as regards social structure, than with any
relatively modernized societies. 24
- The
patterns of the relatively modernized societies, once developed, have
shown a universal tendency to penetrate any social context whose
participants have come in contact with them…. The pattern always
penetrate; once the penetration has begun, the previous indigenous
patterns always change; and they always change in the direction of some of
the patterns of the relatively modernized society.24
- According
to Levy, relatively nonmodernized societies are characterized by the
following: low degree of specialization; high level of self-sufficiency;
cultural norms of tradition, particularism, and functional diffuseness;
relatively little emphasis on money circulation and market; family norms
such as nepotism; and one-way flow of goods and services from area to
urban areas. In contrast, the characteristics of relatively modernized
societies include the following: high degree of specialization and
interdependency of organizations; cultural norms of rationality,
universalism, and functional specificity; high degree of centralization;
relatively great emphasis on money circulation and market; the need of
centralization; relativity great emphasis on money circulation and market;
the need to insulate bureaucracy from other context; and two-way flow of
goods and services between towns and villages. 25
- For
Smelser, modernization generally involves structural differentiation
because, though the modernization process, a complicated structure that
performed multiple functions is divided into many specialized structures
that perform just one function each. The new collection of specialized
structures, as a whole, performs the same functions as the original
structure, but the functions are performed more efficiently in the new
context than they were in the old. 26
- What
happens after a complicated institution has differentiated into many
simpler ones? Smelser argues that although structural differentiation has
increased the functional capacity of institutions, it has also created the
problem of integration, that is, of coordinating the activities of
the various new institutions. 27
- According
to Smelser, new institutions and roles have to be created to coordinate
the newly differentiated structures. 27
- According
to Smelser, social disturbances are the result of lack of integration
among differentiated structures. These disturbances can take the form of
peaceful agitation, political violence, nationalism, revolution, or
guerrilla warfare. Those who are displaced by structural differentiation
are most likely to participate in these social disturbances. 28
- Then,
according to Rostow, after moving beyond the precondition stage, a country
that wants to have self-sustained economic growth must have the following
structure for takeoff: Capital and resources must be mobilized so as to
raise the rate of productive investment to 10% of national income,
otherwise economic growth cannot overtake the rate of population growth.
29
- First,
productive investment can come from income detained though confiscatory
and taxation devices. For example, in Meiji Japan, productive investment
was obtained thought very heavy taxation of the peasantry in order to
transfer economic resources from the countryside to the city. In socialist
Russia, also, productive investment was obtained by confiscating the
landlords’ property and channeling it into urban investment. Second,
productive investment can come from such institutions as banks, capital
markets, government bonds, and the stock market, which serve to channel
the nation’ resources into the economy. Third, productive investment can
be obtained though foreign trade. Foreign earnings from exports can be
used to finance the importation of foreign technology and equipment.
Fourth, direct foreign capital investment such as building subways and
opening mines can also provide productive investment for Third World
countries. The critical factor, therefore, is to have 10% or more of the
national income to be plowed back continuously into the economy. 30
- Based
on his five-stage model of growth (traditional society, precondition for
takeoff , takeoff, the drive to maturity, and high mass-consumption
society), Rostow has found a possible solution for the promotion of Third
World modernization. 30
- Coleman
refers to differentiation is the process of progressive separation and
specialization of role and institutional sphere in the political system.
For example, political differentiation includes the separation of
universalistic legal norms from religious, the separation of religious and
ideology, and the separation between administrative structure and public
political competition. Greater functional specialization, more structural
complexity, and a higher degree of independence of political institutions
are the products of the differentiation process. 31
- The
first set of assumption shared by modernization researchers are certain
concepts drawn from European evolutionary theory.33
- Modernization
is a phased process. 33
- Modernization
is a homogenizing process. 33
- Modernization
is a Europeanization (or Americanization) process. 34
- For
example, since Western Europe and the United State are highly
industrialized and democratic, industrialization and democracy have become
the trademarks of modernization perspective. 34
- Modernization
is an irreversible process. 34
- In other
words, once Third World countries come into contact with the West, they
will not be able to resist the impetus toward modernization. Although the
rate of change will vary from one country to another, the direction of
change will not. Thus Levy calls modernization a “universal social
solvent” that dissolves the traditional traits of the Third World
countries. 34
- Modernization
is a progressive process. 34
- For
Coleman, the modernized political system has a much better capacity to
handle the functions of national identity, legitimacy, penetration,
participation, and distribution than the traditional political system. 34
- Finally,
modernization is a lengthy process. It is an evolutionary change,
not a revolutionary change. It will take generations, or even centuries,
to complete, and its profound impact will be felt only though time. 34
- Influenced
by these Parsonian ideas, modernization researchers have implicitly
formulated the concept of modernization with the following traits. 34
- Modernization
is a systematic process. The attributes of modernity form a
consistent whole, thus appearing in clusters rather than in isolation
(Hermassi 1978). Modernity involves changes in virtually all aspects of
social behavior, including industrialization, urbanization, mobilization,
differentiation secularization, participation, and centralization. 35
- Modernization
is a transformative process. 35
- Modernization
is an immanent process. Due to its systematic and transformative nature,
modernization has built change into the social system. Once a change has
started in one sphere of activity, it will necessarily produce comparative
change in other sphere (Hermassi 1978). 35
- First,
modernization theories help to provide an implicit justification for the
asymmetrical power relationship between “traditional” and “modern”
societies (Tipps 1976) .36
- Second,
modernization theories identify the threat of communism in the Third World
as a modernization problem. 36
- Third,
modernization theories help to legitimate the “meliorative foreign aid policy”
of the United States (Chirot, D. (1981) ”Changing Fashions in the Study of
Social Causes of Economic and Political Change,” pp.259-282 in James
Shorts (ed.) The State of Sociology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, p.
269). 36
- His
cross-national research revealed that countries with high scores on
achievement motivation have high economic development. 40
- According
to McClelland, it takes about 50 years for a nation’s economic development
to match its trend of rising achievement motivation. 40
- Finally,
what are the sources of achievement motivation? Where does it come from?
As a psychologist, McClelland tends to locate it in the family, especially
in the process of parental socialization. 41
- The
following are some of the traits shared by modern men, according to
Inkeless:
- Openness
to new experience: Modern men are willing to try new activities or to
develop new ways of doing things.
- Increasing
independence from authority figures: Modern men are not under the
control of such figures as parents, tribal heads, and emperors.
- Belief
in science: Modern men believe that human beings can conquer nature.
- Mobility
orientation: Modern men are highly ambitious; they want to climb up
the occupational ladder.
- Use
of long-term planning: Modern men always plan ahead and know what
they will accomplish in the next five years.
- Activity
in civil politics: Modern men join voluntary associations and
participate in local community affairs. 42
- He
points out that from Aristotle to the present, the literature tends to
assert that “the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it
will sustain democracy”. (Lipset, S.M. (1963) “Economic Development and
Democracy,” pp. 27-63 in S.M. Lipset Political Man, Garden City,
NY: Anchor, p. 31.) 48
- Lipset
entertains the idea that this high correlation may be a result of the
different phases of modernization: starting with urbanization, followed by
the development of literacy and the mass media, and, finally, leading to
the birth of the democracy institution of participation. 50
- Lipset
basically provides a social class explanation: “Economic development,
producing increased income, greater economic security. And widespread
higher education, largely determines the form of the class struggle (as
above p. 45)” that lays the foundation of democracy. 50
- Naturally,
in poor countries, the upper class resists granting political rights to
the lower class--which often intensifies the latter’s extremist reactions.
On the other hand in wealthy countries, where there are enough resources
for some redistribution to take place, it is easier for the upper class to
extend some rights to the lower class. 51
- ”Wherever
industrialization occurred rapidly, introducing sharp discontinuities
between pre-industrial and industrial situation, more rather than less
extremist working-class movements emerged” (as above, p. 54). This is
because under slow industrialization, workers have been employed in an
industry for a long time, and those newcomers who have been pulled from
the rural areas and who might have supplied the basis for an extremist
party are always in the minority. But if industrialization is rapid, it
results in a sudden growth in the number of unskilled workers from the
rural areas, thereby providing the fuel extremist politics. 52
- Since
the United State has democratic institutions, modernization researchers
assume that democracy is a major component of modernization. But is
democracy necessary for economic development? 54
- The
critics point out that many Third World countries have in fact gotten
worse over the past century. It seems that the modernization process can
be stopped or even reversed, contrary to the claims of the modernization
school. 55
- They
point out that traditional values will always be present in the process of
modernization. As the cultural lag theory points out, traditional values
will persist for a very long time even though the original conditions that
gave rise to them have disappeared. 56
- Modernization
researchers anchor their arguments at such a high level of generalization
that their propositions are beyond time and space limitations. 57
- From
the neo-Marxist viewpoint, the modernization perspective is a cold war
ideology that is used to justify the intervention of the United States in
Third World affairs. 57-8
- Although
modernization researchers simply assume that Third World countries have
attained political autonomy at the termination of formal colonial
domination, the neo-Marxists argues that these countries are still
politically, economically, and culturally dominated by Western countries.
Consequently, the neo-Marxists criticize modernization researchers’
neglect of such a crucial factor as foreign domination in the shaping of
Third World development. 58
- First,
the new modernization studies avoid treating tradition and modernity as a
set of mutually exclusive concepts. In new modernization research,
tradition and modernity not only can coexist, but can penetrate and
intermingle with each another. 61
- As
a result of paying more attention to history and concrete case studies,
the new modernization studies do not assume a unidirectional path of
development toward the Western model. Instead, these studies take it for
granted that Third World countries can pursue their own paths of
development. 61
- The
economic foundation of this benevolent paternalism is that it helps the
entrepreneur to attract and retain workers in industries of highly
fluctuating production. The political consequence of paternalism is that
it retards the growth of class-consciousness among workers. Wong asserts
that when paternalism is working, labor discontent is expressed more in
the form of individual acts, such as absenteeism and resignations, than in
the collective acts of bargaining and strikes. 63
- The
negative enablements. Davis argues that Japanese religious have
posed no obstruction to change for the following reasons. First, with
respect to Buddhism, it had done nothing to prevent the rapid development
of the Japanese countryside. Unlike Islam, Buddhism sought to impose no
sacred law upon society that ultimately would obstruct change. For
example, Buddhism imposes no restrictions on a person’s occupation. Most
Buddhist priests just limit their services to funerals and the routine
performance of ancestral rites. 71
- The
literature’s explanation of this strong correlation between wealth and
democracy is that a wealthy economy makes possible high levels of
literacy, education, and mass media exposure, all of which are conductive
to democracy. A wealthy economy also moderate political tensions through
providing alternative opportunities for unsuccessful political leaders. In
addition, an advanced, complex, industrialized economy cannot be governed
efficiently by authoritarian means; decision making is necessarily
dispersed, power is shared, and rules must be based on the consent of
those affected by them. Furthermore, a country with a wealthy economy
tends to have more equally distributed income than do poor countries, and
thus a smaller impoverished mass. 79
- As
countries develop economically, they move into a zone of transition in
which traditional political institutions become increasingly difficulty to
maintain. Development alone does not determine what political system will
replace those institutions. Instead of moving in a linear direction toward
Western-style democracy countries in the zone of transition may have
choices among different alternatives, and their future evolution is
dependent upon the historical choices made by their political elites. In
short, although economic wealth is a necessary condition for democracy, it
is not a sufficient one. A study of democratic transition, therefore, must
consider other factor. 80
- The
third factor that Huntington highlights is external environment. As
Huntington succinctly states, democratization is the result of diffusion
rather of development, ascribed in large part to British and American
influence, though settlement, colonial rule, defeat in war, or fairly
direct imposition. Where American armies went in World War II, democracy
followed. Where Soviet armies went, communism followed. In this respect,
the rise and fall of democracy on a global scale is a function of the rise
and decline of the most powerful democratic states. 81
- In
Islam, for example, there is no distinction between religious and politics
(or between the spiritual and the secular), and political participation
has historically been an alien concept. 82
- In
sum, Huntington concludes that the preconditions of democratization are
economic wealth, pluralistic social structure (an autonomous bourgeoisie
and a market-oriented economy), greater influence vis-ŕ- vis the society
of existing democratic states, and a culture that is tolerant of diversity
and compromise. He argues that with the exception of a market economy, no
single precondition is necessary to produce such a development. Some
combination of the above preconditions is required for a democratic regime
to emerge, but the nature of the combination can vary greatly from one
case to another. 82
- The
first is a linear model that draws from both British and Swedish
experience. In the British case, democratization progressed from civil
rights to political rights, to gradual development of parliamentary
supremacy and a cabinet government, and finally to an incremental
expansion of suffrage over the course of a century. In the Swedish case,
it took the following route: national unity, prolonged and inconclusive
`political struggle, a conscious decision to adopt democratic rules, and
finally habituation to the working of those rules.83
- The
second model of democratization is a cyclical one of alternating
despotism and democracy. This model is most common in Latin American
nations. In this model, key elites normally accept the legitimacy of
democratic forms. Elections are held from time to time, but rarely is
there any substantial succession of government coming to power though the
electoral process. Governments are as often the product of military
intervention as they are of elections. The military intervenes when a
radical party wins election, when there is economic chaos (e.g., high
inflation and unemployment), or when there is widespread political unrest.
83
- Once
a country enters into this cyclical pattern of alternating military
authoritarian and civil democracy, it appears to be difficult for it to
break the cycle. 83
- In
this model, the development of an urban middle class leads to growing
pressures on the authoritarian regime for political participation and
contestation. 83
- In
conclusion, Huntington suggests that the United States can contribute to
the democratic development in Third World nations in the following ways:
by assisting their economic development, by fostering their market
economies and the growth of a vigorous bourgeoisie, by exercising greater
influence than it has in world affairs, and by helping the elites of these
countries enter the transition zone to democratization. 85
- According
to Blomstrom and Hettne (1984), the dependency school represents “the
voices from the periphery” that challenge the intellectual hegemony of the
American modernization school. (Blomstrom, M. and, Hettne, B. (1984) Development
Theory in Transition: The Dependency Debate and Beyond—Third World
Responses, London, Zed.)
91
- Many
populist regimes in Latin America tried out the ECLA developmental strategy
of protectionism and industrialization though import substitution in the
1950s, and many Latin American researchers had high hopes for a trend
toward economic growth, welfare, and democracy. However, the brief
economic expansion in the 1950s quickly turned into economic stagnation.
In the early 1960s, Latin America was plagued by unemployment, inflation,
currency devaluation, declining terms of trade, and other economic
problems. Popular protests were followed by the collapse of popular
regimes and the setting up of repressive military and authoritarian
regimes. 91
- Emerging
from the historical context of the 1960s, the dependency school was
therefore a response to the failure of the ECLA program, the crisis of
orthodox Marxism, and the decline of the modernization school in the
United States. 93
(1)
While orthodox Marxists see imperialism in a “center’s”
perspective as a stage of monopoly capitalism in Western Europe, neo-Marxists
see imperialism from the “peripheral” point of view, focusing on the
indictments of imperialism on Third World development.
(2)
Orthodox Marxists tend to advocate a strategy of two-stage
revolution. A bourgeois revolution has to take place before a socialist
revolution occurs. Since most Third World countries are backward orthodox
Marxists, on the other hand, believe that the present situation in the Third
World is ripe for socialist revolution. They want revolution now. They perceive
the bourgeoisie at the creation and tool of imperialism, incapable of
fulfilling its role as the liberator of the force of production.
(3)
If socialist
revolution occurs, orthodox Marxists would like it to be promoted by the
industrial proletariat in the cities, while neo-Marxists are attracted to the
path of socialist revolution taken by China and Cuba. Neo-Marxists have high
hopes for the revolutionary potential of the peasantry in the countryside, and
guerilla warfare by the people’s army is their favorite strategy of revolution.
95
- According
to Franc, most of the theoretical categories and development policies in
the modernization school have been distilled exclusively from the
historical experience of European and North America advanced capitalist
nations. To the extent, these Western theoretical categories are unable to
guide our understanding of the problems facing Third World nations. 96
- Frank
argues that this national transfer of economic surplus has produced
underdevelopment in Third World countries and development in Western
countries. In other world, the historical process that generates
development in the western metropolises also simultaneously generates
underdevelopment in Third World satellites. 97
- The
first two of these are colonial dependence and financial-industrial
dependence. In colonial dependence, the commercial and financial capital
of the dominant country, in alliance with the colonial state, monopolized
the control of land, mines, and human resources (serf or slave) and the
export of gold, silver, and tropical products from the colonized country.
However, by the end of the nineteenth century, financial-industrial
dependence emerged. Although still dominated by the big capital of
European centers, the economies of the depend countries were then centered
upon the export of raw materials and agricultural products from
consumption in European countries. Unlike that in the previous epoch, the
production structure in this stage was characterized by an export sector
with rigid specialization and monocultivation in entire regions (e.g., the
Caribbean and the Brazilian northeast). 99
- According
to Dos Santos, there are fundamental structural limitations placed on the
industrial development of underdeveloped economies, first, industrial
development now dependent on the existence of an export sector. Only the export sector can bring in the needed
foreign currency for the purchase of advanced machinery by the industrial
sector. In order to preserve its traditional export sector, an
underdeveloped nation must maintain the preexisting between production and
maintenance of power by the traditional decadent oligarchy. In addition,
since the export sector (specially the marketing network) is usually
controlled by foreign capital, it signifies political dependence on
foreign interests too. 100
- First,
the unequal capitalist development at the international level is reproduced
internally in an acute form, with the productive structure of
underdeveloped countries torn between a “traditional” agrarian export
sector and a “modern” sector of technological and economic-financial
concentrations.101
- The
context of a local cheap labor market combined with the utilization of a
capital-intensive technology has led to profound differences among various
domestic wage levels. 101
- Third,
this unequal production structure has imposed limits on the growth of
internal markets in underdeveloped countries. The growth of consumer-goods
markets is limited by the low purchasing power of the labor force and by
the small number of jobs created by the capital-intensive sector. 101
- The
monopolistic control of foreign capital, foreign finance, and foreign
technology at national and international levels that prevents
underdeveloped countries from reaching an advantageous position, resulting
in the production of backwardness, misery, and social marginalization
within their borders. 102
- The
onslaught from without carried out by central capitalism upon the
precapitalist formations caused certain crucial retrogression to take
place. For example, local crafts were destroyed without being replaced by
domestic industrial production. Amin notes that the agrarian crisis of the
contemporary Third World is largely a result of these setbacks. 101
- Amin
points out that “extraversion does not result from inadequacy of the home
market but from the superior productivity of the center in all field,
which compels the periphery to confine itself to the role of complementary
supplier of products for the production of which it possesses a natural
advantage: exotic agricultural produce and mineral. “With such
extraversion distortion, the level of wages in the periphery become lower
than at the center.102
- At
the center, hypertrophy of the tertiary sector reflects the difficulties
in realizing surplus value in monopoly capitalism, so more resources have
to be spent in the marketing and the accounting of commodities. However, at
the periphery, hypertrophy of the tertiary sector is mainly a result of
the contradictions inherent in peripheral capitalism, namely, sluggish
industrialization, increasing unemployment, desperate migration from rural
to urban areas, and so on. According to Amin, this hypertrophy of
unproductive activities hampers capital accumulation in peripheral
countries.102-103
- Amin
warns that researchers should no confuse underdeveloped countries with the
now-advanced countries as they were at earlier stages of their
development. This is because underdevelopment countries possess the
following distinctive structural features: (1) the extreme unevenness that
is typical of the distribution of productivity at the periphery, (2)
disarticulation due to the adjustment of the orientation of production at
the periphery to the needs of the center, and (30 economic domination by
the center, which is expressed in the form of trade and financial
dependence.103
- Finally,
the specific form of underdevelopment, assumed by these peripheral
formation depends upon (1) the nature of the precapitalist formation that
was there previously, and (2) the form and the periods in which the
peripheries were integrated into the capitalist world-system.103
- Dependency
is understood to be an external condition,
that is, imposed from the outside. The most important obstacle to national
development, therefore, is not lack of capital, entrepreneurial skills, or
democratic institutions; rather, it is to be found outside the domain of
the national economy. The historical heritage of colonialism and the
perpetuation of the unequal international division of labor are the
greatest obstructions to the national development of Third World
countries. 104
- Dependency
is treated as a component of regional
polarization of the global economy. On the one hand, the flow of
surplus from Third World countries
leads to their underdevelopment; on the other, the development of
Western countries is benefited by this influx of economic surplus. 104
- Finally,
dependency is seen as incompatible with
development. Is development possible in the periphery? For the dependency
school, the answer is generally no. Although minor development can occur
during periods of isolation, such as during a world depression or a world war,
genuine development in the periphery is highly unlikely with the continual
flow of surplus to the core. 105
- In
fact, the dependency school asserts that the periphery has too much
harmful core contact already. Since the era of colonialism, the political
economy of the periphery has been totally restructured to suit the needs
of the core, thereby leading to the development of underdevelopment. 105
- Consequently,
the dependency school suggests that peripheral countries should sever
their ties with core countries. Instead of relying upon foreign aid and
foreign technology, peripheral countries should adopt a self-reliance
model relying upon their own resources and planning their own paths of
development so as to achieve independence and autonomous national development.
105
- With
respect to the causes of Third World problems, the classical modernization
perspective offers an internal explanation, pointing to such traits as
traditional culture, lack of productive investment, and absence of
achievement motivation in Third World countries. The classical dependency
perspective, in contrast, offers an external explanation, stressing the
role played by colonialism and neocolonialism in shaping the
underdevelopment of Third world countries. 111
- Discouraged
Indian manufacturers in the early years of British rule in order to
encourage the rising manufacturers of England. Their fixed policy, pursued
during the last decade of the eighteen century and the first decade of
nineteenth, was to make India subservient to the industries of Great
Britain, and to make the India people grow raw produce only, in order to
supply the material for the looms and manufacturies of great Britain. This
policy was pursue with unwavering revolution and with fatal success;
orders were sent out, to force India artisans to work in the Company’s
factories; commercial residents were legally vested with extensive powers
over villages and communities of Indian weavers; prohibition tariffs
excluded India silk and cotton goods from England; English goods were
admitted into India free of duty or payment of a nominal duty…. The
invention of the power-loom in Europe completed the decline of the Indian
industries; and when in recent years the power-loom was set up in India,
England once more acted towards India with unfair jealousy. An excise duty
has been imposed on the production of cotton fabrics in India
which...stifles the new steam-mills of India. 112
- After
a colonial government is firmly in control, I begin to rely on the native
to rule the colony. Of course, not every native eligible usually only
those native elites are chosen who have sworn loyalty to the colonial
administration and whose interests are closely tied to those of the
foreigners. The dependency school calls these native elites the “clientele
social class” and identifies native landlords as the most likely
candidates to be recruited into colonial administration, because they are
afraid of peasant protests and need the colonial government to back them
up with power. In return, the colonial government wants the landlords to
keep peace in the countryside and to promote export agriculture. 114
- In
order to facilitate political domination, the British adopted an education
policy that aimed “to keep the natives of India in the profoundest state
of barbarism and darkness.”
114
- Mexico’s
foreign debt, for example, also jumped from around $7 billion in the early
1970s to around $38 billion in the late 1970s, and then further to $106
billion in 1989. the extent of this debt problem can be demonstrates by the
fact that he foreign debt in Mexico in the mid-1980s amounted to about 76%
of its GNP (Time, January 8, 1989, p.33). About 80% of Mexico’s export
earnings were used to keep up with the interest payment on its foreign
debt alone. From the dependency perspective, the foreign debt problem
represents an intensification of financial
dependency, a process that has played a crucial role in the shaping of
the development of Latin American countries in the 1980s. 116
- In
addition, dependency researchers point out that the debt trap exerted a
profound impact on the domestic societies of the debtor nations. First,
there was the problem of currently devaluation. 119
- Second,
sine the domestic currency was worth less than before, there was a trend
toward rising inflammation. In the early 1980s, Mexico’s annual
inflammation rate was approximately 80%. 119
- Due
to cutbacks in state investment in the industrial sector and restrictions
on foreign imports such as machinery, the optimistic economic growth of
Latin American in the 1970s vanished. Instead, the debtor nations
experienced a drastic economic decline in the 1980s. Mexico’s GNP, in
instance, dropped from +8% in 1978 to -5% in 1983. Economic decline
resulted in massive unemployment, with many debtor nations having an unemployment
rate of over 50%. 120
- Currency
devaluation, rising inflation, and economic decline inevitably led to the
intensification of political conflict in the societies of the debtor
nations. 120
- There
was an increase in anti-Americanism in Latin American nations. The Latin
American people began to blame the lowering of their living standards and
their suffering on American banks and the American government. 120
- From
the dependency perspective, the debtor- creditor relationship is a
political one.121
- Nonetheless,
the Latin American nations are borrowing money from some money of the most
powerful organization in the world he multinational financial
institutions. The foreign banks could easily wage an economic war to
overthrow the debtor governments. The creditors could ask for a freeze of
the assets of the debtor nations in the United States, set up an economic
blockade to cut off all trade with and loans to the debtor nations, and
request that foreign companies pull their business out of the debtor
nations.121
- Dependency
researchers point out the interesting fact that larger the foreign debt,
the greater the outflow of domestic capital to the core nations.
- Dependency
is the result of the imposition of set of external conditions on third
World development.132
- Thus
Marxist critics of the school charge that the dependency perspective has
overemphasized the factor of external conditions, and has neglected the
role of internal dynamics such as class conflict and the state. 132
- The
dependency school does not believe that these domestic classes and
institutions could resist foreign domination and promote independent
development for Third World countries. 132
- Since
Cardoso wants to bring history back in, he employs the term dependency not as a theory to
generalize the universal pattern of underdevelopment, but as a methodology
for the analysis of concrete situations in Third World development (Palma
19780). 135
- Cardoso
reports that foreign capital occupied 72.6% of the capital-goods sector,
78.3% of the durable consumer-goods sector, and 53.4% of the nondurable
consumer-goods sector for the ten largest firms in each sector in Brazil
in 1968. This growing industrial power of foreign-owned manufacturing
firms that sold their products to the Brazilian market was also reflected
in the advertising business. In 1967, the twelve major advertisers in
Brazil included Volkswagen, Gillette, ford, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Shell.
And by being the largest advertising sponsors, foreign firms exercised influenced
on the mass media newspapers, magazines, and television.139
- Cardoso
deliberately uses the phrase associated-dependent
development because it combines
two notions that generally have appeared as separate and contradictoy
dependency and development. Classical modernization theories focus only on
modernization and development, while classical dependency theories and
imperialism view the basic relationship between a dependent capitalist
country and underdeveloped country as one of extractive exploitation that
perpetuated stagnation. But Cardoso asserts that a new phase has emerged
as a result of the rise of multinational corporations, the immersion of
industrial capital into peripheral economies, and a new international
division of labor. 141
- Since
foreign corporations aim to manufacture and sell consumer goods to the
domestic market, their interests coincide with economic growth in at least
some crucial sector of the dependent country. From this angle, development
implies a definite articulation with technological, financial,
organization, and market connections hat only multinational corporations
can assure. 141
- Evans
presents a model of “tripe alliance” of state, multinational, and local
capital, and shows how the interaction of external and internal contradictions
have worsened Brazilian dependent development, marking the leadership of
the triple alliance increasingly problematic. 151
- Development
implies the accumulation of the capital in the context of an expansion of
the variety of an increasingly differential internal division of labour,
an expansion of the variety of goods that may be produced locally, more
flexibility as to the goods can be offered on international markets and
therefore less vulnerability to the international system. 151
- Although
the concept of dependency is originally derived from studies of the
underdevelopment of Latin America countries, it can be disengaged from
that region and used as an approach 9or a methodology) to examine
development. 158
- The
new dependency studies have paid more attention to historically specific
situations of dependency than did classical dependency studies. 164
- The
state in the Third World is no longer perceive as a dependent state for
foreigners, but as active agency that tacitly works together with local
capital and international capital. 164-165
- Their
willingness to acknowledge the coexistence of two contradictory processes
dependency and development. 165
- When
the United States became a superpower afterworld War II, American social
scientists were called upon to study the problems of Third World
development. This started the modernization school, which dominated the
field of development in the 1950s. However, the failure of modernization
programs in Latin America in the 1960s led to the emergence of a neo-Marxist
dependency school. This dependency school was highly critical of the
modernization school, frequently attacking it as rationalization of
imperialism. From Latin America this school quickly spread to the United
States, since it fit nicely with the antiwar sentiments of many American
students. 169
- The
ideological battle between the modernization school; and the dependency
school began to subside. The debate on Third World development became less
ideological and emotional. A group of radical researchers led by Immanuel
Wallerstein found that there were many new activities in the capitalist
world-economy that could not be explained within the confines of the
dependency perspective. 169
- The
Vietnam War, the Watergate crisis, the oil embargo in 1975, and the
combination of stagnation and inflammation in the late 1970s, as well as
the rising sentimental of protectionism, the unprecedented government
deficit, and the widening of the trade gap in the 1980s all signal the
demise of American hegemony in the capitalist world-economy. 170
- He
has incorporated many concepts from the dependency school such as unequal
exchange, core-periphery exploitation, lerstein has also adopted many
basic tenets of the dependency school, such as the argument that “the
‘feudal’ forms of production characteristic of much of American history
are not ‘persist from the past’ but rather products of Latin America’s
historical relations with the core”(Kaye, Harvery (1979) ”Totality: Its
Application to Historical and Social Analysis by Wallerstein and
Genovese,” Historical Reflections,
6:405-419, p. 409). In fact, Wallerstein (1979, The Capitalist-World
Economy, New York: Cambridge: University Press, p. 53) has included the
concepts of Frank, Dos Santos, and Amin as part of his world-system perspective,
on the grounds that these concepts have in common a critique of both the
modernization school and the Marxist developmentalist perspective. 171-2
- For
Wallerstein, world-system perspective is not a theory but a protest “a
protest against the ways in which social scientific inquiry was structured
for all of us at its inception in the middle of the nineteenth century”
(1987, “World-System Analysis,” pp. 309-324, in Anthony Giddens and
Jonathan H. Turner, (eds.) Social Theory Today, Stanford, Stanford
University Press). 173
- In
traditional scientific inquiry, “the social sciences are constituted of a
number of ‘diciplines’, which are intellectually –coherent groupings of
subject-matter distinct from each other” (Wallerstein, 1987, p. 310). 173
- Social
science divisions are actually derived intellectually from the dominant
liberal ideology of the nineteenth century, which argued that state
(politics) and market (economics) were analytically separate domains, that
sociology was thought to explain the irrational phenomena that economics
and political science were unable to account for, and that anthropology
specialized in the study of the primitive people beyond the realm of the
civilized world evolved, the contact line between ‘primitive’ and
‘civilized’, ‘political’ and ‘economic’, blurred. Scholarly poaching
became commonplace. The poachers kept moving the fences, without however
breaking them down. 174
- The
three presumed arenas of collective human action the economic, the
political and the social action. They do not have separate “logics”. More
importantly, the intermeshing of constraints, options, decisions, norms,
and “rationalities” is such that no useful research model can isolate
“factors” according to the cathegories of economic, political and social,
and treat only one kind o variable, implicitly holding the others
constant. We are arguing that there is a single “set of rules” or a single
“set of constraints” within which these various structures operate. In
short, the various disciplines of social science are actually but a single
one.174-175
- “Social
science is the statement of the universal set of rules by which
human/social behavior is explained. (Wallerstein, 1987, p. 313). 175
- In
traditional social science inquiry, ”human history is progressive, and
inevitable so” (Wallerstein, 1987, 322). It seems that both liberal
evolutionary theorists and Marxist developmentalists have shared the basic
assumption of progress. For Wallerstein, however, “world-system analysis
wants to remove the idea of progress from the status of a trajectory and
open it up as an analytical variable. There may be better and there may be
worse historical systems (and we can debate the criteria by which to
judge). It is not at all certain that there has been a linear trend upward,
downward or straightforward. Perhaps the trend line is uneven, or perhaps
indeterminate. Were this conceded to be possible, a whole a new arena of
intellectual analysis is immediately opened up” (p. 322-3). 179
- We
are living in a period of real historical choice, historical social
science that feels comfortable with the uncertainties of transition, that
contributes to the transformation of the world by illuminating the choices
without appealing to the crutch of a belief in the inevitable triumph of
good.” 180
- Wallerstein
proposes a trimodal system consisting of core, semiperiphery, and
periphery. 180
- The
semiperipheral country stands in between in terms of the kinds of products
it exports and in terms of the wage levels and profit margins it knows.
Furthermore, it trades or seeks to trade in both directions, in one mode
with the core…. It is often in the interests of a semiperipheral country
to reduce external trade, even if balanced, since one of the major
ways in which the aggregate profit margin can be increased is to capture
an increasingly large percentage of its home market for it home
products. 181
- At
moment of world –market contraction, where typically the price level of
primary export from peripheral countries goes down more rapidly than the
price level of technologically advanced industrial exports from core
countries, the government of peripheral state are faced with
balance-of-payments of problems, a rise in unemployment, and a reduction
of state income. One solution is “import-substitution”, which tends
to palliate these difficulties. It is a matter of “seizing the chance”
because it involves aggressive state action that takes advantage of the
weakened political position of core countries and the weakened political
economic position of domestic opponents of such policies. 182
- Done
in more intimate collaboration with external capitalists, promotion by
invitation is more a phenomenon of monuments of expansion than of
monuments of contraction in the capitalist world-economy. 183
- An
example showing that “a clearly enunciated and carefully pursued
strategy of development including economic independence as a goal can be
consistent with an accelerating rate of economic as well as social and
political development.” 184
- According
to Wallerstein, the key to a semiperipheral breakthough is that a country
must have a market available that is large enough to justify an advanced
technology, and for which it must produce at a lower cost than the
existing producers. Asemiperipheral country can enlarge a market for its
national products in one of the following ways:
(1)
It can expand its political boundaries by unification with is
neighbors or by conquest, thus enlarging the size of its domestic market.
(2)
It can increase the costs of imported goods though tariffs,
prohibitions, and quotas, thus capturing a larger share of its domestic market.
(3)
It can lower the costs of production by providing
subsidies for national products, thus indirectly raising the raising the price
of imported goods relative to the subsidized items. The costs of production can
als be lowered by reducing wage levels, but this policy would increase external
sales at the risk of lowering internal sales.
(4)
It can increase the internal level of purchasing power by
raising wage levels, but this policy may increase internal sales at the risk of
lowering external sales.
(5)
It can, though the state or other social institutions,
manipulate the tastes of internal consumers though ideology or propaganda.
184-185
- “Establishing
a system of state ownership within a capitalist world-economy does not
mean establishing a socialist economy.” 186
- “States
ownership countries have, in fact, lower standards of living than those
countries is still manifestly enormous.” 186
- A socialist
government when it comes will not look anything like the USSR, or China,
or Tanzania of today. Production for use and not for profit, and rational
decision on the cost benefits (in the widest sense of the of the term) of
alternative uses is a different mode of production, one that can only be
established within the single division of labor that is the world-economy
and one that will required a single government. 186-187
- By
identifying the present socialist states as mere semiperipheral countries (or
states-owned capitalist enterprises) trying to make it to the core in the
capitalist world-economy. Obviously, this new perspective calls for a
reinterpretation of the history of the capitalist world-economy over the
past four centuries. 187
- According
to Wallerstein, a capitalist world-economy began to form centered in the
European continent in the sixteenth century. This world- economy possessed
a set integrated production process that Wallerstein calls “commodity
chain”. The total surplus extrocted from these commodity chains was always
concentrated to a disproportionate degree in some zones rather than in
others. Peripheries are those zones that lost out in the distribution of
surplus to the core zones. 187
- “The
monopolization could occur because of some technological or organizational
advantage which some segment of the producers had or because of some
politically enforced restriction of the market.” 188
- In
order to restore the overall rate of profit in the world-economy and to
ensure its continual uneven distribution, it is necessary to (1) reduce
the cost of production by reduction of wage cost (both by further
mechanization of production and by site relocation), (2) create new
monopolized leading products via innovation, and (3) expand effective demand
though further proletarianization of segments of the work force. 189
- Wallerstein
notes that the transformation of the capitalist world-economy since 1945
has been remarkable in two respects. First, the absolute expansion of the
world-economy since 1945 in terms of population, value produced, forces of
production, and accumulated wealth has probably been as great as that for
the entire period of 1500-1945. This remarkable development of the
percent-forces of production has meant a massive reduction of the
percent-age of the world population engaged in producing primacy goods,
including food products. In the process, nations have come close to
exhausting the pool of low-cost labor that has hitherto existed. Virtually
all households are now at least semiproletarianized (part peasant and part
wageworker), and economic stagnations continue to produce the consequence
of transforming segments of these semiproletarianized households into
fully proletarianization of household translates into higher-cost wage labor
and the decline of profit margins in the capitalist world-economy. Second, the political strength
of the antisystemic forces has increased by an incredible amount. Since
1845 there have been triumphs from all branches of the antisystemic
movements, including the creation of socialist countries (due to the
military prowess of the Soviet Union or to internal revolutionary forces),
the triumph of national liberation movements, and the coming to power of
social-democratic/labor parties in the Western world. Despite their
differences, these variants of the antisystemic forces all share three
elements: Each was the result of the upsurge of popular forces in its own
country, each involved parties or movements that the double policy
objective of economic growth ans greater internal equality.190-191
- According
to Wallerstein, the growing disillusionment of the antisystemic movements
can be explained by the contradiction embedded in the movements’ twin
goal. On the one hand, the movements seek greater internal equality (which
involves fundamental social transformations), and on the other thy desire
rapid economic growth (which involves catching up with the core
states). The movements bring
together under one organizational roof those who wish to catch up
economically and those who search for social change. 191-192
- Because
the antisystemic movements never rose power, they did not have to confront
the contradictions of their ideology.
- Since
1945, there has been a “weakening of the political carapace of capitalism
which, by allowing the anti-systemic movements to arrive at the state
power in large numbers, exposed the deep internal cleavage of these
movements, the rift between those who sought upward mobility and those who
sought equality” (Wallerstein, (1988) “Development: Lodestar or Illusion,”
Economic and Political Weekly, 23 (39), pp. 2017-2023, p. 2022). 192
- “National
development may well be a pernicious policy objective. This is for two
reasons. For most states, it is unrealizable whatever the method adopted.
And for those few states which may still realize it, that is transmute
radically the location of world-scale production and thereby their
location on the interstates ordinal scale, their benefits will perforce be
at the expense of some other zone” (p. 2022). 192-193
- Instead
of endorsing the national movements that have prevailed in the movement
literature since the nineteenth century, implementation by a world- level
strategy that requires implementation by a world-level movement. In
particular, Wallerstein calls for a worldwide attack on the flow of
surplus at the point of productions: ”Suppose that anti-systemic movements
concentrated their energies everywhere in the OECD countries, in the Third
World countries, and yes, in the socialist countries as well, on efforts
defined as retaining most of the surplus created. One obvious way would be
to seek to increase the price of labor or the sale by the direct
producers” (p. 2023).
Wallerstein further explains that the concern of this world-level
movement “must be how at each point on very long commodity chains a
greater percentage of the surplus can be retained. Such a strategy would
tend over time to “overload” the system, reducing global rates of profit
significantly and evening out distribution. Such a strategy might also be able to mobilize the
efforts of the many varieties of new social movements, all of which are
oriented in one way or another more to equality than to growth….[The
premise of this strategy is that] global rates of profit are quite open to
political attack at a local level. And, as the local victories cumulate, a
significant cave-in of political support for the system will occur” (p.
2023). 193-194.
- Wallerstein
stresses that his world-level strategy of promoting surplus retention by
the producers is different from the former strategy of national class
struggle. In the nineteeth century, the fight against inequality through
class struggle took place in the workplace (via trade unions) and in the
political arena of the nation-state (via socialist parties). But the
capitalists could easily fight back in several ways. They could recruit
new workers from the worldwide pool of reserve households, they could use
the state to repress such movements, and, if they failed to control the
nation-state, they could be relocate the locus of their capital to other
zones without necessarily losing long-term control over it. In this
respect, Wallerstein argues that class struggle movements ”cannot afford
their close links to the state, even to the regimes they have struggled to
bring to power.” Instead, class struggle movements must be waged at the
world level in order to be affective in forcing the pace of the
transformation of the capitalist world-economy. 194-195
- First,
the unit of analysis for the world-system perspective is, of
course, the world –system. Unlike the dependency perspective insists that
the whole world should be taken as a unit of social science analysis.
Wallerstein argues that historical explanation should proceed from the
viewpoint of the world-system, and all phenomena are to be explained in
terms of their consequences for both the totality of the world-system and
its subparts. 196
- Once
we assume that the unit of analysis is such a world-system and not the
state or the nation or the people, then much change in the outcome of the
analysis. Most specifically we shift from a concern with the attributive
characteristics of state to concern with the relational characteristics of
states. We shift from seeing classes (and status groups) as groups within
a state to seeing them as groups within a world-economy. 196
- Unlike
classical dependency theorists, who formulate the strategy of socialist
de-linking as a solution to Third World development, world-system analysts
doubt the viability of this de-linking strategy. 196
- Unlike
the dependency school, the world-system school has a unique theoretical
structure. Instead of a simplistic core-periphery model, Wallerstein’s
capitalist world-economy has three layers: the core, the semiperiphery,
which stands between the core and the periphery and exhibits
characteristics of both. The formulation of the semiperiphery concept is a
theoretical
breakthrough because it enables researchers to examine the
complexity and the changing nature of the capitalist world-economy. This
three-tiered model allows Wallerstein to entertain the possibilities of
upward mobility (a core moving into the semiperiphery moving into the
periphery). 198
- The
concept enables researchers to ask such interesting questions as why a few
East Asian states are able to transcend their peripheral statuses in the
late twentieth century. 198
- In
sum, in that the world-system school is different from the dependency
school in that it treats the whole world as its unit of analysis, adopts a
historical methodology that perceives reality as a state of flux, develops
a trimodal theoretical structure, abandons the deterministic point of view
on the direction of development, and has a much broader research focus.
199
- Wallerstein
contends that “neither ‘the development’ nor the ‘underdevelopment’ of any
specific territorial unit can be analyzed or interpreted without fitting
it onto the cyclical rhythms and secular trends of the world-economy as a
whole” (1979, “Underdevelopment Phase B: Effect of the Seventeenth-Century
Stagnation on Core and Periphery of the European World-Economy,” pp.
73-84, in Walter Golfrank (ed.) The World System of Capitalism: Past
and Present, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, p. 73). 201
- The
core countries not only competed for colonial territories, they also
struggled among themselves for the hegemonic domination of the capitalist
world-economy. 202
- The
second cycle began in 1826, reached its peak in 1921 with 168 colonies,
then declined to 58 colonies in the 1969 (the year in which Henige
completed his study). 206
- The
first wave of colonialism, which is often characterized as “settler
colonies”, was the most disruptive. The term settle refers not only to the
transport of corelike societies to the peripheral areas, but also to the
uprooting of local peoples, their virtual annihilation though
enslavements. When the second wave emerged, since its scale and amount of
disruption were less, it was more a matter of “occupation” than the
replacement of one people and social arrangement with another. The third
wave was more a matter of ” dependence “ and ‘influence.” Control by the
core has become less overt and more indirect in its effect upon peripheral
peoples and social arrangements. 210
- With
respect to the scope of colonialism, with each wave more of the world has
been included are brought within the web of the world-economy. The first
wave reached a peak of 147 colonies in 1770, and the second climbed to a
peak of 168 in 1921. Bergesen and Schoenberg argue that the third wave
seems to be even more extensive than the second with arms sales including
even the former independent states of Latin America. 210
- The
Research Agenda. The world-systems perspective directs researchers to
examine global dynamics. 218
- These
kind of global research questions have seldom been raised by modernization
and dependency researchers. 219
- The
Methodology. The world-system perspective has adopted a long-term
historical approach to study of research problems. 219
- The
data base. Current data sets, most of which have been collected at the
national level, are insufficient to answer the global research questions
posed by the world-system researchers. Consequently, these researchers have begun a quest for
new, world level data sets.
219
- In
sum, the world-system school has made a significant contribution by
starting a new direction of research toward the study of cyclical
movements of the world-economy, the long waves of colonialism, and world
labor movements. 220
- “…the
theory’s atemporal categories have imperceptibly been given a life of
their own and have imposed [whatever author’s intentions] of the social
reality that was meant to be understood by them, so now the categories
make that reality fit their own priori selves” (Zeitlin, M. (1984) The
Civil Wars in Chile (Or the Bourgeoisie Revolutions That Never Were, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press).
220-1
- Zeitlin
charges that the world-system perspective seldom examines the historical
specific “class relations within nations that shape the global relations
between them and that determine how these global relations will affect
their internal development” (as above, p. 233). 223
- …the
world system perspective has been criticized for reification, for neglect
of historically specific development, and for stratification
analysis. 223
- Although
the general focus of the world-system school has been on global dynamics,
this focus nevertheless should not preclude researchers from applying the
global perspective to the study of historical developments at the national
or local level. 226
- …the
adoption of world-system analysis for the study of local regions may even
throw new light on old issues that anthropologists have taken for granted,
because anthropologists have too often “developed a defensive blindness to
the macrostructures that shaped the societies they studied” (Nash, J.
(June 1981) “Ethnographic Aspects of the World Capitalist System,” Annual
Review of Anthropology, 10: pp. 393-423, p. 409). 227
- Recently,
Wallerstein has further underscored the need for a world-level class
struggle movement by means of which the producers would attack the flow of
surplus at the point of production.
227
- Wallerstein
contends that “classes do not have some permanent reality. Rather, they are formed, they
consolidate themselves, they disintegrate or disaggregate, and they are
re-formed. It is a process of
constant movement, and the greatest barrier to understanding their action
reification” (1979, The Capitalist World-Economy, New York:
Cambridge University Press, p. 224). 227
- …”class
represents an antinomy, as a dialectical concept should. On the one hand, class is defined
as a relationship to the means of production, and hence position in the
economic system which is world-economy. On the other hand a class is a real actor only to the
extent that it becomes class-conscious, which means to the extent
that its I organized as a political actor. But political actors are located
primarily in particular national states. Class is not the one or the other. It is both, and class analysis is
only meaningful to the extent that it is placed within a given historical
context” (Wallerstein, 1979, p. 196). 229
- Unlike
the dependency school, which has specialized in the study of the
periphery, the world-system perspective has a much broader research
focus. It examines not only
the periphery, but also the semiperiphery and the core countries. 230
- In
the modernization literature, there is a cultural explanation that asserts
that neo-Confucianism encourages individual commitment to the work ethic
and loyalty to the company, and that it is familism aspect helps to pull
resources and capital together through kinship networks. 230
- The
neo-Marxist literature has recently put forward an authoritarian state
explanation to account for the rapid industrialization of East Asian
countries. It shows that when
the state is strong and authoritarian (with military government, one-party
rule, and suppression of dissent), and when the state managers are
committed to development, the state can quickly build up the
infrastructure, impose import-substitution, and promote
export-industrialization. 231
- In
order to understand why Hong Kong started to industrialize in the 1950s,
one must know the nature of the capitalist world-system in that
period. The 1950s were a time
of post-war recovery for the core countries, and there was a large demand
for consumer goods and cheap raw materials. Moreover, labor costs in the core countries began to
rise, resulting in a trend of transfer of some of the labor-intensive
production to the periphery.
231
- It
was this conjuncture of refugee capital and refugee labor that provided
the impetus for Hong Kong’s industrialization. It was as if the best of Socialist China’s assets in
terms of capital and labor has suddenly been transplanted to Hong Kong the
real the benefits of the economic upswing of the capitalist
world-system. 232
- This
“unequal exchange” between cheap Chinese products and Hong Kong currency
subsidized the Hong Kong economy, lowered the cost of living, and
strengthened Hong Kong’s competitiveness in the world market. 232
- In
the United States, although many manufacturing jobs were lost, numerous
new jobs have been created in the so-called ascending industries. Unlike the knowledge-intensive
“ascending” high-tech industries (e.g., the electronic industry), the
“descending” industries were labor-intensive and restricted by
technological absolescence (e.g., the garment industry). No researcher had predicted the
sudden revival of the descending industries in the United Sattes in the
late twentieth century.
Surprisingly, despite their differences, the ascending and
descending industries share the following job characteristics: Their small
firms tend to offer unstable, low-skilled, low-paying jobs; their working
conditions are very poor, and their factories are in run-down building in
the inner cities. There is
neither overtime work compensation nor unemployment insurance; minimum wage
and standard labor regulations are frequently not observed; and the
workers are allowed to carry the parts home and assemble them with their
children at the kitchen table.
239
- From
a world-system analysis, the rise of high-tech industries signals a new
era in the international division of labor. Capital-intensive and labor-intensive industries could
be relocated to the periphery, while knowledge intensive industries could
remain in the core. From a
national viewpoint, however, this new international division of labor was
condemned by core workers as deindustrialization. 242
- Deindustrialization—the
relocation of U.S. manufacturing industries to Third World countries—was
certainly a good strategy to cut production costs and to make the U.S.
products competitive.
However, this global option was becoming less available in the
1980s than before. In many
prosperous Third World states such as King Kong, labor was no longer
cheap, and the governments had imposed stricture regulations on the
transnational corporations than before. 243
- The
plant closings that took place during the deindustrialization process, for
instance, frequently led to worker resentment and public protest. 243
- To
promote reindustrialization, many municipal governments have also
established “inner-city enterprise zones,” where investor corporations
enjoy tax privileges and exemptions from environmental protection laws and
where workers have waved the right to form labor unions. 244-5
- Reindustrialization
has probably slowed down the deindustrialization process, since more jobs
have remained within the United States. Possibility due to this wave of reindustrialization,
the recession of the early 1980s proved to be short-lived. 245
- In
passing, it should be noted that from a world-system perspective, the
transnational corporations generally have had an edge over national
unions. Labor is less mobile
than capital (since labor is tied to a particular community or region),
and can protest only within the boundaries of a nation-state. But capital is highly mobile
because it can move from one nation to another in search of labor, raw
materials, credit, and markets.
Each move across national boundaries, therefore, strengthens
transnational capital at the expense of the national labor unions, local
communities, and the nation-state, leading to loss of jobs, decrease in
tax revenues, and dislocation of the national economy. Unable to exert its influence on
state policy through labor unions, the white working class has reacted to
its declining class interests by reasserting its “superior” ethnic
status. In Southern
California, for example, this has taken the form of an “English as the
official language” movement, showing the hostility of many in the white
community toward the multilingual abilities of new immigrants. If this sentiment continues, there
may be intensification of racism and ethnic conflict in the 1990s,
Reindustrialization, therefore, has served to intensify ethnic divisions
in the working class. It has
created conflicts within the working class instead of between the working
class and the transnational corporations. 246
- …core
hostilities and withdrawal from the capitalist world-economy led China to
pursue a radical mobilization policy. In order to arouse uninterrupted enthusiasm from the
masses, socialist China put forward an egalitarian destratification
policy, eliminating the interests of all classes except those of the
peasants and workers. 250
- Unlike
global-level studies, national-level studies are inclined to highlight the
intricate interactions between global dynamics and national forces such as
classes, ethnic tensions, and state policies. 258
- In
the case of the United States, it has been pointed out that global
dynamics have strongly affected class relations, state policy, and ethnic
relations. Deindustrialization
and reindustrialization have structured the contour of class struggle in
the United States, leading to the weakening of organized labor in the
manufacturing industries and the revival of sweatshop production through
the practice of subcontracting.
To assist reindustrialization, some municipal and state governments
have established inner-city enterprise zones to attract business
investment. National and
ethnic relations, too, have been affected. Nationalism was on the rise in the 1980s because U.S.
workers blamed foreign imports for their depressed economic situation, and
racism was also intensified because many white workers accused immigrants
of taking away their jobs.
259
- In
summary, it may be helpful to point out similarities and differences
between the new dependency studies.
The two kinds of studies are similar with respect to their focus on
the interaction between external and internal dynamics. 259
- And
unlike the new dependency studies, which assume that Third World countries
cannot completely break out of the situation of dependency, the
world-system studies postulate that under certain conditions it is
possible to have mobility in the world-economy. Thus they explain that Hong Kong and China could escape
peripheral status, while the United States could lose its hegemonic status
in the capitalist world-economy.
260
- American
social scientists conceptualized modernization as a phased, irreversible,
progressive, lengthy process that moves in the direction of the American
model. Strongly influences by
Parsons’s functionalist theory, they looked upon modernity as incompatible
with tradition. 261
- According
to Kuhn’s model, a scientific discipline grows through a process of
revolutionary transformation rather than through a linear accumulation of
verified hypotheses. Kuhn
asserts that a scientific discipline begins with the setting up of a paradigm—a
common frame of reference, a definition of the situation, or a shared
worldview that provides a basic focus of orientation. The consolidation of the paradigm
occurs as the discipline acquires a recognized place in the scientific
community and curriculum, develops its own journals, writes its own
textbooks, and informs a set of classical studies. 263-4
- Anomalies
of major dimensions that cannot be explained by the paradigm then begin to
appear. When the burden of
the anomalies grows too great, a scientific revolution occurs. A new paradigm eventually emerges,
offering a competing gestalt that redefines crucial problems, introduces
new methods, rewrites textbooks, and establishes unique new standards for
solutions. 264
- …Kuhn’s
model underestimates the degree to which a paradigm can modify
itself. For Kuhn, normal
science is rigid—it does not readily countenance threats to its foundation,
and provides only ad-hoc modifications to cover the anomalies that it
cannot explain. 265
- Kuhn’s
model ignores the possibility of a pluralistic academic
discipline. Kuhn assumes that
the new paradigm must replace the old one. Otherwise the scientists will not have a fundamental
frame of reference. This
assertion may be true for disciplines in the physical sciences, but it is
not totally appropriate for the field of development in social science. Since the mid-1970s, the field of
development has been characterized by the coexistence of the
modernization, dependency, and world-system perspectives. However, none of these
perspectives have been able to turn itself into a paradigm by completely
eliminating the other perspectives.
On the contrary, the coexistence of several competing perspectives
has furnished a fertile intellectual environment for substantive research
in the field of development in the 1980s. 266
- Many
researchers observe that the field of development is moving in the
direction of synthesis. 266
- Instead
of portraying modernization as a progressive process, and instead of
emphasizing the damaging effects of dependency, recent studies indicate
that development has both beneficial and harmful effects. Researchers now need to examine
each concrete case against its own historical conjuncture before deciding
whether development has a positive or negative effect and on which segment
of the population. For
example, when Japan modernized its economy, Japanese workers turned to
folk religion for refuge.
When China withdrew from the capitalist world-economy, the
interests of the Chinese peasants and workers were developed at the
expense of the interests of the Chinese capitalists and bureaucrats. 267-8
- The
modernization school still focuses on the relationship between modernity
and tradition, although now more on the positive role and tradition than
before. The dependency school
still analyzes the linkages between dependency and development, although now
more on the positive side of development than before. And the world-system school still
examines the secular and the cyclical trends of the world-economy and
their impact, although now its is more concerned with microregions than
before. 268
Thompson, M., Ellis, R. and Wildavsky, A. (1990) Cultural
Theory, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 215-259.
- In
study of political culture (as distinct from culture generally)
should pay special attention to the ways in which the boundary between
political and nonpolitical is socially negotiated. More important, it also means that
political scientists must give up the notion that the distinction between
politics and other spheres (whether economic, social, or something else)
is “out there” in the world, read-made to be picked up and used. If, moreover, the boundaries
between the political and nonpolitical are socially constructed, then the
study of political culture must assume a central place in the discipline. 217
- …political
culture must not be treated as an uncaused cause purportedly explaining
why people behave as they do, yet incapable of itself being
explained. To do so is to
posit a world in which values are disembodied, unattached to human
subjects. People’s continued
adherence to certain doctrines and habits must themselves be
explained. 218
- A
plausible theory of political culture must not turn the individual into an
automaton, passively receiving and internalizing political norms. 218
- The
tendency to attach culture to nations persists despite strong evidence
suggesting that variation in political attitudes and values within
countries are often greater than those between countries. 219
- A
fatalistic orientation (the attitude that nothing one can do will
influence the government to fix the roads) is thus a learned (and rational)
response to a distant, capricious, and unresponsive power imposed from
without. 224
- [Banfield,
E. (1958) The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, NY: Free Press, p.
109.] “Where everything
depends upon luck or Divine intervention, there is no point in community
action. The community, like
the individual, may hope or pray, but it is not likely to take its destiny
into its own hands.”
- Nor
are fatalists likely to build up the leaders that might help them better
their collective condition.
Banfield reports that “apparently there has never been in
Montegrano a peasant leader to other peasants.” Indeed, Banfield flatly predicts that “there will be no
leaders and followers” in such a society. For even in the unlikely event that an individual takes
the initiative to offer leadership, according to Banfield, “the group
would refuse it out of distrust (p. 97).” The absence of leadership, in turn, impedes the
collective organization the peasants need to break out of their cycle of
despair and distrust. Fearful
of being exploited by others—employers, theirves, landlors, politicians,
neighbors—the fatalist, Banfield contends, will prefer authoritarian
political systems, in which people are “looked after” and laws are
rigorously enforced. 227
- People,
like nature, are seen as capricious, occasionally benevolent but much more
often bad. Unable to predict
when power will be abused and when it will not, the fatalist is
predisposed to support authoritarian systems, which give them
predictability without responsibility. 227
- The
way of life we see from Banfield, is self-reinforcing and
self-replicating. No
efficacy, no collective action, no pooling of resources, no economic
growth, no defense against adversity, no efficacy. No trust, no cooperation, no
democracy, no defense against arbitrary authority, no trust. The consequence of a fatalist
orientation is to sustain a mode of social organization that inhibits
economic growth and democracy, thereby leaving the adherents vulnerable to
the caprice of nature and people, and thus refueling the existing
fatalistic bias. 227
- Politics,
from the communitarian perspective, is, “ideally a matter of concern for
every citizen, not just for those who are professionally committed to
political careers. Indeed, it
is the duty of every citizen to participate in the political affairs of
his community.” [Elazar, D. (1972) American Federalism: A View from the
State, 2d. ed. NY: Crowell, p. 97]
- …black
slavery was “only the worst example of American reliance on force—on man
oppressing his fellow man rather than partaking in mutual love. Oppression of man by man in all
its forms, not simply southern racial bondage, made up the American slave
system.” [Friedman, L. (1982) Gregarious Saints: Self and Community in
American Abolitionism 1830-1870, NY: Cambridge University Press, p.
2763-4] 239
- Were
everyone were to participate in every decision, the political system would
be overloaded and governing would become impossible; were everyone were to
defer to their superiors, democracy would cease to be responsive to
citizen needs and thus give way to authoritarianism. 247
- A
population that is withdrawn from the political sphere increases the scope
for the exercise of arbitrary governmental power, thus further fueling the
citizenry’s withdrawal from politics. This self-replicating pattern leaves a grim outlook for
democracy in societies with predominantly fatalistic political
cultures. 256
- Democracy…requires
the participatory norms that come with the low-grid cultures of
individualism and egalitarianism in order to check the abuse of
power. 256
- In
moderation, egalitarianism is a tonic, or perhaps better, an astringent
for the establishment cultures.
Just as a balance between passivity and involvement is necessary for
democracy, so we would suggest a blend of allegiance (“my country right or
wrong”) and skepticism (“question authority”) is healthy for
democracy. A willingness to
oppose authority is as essential as a willingness to support authority
Egalitarianism punctures authority’s pomposity. 257
- That
which we today identify as free societies—those with the rule of law,
alteration in office, and the right to criticize—are a product of the
interpenetration of hierarchy, individualism, and
egalitarianism. Too much
egalitarianism, to be sure, may reverse these democratic benefits. If egalitarians become dominant,
they may enforce draconian measures (viz, the Khmer Rouge and the Chinese
Cultural Revolution) to achieve equality of condition. 257
- Excluding
cultural biases, we can now see, weakens democracy by enlarging its blind
spots. 258
Goldstone, J. (1991) “An Analytical Framework,” In A.
Jack, Ted Roberts Gurr and Farrokh Moshiri (eds.) Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century, Boulder, CO: Westview,
pp. 37-49.
- Revolution—the
forcible overthrow of a government followed by a reconsolidation of
authority by new groups, ruling through new political (and sometimes
social) institutions—is a complex process. Although the fall of a government may be sudden, the
causal trends leading up to that fall, the ensuing struggle for power
among contenders, and the reconstruction of a stable state of span
decades. 37
- In
my work on early modern revolutions, I identify three conditions whose conjunction
led to state breakdown: fiscal distress, elite alienation, and conflict,
and a high potential for mobilization of the populace. 37
- [Conditions
of State Breakdown] The first condition is a decline of state resources
relative to the state’s expensive and commitments, and relative to the
resources of potential domestic and international adversaries. Historically, when the revenues of
state become, over time, insufficient to pay the standing army and bureaucracy,
award pensions and favors to supporters, and meet the costs of building
roads, ensuring the supply of grain to cities, maintaining order,
enforcing justice, and overseeing local administration, the authority of
the state wanes. The state is
then forced to seek new sources of income. Early modern and contemporary Third World states have
turned to borrowing, new taxes of dubious legality, and simple
corruption—demanding payments for offices, honors, and the right to do
business. When expenses still
overrun revenues, as debts mount and funding for the military grows
strained, the loyalty of the commercial community and the army grows
tenuous. 38
- Only
when, in addition to widespread alienation from the state, elites are
sharply divided over the future direction of institutional change is a
revolutionary struggle likely to arise. 39
- The
risk of revolution should not be seen to rise greatly only if state debt
increases, or only if elite alienation and polarization are rising, or
only if access to land or real wages in autonomous popular communities
falter, but if all three of these elements are rising together, then the
risk of revolution increases very rapidly indeed. 40
- New
ideological movements are sometimes…heralded as a cause of
revolutions. 42
- New
ideologies do not suddenly appear—the Enlightenment, liberalism,
communism, and fundamentalist Islam were evident for generations before
becoming identified with revolutionary activity. Instead, existing ideologies become revolutionary when
they are seized on and used by groups that are dissatisfied with their
circumstances or with regime performance. The conditions that give rise to state breakdown—state
fiscal distress, usually accompanied by increasing demands on taxpayers,
corruption, and military failures; problems among the elite and aspirants
to elite status in achieving positions commensurate with what they feel
they deserve; and problems of land scarcity, unemployment, falling wages,
and associated unrest among the populace—also give rise to a widespread
perception that something has “gone wrong” in society. 42-3
- To
dominate a revolution, an ideology needs a well-organized carrier able to
interpret that ideology for a mass audience. 45
- Rectification
of formal grievances—reducing ostentation in government, purging corrupt
old retainers and unpopular laws, creating a new constitution, and
accepting greater popular participation in politics—can usually be quickly
accomplished, to the credit of new authorities. Yet rectification of material grievances usually
requires more than mere formal and procedural changes. Generally, it means that a measure
of redistribution of assets held by formerly privileged groups is
required. 46
- Once
a new ruling group begins to consolidate its authority, usually though the
forging of revolutionary armies, internal repression, and assertive
nationalism, the task of reconstructing stable political institutions
looms large. The manner in
which postrevolutionary elites approach this task is usually conditioned
by three factors: the class and economic structures of the
prerovolutionary society, the international context of the revolution, and
the experiences of the new elites under the old regime and in the
revolutionary struggle. 47
- Revolutionaries
who suffer and sacrifice to achieve the overthrow of foreign domination,
or overturn a capitalist regime in the name of restoring land to the
peasants and freedom to labor, are willing to take extreme measures and
demand great popular sacrifices in order to stamp out foreign influence or
attain their social goals. 48
- Postrevolutionary
states generally become one party-states, and when significant threat from
internal challengers is perceived, they often become police states. 49
- Only
when revolutions are fought primarily against external opponents—e.g.,
anticolonial revolutions in which there are a few strong loyalists or
collaborators, as in the United States and Algeria—are postrevolutionary
regimes able to reconstruct their states without fear of attach from
internal adversaries, and hence exhibit less of a “garrison” mentality. 49
Peet, R. (1991) Global Capitalism: Theories of
Societal Development, New York: Routledge.
- Even
in Marxism, which claims to be a science of all human existence, there is
a need to well on certain aspects of the whole life experience. 1
- Economic
development in capitalist societies is conventionally measured as the size
and rate of growth of the gross domestic product - that is the volume of
the 'total final output of goods and services produced by an economy' (WB,
1989:291). 3-4
- …the
geographic distribution of income across societies is more uneven than the
most inegalitarian class structure in any one society. 6
- Dependency
theory argues, on a neo-Marxist basis, that contact with the Europeans may
indeed bring 'modern' elements to the societies of the Third World, but
has also connected them to an exploitative social order. 10
- Marxism
has a dialectical understanding of history, in which change stems from
contradictions between human groups and between society and the natural
world. 10
- …ideology
is a partial or biased account directly or indirectly constructed on
behalf of a certain class, national or ethnic interest. 18
- Drawing
explicitly on biology, Parsons (1966:2) derives a general paradigm which
analysis any system in terms of four functional categories: (1) the
maintenance of the highest 'governing' or controlling patterns of the
system; (2) the internal integration of the system; (3) its orientation to
the attainment of goals; (4) its more generalized adaptation to the broad
conditions of the environment. 22
- …modernization
theory is interested in elaborating the differences between traditional
and modern societies in terms of their positions on various indices of
modernity or development, and to the extent to which they approximate the
model of modern industrial society. Modernization theory asks: what
impedes advance and what are the conditions and mechanisms of social
transition, from traditional to modern? 26
- (Hoselitz,
1960:60) 'An economically highly advanced society...is characterized by a
complex division of social labor, a relatively open social structure in
which caste barriers are absent and class barriers are surmountable, in
which social roles and gains from economic activity are distributed
essentially on the basis of achievement, and in which, therefore,
innovation, the search for an exploitation of profitable market
situations, and the ruthless pursuit of self-interest without regard for
the welfare of others is fully sanctioned. 29-30
- …the
main problem for a theory of economic growth is to determine the
mechanisms by which the social structure of an underdeveloped country can
be modernized - that is, altered to take on the features of an
economically advanced country. 30
- Modernization
'is not simply an increase in a set of indices. It involves profound
changes in individual and group behavior' (Soja, 1968:4). 36
- …the
ideas, customs, individual qualities of the members of society develop ad
change under the impact of the social relations of production. (Szentes,
1976:71) 40
- …dependency
theory was a reaction against the failure of earlier theories to
adequately explain economic backwardness in Latin America, or to offer a
convincing model of the future development process. 43
- In
conventional economic analysis, the theory of comparative advantage argues
that the exchange of the center countries' industrial goods for peripheral
primary goods is to all countries' advantage. 44
- …import
substitution strategy (i.e. replacing industrial imports with domestic
production under tariff protection) 44
- The
basic hypothesis of the dependency school is that development and
underdevelopment are interdependent structures within the global economic
system. 45
- …center
and periphery become increasingly polarized as capitalism develops the one
and underdevelops the other in a single historical process. 47
- …underdevelopment
in the periphery result from the loss of surplus which is expropriated for
investment in the center (Frank 1969b:3-14).
- 'Placing
labor at the heart of the study of modern world history can unite the
classical Marxist position of political praxis aimed at the working class,
with the global dynamics of class struggle in a world social system. In
that unity lies the best hope for peace and a more human world order'.
(Berquist, 1984:17). 54
- For
Marx, the social relations people enter into for their existence determine
the possibility and direction of productive development. Social relations
are therefore Marxism's most essential analytical category. 59
- For
Marx the most essential aspect of social relations is control over
productive forces and resources. 59
- Societies
are exploitative when uncompensated surplus labor, or its products, are
taken from the direct producers. 61
- Crisis
in material development sharpen and intensify ongoing class struggles,
given the possibility for broad social change, including political and
ideological transformation. This happens only when the productive
possibilities of the old society near exhaustion. 63
- …'that
economic relations, centrally those between owners and direct producers,
are always determinant (in the last instance) with respect to the levels
or 'instances' in a society, and with respect to the configuration of
society as a whole, but...this determination by the economic structure
takes the rather indirect form of assigning to the other, non-economic
levels, their place in a hierarchy of dominance with respect to one
another, and the kind of articulation between them. (Benton, 1986:72). 66
- …the
various aspects of social existence are realigned following the
significant change in the social relations of production. 66
- Domination
entails polarized development of the world's productive forces, fast
development in the dominant countries and slow in the dominated, and thus
the expanded reproduction of economic inequalities. This polarized
development essentially results from the initial development of machine
production in the industrialized countries... 68
- Capitalism
gains ascendancy to transform and destroy the old relations of production,
and then assimilates them. 70
- An
adequate theory of societal development must attend to human actions and
their contexts, but it must pay special attention to the structural
conditions which limit, direct and divert transformative activity. 104
- Capitalism,
therefore, was not some prior intention towards which all history tends.
It came about through the dissolution of previous societies and the
recombination of their elements on new forms. 107
- …the
new capitalist social organization came from a process of disintegration,
reassembling, and the formation of new elements which was largely
'internal' or localized, albeit in the context of rapidly changing global
conditions. Capitalism is feudalism's errant offspring. 113
- [Clive
Thomas, 1974] The crucial features are dynamic divergence between domestic
resources and domestic demand and between demand and mass needs. Material
development, he says, means initiating economic processes which overcome
these divergences; as they are rooted I basic structures a revolutionary
break with the past has to occur. ... Immediately production should be
reoriented to achieve self-sufficiency in food and provide crucial
industrial raw materials, with exports as subordinate objective. ... The
transformation of agriculture, however, entails: increasing the size of
farming and marketing units; using production techniques which are
capital- and skill- intensive; using other modernized inputs to transform
productivity; eventually transferring labor to agriculture to other rural
and urban activities; and, most significantly, building political and
social relations which eliminate exploitation in the rural economy but
preserve voluntarism and are based in democratic decision making. 166
- For
Thomas, a country incapable of using its own resources to meet its basic
requirements remains forever underdeveloped (Thomas, 1974:225). ...
[Thomas' model] entails popular control of the production process, but
also the planning of consumption to match the possibilities of local
production. It involves a transformation in class and gender and in
spatial relations towards complete equality. It means excruciatingly hard
work for at least a generation before material needs can be fully met. But
most importantly it means democracy in all aspects of social and economic life.
It is a process not to be supported lightly but only to be undertaken by a
people united in their opposition to the structures that now prevail and
determined to make entirely new forms of life in the future. 168
- Marxism
emphasizes the collective character of human reproduction, asks of any
society how is reproduction organized and what relations people engage in
for the reproduction of their kind. 185
Benton, T., 1986, The Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism,
New York, St. Martins Press.
Berquist, C., (ed.), 1984, Labor in the Capitalist World Economy, Beverly
Hills: Sage Publications.
Frank, A.G., 1969, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, NY:
Monthly Review Press.
Hoselitz, B., 1960, Sociological Aspects of Economic Growth, Glencoe: Free
Press.
Parsons, T., 1966, Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives,
Englewood Cliffs, NY: Prentice Hall.
Soja, E.W., 1968, The Geography of Modernization in Kenya: A spatial analysis
of Social, Economic, and Political Change, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press.
Szentes, T., 1976, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, 3rd ed, Budapest,
Akademia Kiado.
Thomas, C., 1974, Dependence and Transformation: The Economics of the
Transition to Socialism, NY, Monthly Review Press.
World Bank, 1989, World Development Report 1989, NY, Oxford University Press.
Barber, Benjamin ( March 1992) “Jihad Vs. McWorld,” The
Atlantic Monthly, Volume 269, No. 3; pp. 53-65.
- Just
beyond the horizon of current events lie two possible political futures –
both bleak, neither democratic.
The first is retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war
and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization in national states in which
culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against
tribe – a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths against
every kind of interdependence, against every kind of artificial social
cooperation and civic mutuality.
The second is being born in on us by the onrush of economic and
ecological forces that demand integration and uniformity and that
mesmerize the world with fast music, fast computers, and fast food – with MTV,
Macintosh, and McDonald’s, pressing nations into one commercially
homogenous global network: one McWorld tied together by technology,
ecology, communications, and commerce. The planet is falling precipitantly apart AND coming
reluctatntly together at the very same time. 53
- The
tendencies of what I am here calling the forces of Jihad and the forces of
McWorld operate with equal strength in opposite directions, the one driven
by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets, the one
re-creating ancient subnational and ethnic borders from within, the other
making national borders porous from without. They have one thing in common: neither offers much hope
to citizens looking for practical ways to govern themselves
democratically.
- The
market imperative has also reinforced the quest for international peace
stability, requisites of an efficient international economy. Markets are enemies of
parochialism, isolation, fractiousness, war. Market psychology attenuates the psychology of
ideological and religious cleavages and assumes a concord among producers
and consumers – categories that ill fit narrowly conceived national or
religious cultures.
- Every
nation, it turns out, needs something another nation has; some nations
have almost nothing they need.
- …the
pursuit of science and technology asks for, even compels, open
societies. Satellite
footprints do not respect national borders; telephone wires penetrate the
most closed societies. With
photocopying and then fax machines having infiltrated Soviet universities
and samizdat literary circles in the eighties, and computer modems
having multiplied like rabbits in communism’s bureaucratic warrens
thereafter, glasnost could not be far behind. In their social requisites,
secrecy and science are enemies.
- Capitalism
and democracy have a relationship, but it is something less than
marriage. An efficient free
market after all requires that consumers be free to vote their values and
beliefs on competing political candidates and programs. The free market flourished in
junta-run Chile, in military-governed Taiwan and Korea, and, earlier, in a
variety of autocratic European empires as well as their colonial
possessions.
- OPEC,
the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Red Cross, the
multinational corporation…there are scores of institutions that reflect
globalization. But they often
appear as ineffective reactors to the world’s real actors: national states
and, to an even greater degree, subnational factions in permanent
rebellion against uniformity and integration – even the kind represented
by universal law and justice.
The headlines features these players regularly: they are cultures,
not countries; parts, not wholes; sects, not religions; rebellious
factions and dissenting minorities at war not just with globalism but with
the traditional nation-state.
Kurds, Basques, Puerto Ricans, Ossetians, East Timoreans,
Quebecois, the Catholics of Northern Ireland, Abkhasians, Kurile Islander
Japanese, the Zulus of Inkatha, Catalonians, Tamils, and, of course,
Palestinians – people without countries, inhabiting nations not their own,
seeking smaller worlds within borders that will seal them off from
modernity.
- There
were more than thirty wars in progress last year, most of them ethnic,
racial, tribal, or religious in character, and the list of unsafe regions
doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter. Some new world order!
- How
can democracy be secured and spread in a world whose primary tendencies
are at best indifferent to it (McWorld) and at worst deeply antithetical
to it (Johad)? My guess is
that globalization will eventually vanquish retribalization. The ethos of material
“civilization” has not yet encountered an obstacle it has been unable to
thrust aside.
- …the
participatory and direct form of democracy that engages citizens in civic
activity and civic judgement and goes well beyond just voting and
accountability – the system I have called “strong democracy” – suits the
political needs of decentralized communities as well as theocratic and
nationalist party dictatorships have done. Local neighborhoods need to be democratic, but they can
be. Real democracy has
flourished in diminutive settings: the spirit of liberty, Toqueville said,
is local. Participatory
democracy, if not naturally apposite to tribalism, has an undeniable
attractiveness under conditions of parochialism.
- Spread
English justice to the colonies by exporting wigs. Let an East Indian trading company
act as the vanguard to Britain’s free parliamentary institutions. Today’s well-intentioned
quick-fixers in the National Endowment for Democracy and the Kennedy
School of Government, in the unions and foundations an universities
zealously nurturing contacts in Eastern Europe and the Third World, are
hoping to democratize by long distance.
Korzeniewicz, M. and Korzeniewicz, R. (1992) “The Social
Foundations of Institutional Action: Argentina and Korea in the Postwar Era,”
in Modernization in East Asia: Political, Economic and Social Perspectives,
Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 81-97.
- Initial
steps toward land reform were carried out by North Korea during the war
and occupation, but the first formal agrarian reform was carried out by
the American Military Government in 1948, when more than 90 percent of
previously owned Japanese-owned land was distributed among South Korean
peasants. The land reform,
which was extended to large farms in 1949, reduced the average size of individual
farms to less than 2.2 acres and eliminated almost all large farms. 83
- The
merging structure of agrarian relations had several consequences. First, it deactivated a
potentially strong social actor, effectively dissipating for decades to
come all possibilities of the landowners achieving any significant measure
of political power. Second,
it made it easier for resources to be channeled from agriculture to
industry. In part, many
former landlords moved directly into industry and commerce because the
bonds issued by the government in compensation for land reform could be
cashed into stock of newly created firms. 83
- One
of the most important characteristics of industrial labor in South Korea
has been that, to a large extent, it has been recruited from the
country-side. Three and
one-half million workers migrated from rural to urban areas in the
1961-1971 period alone. 92
- …the
strong bargaining power of trade unions in the postwar period was made
compatible with industrialization through import substitution by means of
protectionist structures and an orientation of manufacturing for the
domestic market. 95
- Landowners
and organized labor were demobilized as a political force in the immediate
postwar period. Multinational
corporations and financial speculators were successfully screened and regulated
by a relatively strong state and did not challenge the basic alliance of
state and chaebol. In Argentina, social conflict
prevented the adoption of an effective development strategy after the
early 1950s. The state never
achieved an institutional and organizational coherence that would allow it
to function as a broker. In
turn, political conflicts had an impact upon the economic terrain. What clearly sets the case of
Argentina apart from South Korea was the lack of coherence and continuity
in both political legitimacy and economic policy. 95
Packenham,, R. (1992) The Dependency Movement:
Scholarship and Politics in Development Studies, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
ˇ
"Studies of dependency…constitute part of this
constantly renewed effort to reestablish a tradition of analysis of economic
structures and structures of domination; one that would not suffocate the
historical process by removing from it the movement which results from the
permanent struggle among groups and classes…. Studies of dependency continue to live tradition of Latin
American thought, reinvigorated in the 1960s by the proposition of themes and
problems defined in a theoretical-methodological field not only distinct from
what inspired Keynesian and structural-functionalist analyses (the theory of
modernization, and of the stages of development that would repeat the history
of the industrialized countries), but radically distinct with respect to its
inherent critical component" (Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 1977, p. 9-10). 8
ˇ
…Lenin anticipated the dependency idea of the
"anti-nation inside the nation" of Cardoso and of all other
dependency writers. This notion is
crucial in the dependency perspective.
It links the national and the class aspects of the analysis. It subordinates the former to the
latter, as Marx did, but it pays more attention to the national unit than Marx
did. It makes, or rather appears
to make, the two aspects of the analysis entirely compatible. It locates the unique solution to the
linked problems of class exploitation and national imperialism in the overthrow
of capitalism and the installation of socialism. It provides and epistemological device which prohibits the
theoretical content of the perspective from being falsified. In these and other ways Lenin's ideas
also form part of the background to, and are a source of, dependency
ideas. 9
ˇ
"[In assessing criticisms of dependency analyses,
mainly from others in the Marxist tradition] the problem, in fact, it seems to
me, in knowing if dependency analyses constitute the last cry of independence
of the ideology embedded in Latin America economic patriotism following the
failure of attempts at autonomous national development [under capitalism]. Nor is it, to make another criticism,
to know if in the final analysis dependency is merely a consequence of the
present stage of development of international capital in the monopoly
phase. Nor is it repeating that
"the motor of history is the class struggle" and therefore that
"the only perspective adequate for the analysis of the historical process
in the dominated countries is one that assumes the "class
perspective." These affirmations are commonplaces, with the virtues and
the limitations of the obvious: they contain grains of truth which are lost in
the confusion of a lack of theoretical structure" (F.H. Cardoso, 1972, p.
4-5).
ˇ
[Liberal theoretical perspectives] One cluster includes
the classical, neoclassical, or orthodox theories of economic development of
writers as traditional as Adam Smith and as contemporary as Walt Rostow,
Wilbert Moore, and Clark Kerr.
From the dependency perspective, such authors "justified the
nonindustrialization of the [Latin American] region in view of the comparative
advantages that might be obtained with agricultural production for export"
(F.H. Cordoso, 1977, p. 9).
ˇ
ECLA [Economic Commission of Latin America] had
proposed a number of solutions to the problems they diagnosed. Among these were industrialization
through import substitution, expanded regional economic organization (for
example, Central American Common Market, Latin American Free Trade
Association), more foreign aid, more "reliable" foreign investment on
better terms for borrowing countries, and greater attention to government
intervention and economic planning.
The dependency writers argued that such proposals, when implemented,
only deepened national dependency, increased socioeconomic inequalities, and
fostered authoritarian politics.
17
ˇ
Utopianism.
The highest value in holistic dependency is Marxist socialism. But socialism is not only a value or
constellation of values; even more it is a symbol and a utopian goal. Socialism is vaguely defined at best. Broad verbal formulas, nonexistent
future states, or idealized versions of extant systems usually substitute for
empirical analysis of socialist cases.
30
ˇ
Wallerstein projects an integrated class vision onto
the entire world. Capitalism is a
world economic system that emerged in the sixteenth century and is with us
still. In the capitalist world
economy there is one world system of exchange and one world division of
labor. National units and class
divisions within them exist but can be understood properly only in the context
of this world system. There are
core, periphery, and semi-periphery states, which frequently contend with one
another, but such conflicts by themselves do not alter the fact of the world
system as such. The only way such
conflicts can alter the world system is "via the intervening
variable" of the ""world-class consciousness of the
proletariat" (Wallerstein, 1979, p. 293). In this view, the concepts of core, semi-periphery, and
periphery states are "intellectual tool[s] to help analyze the multiple
forms of class conflict in the capitalist world economy (Wallerstein, 1973, p.
293). 113
ˇ
"Socialism involves the creation of a new kind of
world-system, neither a redistributive world-empire nor a capitalist
world-economy but a socialist world government." This seems utopian but not to Wallerstein: "I don't
feel this projection as being in the least utopian but I don't feel its
institution is imminent" (1979, p. 35). 113
ˇ
…Walerstein says that socialist world government
"will be the outcome of a long struggle…in all areas of the world economy
(Mao's continual 'class struggle') states as such are neither progressive nor
reactionary. It is movements and
forces that deserve such evaluative judgments" (pp. 35-36). Like holistic dependency, world-systems
theory is substantively holistic, utopian, and unfalsifiable. 113
Rueschemeyer, D., Stephens, E. and Stephens, J. (1992) Capitalist
Development and Democracy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp.
155-199.
- They
[political parties] were crucial in institutionalizing contestation, in
mobilizing pressures from below for an opening of the political system,
and in mediating threat perception at the top as to the consequences of
making such concessions.
Essentially, democracy could only be consolidated where elite
interests were effectively protected either through direct influences of
elite groups on the state apparatus or through electorally strong
political parties. 156
- …democracy
is a conjunctual outcome resulting from the contradictions and conflicts
within capitalism. 158
- The
first essential precondition for the emergence of any form of
institutionalized contestation was consolidation of state power. Before state power was
consolidated, there was no institutionalization of contestation and thus
no movement towards democracy.
This does not mean that a strong state had to be established in the
sense of effective intervention in economic and social life, but simply
that overt challenges to state authority had to come to an end,
particularly challenges in the form of armed resistance. 139
- The
difficulty of the task of consolidating state power varied with the length
and intensity of the independence wars and with eternal warfare in the
first century after independence.
Exposure to warfare prior to and during the attempt to consolidate
state power not only delayed not only the achievement of consolidation,
but prolonged fighting and extensive destruction of the economy during the
independence wars caste military leaders into a more prominent role in
post-independence politics.
Later, exposure to external warfare, mostly due to the struggle
over borders, further strengthened the position of military strong-men,
and defeat in wars was particularly detrimental to peaceful internal
competition for power. Where
the achievement of consolidation of state power was delayed for a long
time, the problems of industrialization of contestation and of inclusion
tended to pose themselves simultaneously because economic development had
increased pressures from subordinate classes. The greater difficulties in consolidating state power
in Latin America compared to Europe explain at least part of the
contemporary scarcity of stable institutionalized elite contestation and
gradual inclusion of non-elite sectors. 163
- For
progress towards democracy to be made, intra-elite conflicts due to geographical
and economic diversity and due to scarcity of resources had to be moderate
and thus facilitate institutionalized contestation and pressures from
subordinate classes for inclusion had to emerge. Without such pressures, no opening of the political
system took place, but there was no simple linear relationship between the
intensity of such pressures and progress towards democracy. If these pressures were highly
threatening to elites, they tended to meet with authoritarian
reactions. They degree to
which they were perceived as threatening depended in turn on the agents
mobilizing and articulating the pressures (radical mass parties were more
threatening than clientelistic parties), on the economic vulnerability of
elites (labor intensive agriculture made landowners more dependent on
politically sanctioned labor control than non-labor intensive agriculture), and on the
availability of elites of political institutions for control within a
constitutional context (elite political parties or state corporatist
institutions.)
- …the
more labor intensive agriculture was, the greater the threat perception
was on the part of the landowning elite of a potential loss of control
over the state apparatus in the wake of an opening of the political
system. 165
- Export
expansion was not sufficient in itself for the emergence of restricted or
full democracy. Democracy
depended on the sequences of social structural and political institutional
development set in motion by export expansion. 165
- Progress
towards democracy only occurred under the crucial precondition of absence
of labor intensive agriculture.
In fact, in no case where (1) labor intensive agriculture
predominated, and (2) agriculture was the crucial export sector, was
unrestricted democracy established in South America. Under these conditions, the
landowners feared the loss of an abundant supply of cheap labor in the
wake of democratization, and they were powerful enough either to resist an
opening of the political system altogether or at least to keep the rural
sector excluded. 165
- Industrialization
raised the potential for pressures for democratization, particularly for
greater political inclusion, because it strengthened civil society by
increasing the size and the interaction among middle and working classes,
but its political effects were mediated by the pre-existing political
institutional structures, particularly the party system and the tradition
of state intervention in society.
Industrialization produced or reinforced already existing pressures
for inclusion, but the actual strength of these pressures and their
political outcome heavily depended on the agents shaping the political
articulation of civil society.
The nature of these agents was rooted in the class structure and
patterns of political institutionalization set before and during the
expansion of the export economy.
166
- In
agrarian export economies, with labor intensive agriculture and moderate
pressures resulting from later and weaker industrialization, articulated
by clientelistic parties, only an opening to restricted democracy
occurred. In agrarian export
economies with labor intensive agriculture and containment of pressures by
strong state involvement, there was no opening at all or only a delayed
opening to restricted democracy. 167
- Industrialization
was not sufficient for the consolidation of even restricted democracies;
the other necessary condition was the continued protection of elite
interests through the party system.
169
- The
only two full democracies in existence at the beginning of the 1930s,
Argentina and Uruguay, fell victim to coups inspired by elite attempts to
protect their economic interests from the effects of the Depression. 169
- In
a few cases, such as Chile after 1932 and Uruguay after 1942, where civil
society and the party system were strong, democracies managed to survive
for quite a long time. 169
- Fulfillment
of the first precondition for the emergence of a regime form with
regularized contestation and more than minimal inclusion, namely
consolidation of the state apparatus and the establishment of effective
control over a geographically defined continuous population, was rather
problematic in most of Latin America. 172
- The
next development necessary for the establishment of institutionalized
competition for political power, a sustained period of expansion of the
export economy giving rise to a prosperous class of export producers and
urban merchants and financiers, also occurred at different times and to
different degrees in the various cases. 173
- The
driving force behind the initial establishment of democracy…was the middle
class, or rather, the middle classes, namely urban professionals, state
employees and employees in the private sector, artisans and
craftsmen. 185
- In
a somewhat crude generalization we could say that in Europe the working
class in most cases needed the middle classes as allies to be successful
in its push for democracy, whereas in Latin America it was the other way
around. However, the middle
classes by no means allied with the working-class in every case, nor did
they genuinely support full democracy in every case. The very position of the middle
classes, in between the elites and the masses, made for considerable
ambiguity in the perception of their class interests regarding the desirability
of full democracy. 185
- A
first and easy answer to the question of why the military continued to
intervene during democratic periods in some cases but not in others is
that “the most frequent sequel to military coups and government is more of
the same” (Nordlinger 1977:207); in other words, a tradition and/or
relatively recent precedent of military intervention increases the
likelihood of renewed intervention.
To a certain extent, this is certainly the case; military
intervention is more likely and normative underpinnings of contestation
are weak to begin with, and it weakens such institutions and norms
further. 195
- Based
on this set of sequences we can suggest three conditions which in
combination seem to have been sufficient to allow for the establishment of
viable fully democratic regimes in South America before the 1980s: (1)
absence or previous elimination of large landowners engaged in labor
intensive agriculture as powerful economic and political actors; (2)
significant strength of subordinate classes, particularly the working
class, in the balance of power in civil society; (3) political
articulation of civil society through two or more string political
parties. The first two
conditions are a result of the structure of the economy (mineral versus
agrarian export sector) and of the level of economic development
(industrialization and urbanization). The third, and the second one in part, are a result of
historical legacies or deliberate institution building acts, but the
challenges they present to would-be institution builders are
formidable. The first one is
also subject to deliberate political action; that is, a sweeping land
reform can eliminate large landowners as a powerful class, but this is an
exceedingly daunting task in the South American context. 199
- The
path did not get much smoother after the initial achievement of democratic
rule. 199
Hout, Wil (1993) Capitalism and the Third World:
Development, Dependency, and the World System, Vermont: Edward Elgar.
- The
so-called 'theories of global society' are characterized by 'new
conceptualizations of the world, a vastly extended problematic, and
solutions which suggest that the norms of equality and justice are more
important than order and stability' (Holsti, K.J. (1985) The Dividing Discipline:
Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory, Boston: Allen and Uwin, p.
48). 4
- Dependency
theory contains the original formulation of the assertion that most
Latin American countries have obtained formal political independence
during the nineteenth century, but have remained economically subordinate
to outside powers ever since.
The lack of development of these countries is attributed to their
integration in the capitalist world system and the resulting exploitation
by colonial powers, such as Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, and the United
States. 6
- The
center-periphery theories may be described as the result of the spatial
'broadening' and theoretical 'deepening' of the dependencia position. The center-periphery theories do
not limit their analysis to the countries of Latin America. Instead, they claim to be more
general, and applicable to the whole of the Third World. 6
- His
[Wallerstein'] analysis is basically analytical history: he tries to
determine which were the causes of the rise of the capitalist world
economy during the 'long sixteenth century' and of its subsequent spread
across the world. Instead of
analyzing the world system in terms of two categories (center and
periphery), Wallerstein distinguishes three parts, adding the so-called
semi-periphery to the aforementioned two. 6-7
- Popper's
revolutionary idea was that the classical problem and the philosophy of
science, the relation between theory and reality, should not be solved by
constructing meta-theories stressing the correspondence between theory and
reality, but by taking theories more or less autonomous phenomena. Although theories could never be
said to reflect reality in all its respects, and therefore it would be
impossible to verify them, it would nevertheless be possible to
determine whether theoretical constructions do not correspond with
reality: it would be possible to falsify theories. Scientific progress, in Popper's
terms, then is the ongoing process of the testing of theories: 'bad'
theories - i.e., theories that are not supported by empirical findings -
are to be rejected while 'good' theories - theories that have not been
rejected - are retained.
8
- In
the context of Khun's theory it is difficult to speak of scientific growth;
the supporters of the dominant paradigm will undoubtedly see themselves as
scientifically more sophisticated than the supporters of paradigms that
have become unfashionable.
Yet Kuhn's theory does not offer criteria for deciding which theory
offers scientific progress, wince the rules and criteria for judging
theories are inevitably part of a paradigm. 9
- Generally,
theories are legitimized by stressing their value relative to other
theories. If one does not
posses criteria to judge this value, it remains impossible to assess the
theories' contribution toward the growth of scientific knowledge. 9
- "A
theory is 'acceptable' or 'scientific' only if it has corroborated excess
empirical content over its predecessor (or rival). that is, only if it
leads to the discovery of novel facts. … For the
sophisticated a scientific theory T is falsified if only if
another theory T' has been proposed with the following
characteristics: (1) T' has excess empirical content over T:
that is, it predicts novel facts, that is, facts improbable in the
light of, or even forbidden, by T ; (2) T' explains the
previous success of T, that is, all the unrefuted content of T
is included (within the limits of observational error) or the content of T';
and (3) some of the excess content of T' is corroborated"
(Lakatos, I. (1970) "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific
Research Programs," in Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds.) Criticism
and the Growth of Knowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium
in the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965, vol. 4, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 91-196, p. 116). 10-11
- "The
function of a theory is to resolve ambiguity, to reduce irregularity to
uniformity, to show that what happens is somehow intelligible and
predictable; it is this complex of functions to which I refer when I speak
of theories as solutions to problems" (Laudan, L. (1977) Progress
and Its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth, Berkeley, CA:
University of Californian Press, p. 11) 13
- It is
not feasible to develop indicators that measure theoretical concepts to
the full. For these reasons,
so-called random effects cannot be kept completely under control, nor can
they be estimated with absolutely reliable measurement tools. Some uncertainty will be an
inevitable element of research in the social sciences. 14
- …the
theory is considered to have pointed out and explained novel, previously
undiscovered facts and it is assumed that some of the 'excess empirical
content' of the research program has been corroborated. 15
- The
coming into being of the theory has mainly been induced by the rejection
of the central concepts of other theories, thereby applying both its own
and 'borrowed' concepts and approaches. The theories that have been attacked by dependency
theorists are: liberal free-trade theory, the E.C.L.A. approach and
modernization. 18
- The
central element in the explanation is the alleged 'over-saving and
under-spending' in capitalist economies. Since the effective demand is too low, due to the
unequal distribution of the national income - according to Hobson the
working classes receives too small a share of total income, and too much
is saved by the owning classes - a substantial part of production remains
unconsumed. As a consequence,
the expectations of returns from investments become negative. Imperialism
is the reaction to these two phenomena: it "is the endeavor of the
great controllers of industry to broaden the channel for the flow of their
surplus wealth by seeking foreign markets and foreign investments to take
off the goods and capital they cannot sell or use at home" (Hobson,
J.A. (1988) Imperialism: A Study, Third Edition, London: Uwin Hyman, p.
85). 19-20
- "The
previously separate spheres of industrial, commercial and bank capital are
now brought under the common direction of high finance, in which the
masters of industry and of the banks are united in a close personal
association. The basis of
this association is the elimination of free competition among individual
capitalists by the large monopolistic combines. This naturally involves at the same time a change in
the relation of the capitalist class to state power" (Hilferding, R.
(1981) Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist
Development, London: Routledge, p. 301). 20
- "…imperialism
is the political expression of the process of capital accumulation in its
competition for the rest of the non-capitalist world-environment which has
not yet been taken into possession" (Luxemburg, Rosa (1975) p. 391). 21
- Lexemburg
visualizes capitalism as an economic system, comprising even more parts of
the globe until one single worldwide market comes into being. 21
- Luxemburg
interprets imperialism as a distinct phase in the development of
capitalism, in which foreign loans, the building of railways, the
initiation of revolutions in the colonized areas and wars are the main
mechanisms for the capitalist countries to serve their interests. Since it is her assumption that
capitalist accumulation can only exist as long as there are non-capitalist
territories that can be exploited, capitalist accumulation thus contains
the seeds of its own decay.
21
- "Imperialism
is capitalism as the state of development at which the dominance of
monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of
capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the
world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of
all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been
completed" (Lenin, V.I. (1964) Imperialism: The Highest State of
Capitalism: A Popular Outline, in V.I. Lenin Collected Works, vol. 22,
December 1915-July 1916, Moscow: Progress, pp. 185-304, pp. 266-7). 23
- According
to Dobb, capitalism is not likely to have an equally progressive impact on
the underdeveloped countries as it has had on the presently capitalist
ones. For political reasons
the capitalist states often support reactionary social and political
forms, and the capitalists force the underdeveloped countries to perpetuate
their relatively primitive forms of production for fear of
competition. As a
consequence, foreign investments have mainly gone into "mining and
plantations and raw material processing, or into the development of export
industries as a kind of 'enclave' of the imperial metropolis" (Dobb,
M. (1963) Economic Growth and Underdeveloped Countries, London:
Lawrence and Wishart, p. 18).
24
- Since
the lack of competition leads to higher prices that would be feasible
under competitive capitalism, the surplus obtained by monopolistic
enterprises will eventually increase to such an extent that it can no
longer be absorbed by reinvestment in the firms, nor by investment in
other parts of the economy.
The economic surplus is then used in other ways. The state in capitalist countries,
which, according to Baran, is nothing more than an instrument in the hands
of the bourgeoisie, provides an outlet by spending the surplus on
"unproductive purposes of all kinds," most notably on military
activities (Baran, (1957) The Political Economy of Growth, New York:
Monthly Review Press, pp. 109-33, pp. 108-9). 25
- The
main reason for the economic backwardness of the underdeveloped countries
is to be found in the way in which the economic surplus is used. The surplus, the main part of
which is produced in agriculture, is appropriated by landowners,
moneylenders, merchants, the state bureaucracy of the underdeveloped
countries, and, to a large extent, foreign capitalists. The foreign capitalists "take
home" the surplus as the returns on their investment, while the
others tend to spend their part of the surplus in an unproductive way, for
instance on "excess consumption." In Baran's view [as above], all groups engaged in the
exploitation of the underdeveloped countries share one interest, namely,
the maintenance of the subordinate position of the agriculture and working
classes in the developed countries.
26
- "…the
first and most important obstacle to the economic development of the
underdeveloped countries is their relationship to the advanced capitalist
countries which dominate and exploit them. Until this relationship is either completely ruptured
or totally transformed - and of the latter there seems to be absolutely no
prospect in the foreseeable future - talk about overcoming the many other
obstacles to economic development is at best naďve and at worst
deliberately deceptive" (Sweezy, P.M. (1967) "Obstacles to
Economic Development," in C.H. Feinstein (ed.) Socialism,
Capitalism, and Economic Growth: Essays Presented to Maurice Dobbs,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 191-7). 26
- The
imperialist relationship with the colonies turned out to be beneficial for
the European countries: their terms of trade between industrial and
primary products changed for the better, they were provided with capital
needed to finance their industrialization, and capital owners obtained
ample opportunities for investment.
The effects on the dependent countries, as analyzed by Barratt
Brown, proved to be negative: no entrepreneurial class managed to develop
there, since "the whole purpose of the operation, i.e. to provide raw
materials for British and European industry, worked against the
development of industries in the primary producing countries" (Brown,
B. (1970) After Imperialism, Revised edition, London: Heinemann, p. 59)
26-7.
- "The
desire and need to operate on a world scale is built into the economics of
capitalism. Competitive
pressures, technical advances, and recurring imbalances between productive
capacity and effective demand create continuous pressures for the
expansion of markets" (Magdoff, H. (1972) "Imperialism without
Colonies," in R. Owen and B. Sutcliffs (eds.) Studies in the Theory
of Imperialism, London: Longman, pp. 144-70, p. 148). 27
- "…the
value of a commodity, or the quantity for any other commodity for which it
will exchange, depends on the relative quantity of labor which is
necessary for its production, and not on the greater or less compensation
which is paid for that labor" (Ricardo, D. (1971) On the Principles
of Political Economy and Taxation, Harmondsworth, Penguin, p.
55). 29
- "If
Portugal had no commercial connection with other countries, instead of
employing a great part of her capital and industry in the production of
wines, with which she purchases for her own use the cloth and hardware of
other countries, she would be obliged to devote a part of that capital to
the manufacture of those commodities, which she would thus obtain probably
inferior in quality as well as quantity" (Ricardo as above, p. 153). 29
- The
creation of mutual dependence among different economies by free-trade
would stimulate politicians to retain peaceful relations in order not to
disturb the economic contacts.
30
- "The
introduction of outside (relative) prices differing from those which would
be established in our economy in isolation will result in some trade, as a
result every individual would be better off than he would be at the prices
which prevailed in the isolated state" (Samuelson, P.A. (1950)
"The Gains from International Trade," Originally published in
1939 in H.S. Ellis and L.A. Metzler (eds.) Readings in the Theory of
International Trade, London: George Allen and Uwin, pp. 239-252, pp.
245-6). 31
- "The
enormous benefits that derive from increased productivity have not reached
the periphery in a measure comparable to that obtained by the peoples of
the great industrial countries.
Hence, the outstanding differences between the standards of living
of the masses of the former and the latter and the manifest discrepancies
between their respective abilities to accumulate capital, since the margin
of saving depends primarily on increased productivity" (Prebisch, R.
(1950) The economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal
Problems, Lake Success, NY: United Nations Department of Economic Affairs,
p. 1). 32
- "The
center is in a better position to retain the fruits of its general
increase in productivity because the increment in manpower does not need,
as in the periphery, to press on occupations with a lower productivity ratio
to the detriment of the wage level.
In other words, general improvements of productivity tend to be
fully reflected in the increment of the wage level at the center, while at
the periphery a part of the fruits of these improvements is transferred
through the fall of export prices and the corresponding deterioration in
the terms of trade" (Prebisch, R. (1959) "Commercial Policy in
the Underdeveloped Countries," American Economic Review, Papers
and Proceedings, vol. 49, No. 2, May, pp. 251-73, p. 262). 33
- …industries
in the developing countries must take over the production of the
previously imported goods, so that the countries are able to reduce their
dependence on foreign markets.
Under a policy of import substitution the means that previously
were employed to produce export goods would be available for the
production of goods for the internal market" (Prebisch, 1950 as
above, p. 44-5). 33
- The
traditional stage is characterized by a society in which the
attainable output per capita is limited, partly because production is
predominantly agricultural.
The pre-conditions for take-off develop under the influence
of scientific progress; scientific innovations are applied in, for
instance, agriculture, thereby increasing the funds available for investment. The actual take-off stage
is usually triggered off by a particular stimulus, often from outside the
national society. The prior
development of the society and its economy leads to self-sustained growth:
investment levels are higher than before - especially in transport, which
has a stimulating effect on the whole economy - and important
manufacturing sectors experience high rates of growth. For this to happen, an
entrepreneurial elite must have developed. The drive to maturity is characterized by the
growth of new economic sectors, supplanting the leading sectors of the
take-off stage; in Europe, new activity was mainly concentrated in heavy
industry which took the place of agriculture as an important part of the
economy. In the age of
high mass consumption, consumption instead of production occupies a
central place in society.
Rostow sees three developments in this phase: the pursuit of power
in the form of investment in military strength, the emphasis on the welfare
state and the expansion of consumption. According to Rostow, economic modernization is
complemented by political development, which is to be perceived as
"the collaboration of new and more complex forms of politics and
government as societies restructure themselves so as to absorb
progressively the stock and flow of modern technology which is,
essentially, uniform" (Rostow, W. (1971) Politics and the Stages
of Growth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 3). The process of economic growth
places several issues on the political agenda, most notably: welfare,
constitutional, and security issues.
34-5
- "…apparently
one of the primary conditions for increasing industrial development on a
world-wide scale, particularly in the economically less advanced
countries, is the change in certain social and consequently general
psychological conditions still standing in the way of more rapid and
effective industrial development" (Hoselitz, B.F. (1965) "Unity
and Diversity in Economic Structure, in B.F. Hoselitz Economics and the
Idea of Mankind, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 63-96, p.
93). 35
- Lerner
defines modernity as: "primarily a state of mind - expectation of
progress, propensity to growth, readiness to adapt oneself to change. The nations of the North Atlantic
area first developed the social processes - secularization, urbanization,
industrialization, popular participation - by which this state of mind
came to prevail. The 'Western
model' is only historically Western; sociologically it is global"
(Lerner, D. (1964) The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the
Middle East, New York; Free Press. p. iix). 35
- According
to Almond, a more developed political system has been successful in:
"the acquisition of new capability, in the sense of a specialized
role structure and differentiated orientations which together give a
political system the possibility of responding effectively, and more or
less autonomously, to a new range of problems" (Almond, G.A. (1970)
Political Development: Essays in Heuristic Theory, Boston: Little and
Brown. p. 172). 37
- In
the modernization process, which, in Pye's view, also has to be a process
of nation-building, the spread of political capacities among the
population is a crucial element.
37
- Laclau's
criticism of dependency and world system theories, and his main argument
for separating these from (neo-) Marxism, is based on the idea that
capitalism is to be interpreted as a 'mode of production' and not as a
'mode of exchange,' which is in effect the common approach of dependency
theorists. In Laclau's view,
these theorists have left the correct Marxist oath since their analysis
does not place enough emphasis upon the economic basis of the capitalist
structure and upon the relations among classes. 41
- …the
analysis of capitalism in dependency theory is clearly different from that
in the neo-Marxist theories.
While the latter stress the property relations dominating
capitalist production and view capitalism as production with privately
owned means, the former accentuates relations of exchange and defines
capitalism as production for the market. As a consequence of this difference, dependency theory
locates the rise of capitalism around 1500, whereas neo-Marxist theories
generally date it in the eighteenth century. The general conclusion with respect to the traditional
economic and neo-Marxist theries can be that the dependency theory offers
an alternative interpretation of the concepts of imperialism,
exploitation, and capitalism.
The world-wide relations among states of different levels of development
are not just interpreted as the subjugation of non-Western by Western
Countries, but as part of an international division of labor, in which the
Western countries possess the main industrial productive capacity and the
non-Western countries are forced to produce mainly primary commodities
(agricultural products and raw materials). 41-2
- Trade
is interpreted as one of the main instruments in the capitalist world
system for the transfer of surplus from the periphery to the center, making
the periphery worse and the center better off. Unequal trade relations are interpreted as fostering
underdevelopment in the periphery and development in the center. The free trade theorists advocate
the opening up of countries as a strategy for growth and development. This development policy is based
on the assumption of mutually beneficial trade; those countries having
abundant labor would, in this kind of reasoning, benefit from the
production and export of commodities for which labor is the main factor of
production. Dependency
theorists see this as a defective argument, since such policies would only
serve to prolong exploitative relations of unequal exchange. For this reason the dependency
theorists recommend 'disassociation' of Third World countries from the
international capitalist economic system in order to counter exploitation
and underdevelopment. 43
- The
final characteristic of the unequal relationship is that it is a cause of
underdevelopment external to the developing countries. 45
- The
only development strategy considered viable for the dependency theorists
is the resolute disassociation or delinking of the economy from the
international system. 48
- The
essence of functional explanation is that a certain event is said to occur
because its effect is assumed to have a function in the context of a
certain theory. A good
example of functional explanation can be found in Marxist theory, which
interprets the exploitation of the labor force as a necessary requirement
for the accumulation of capital.
Both the repression of labor and the introduction of welfare
arrangements can be explained by defining these as a function of the
exploitation of labor.
Repression might contribute to exploitation of labor. Repression might contribute to exploitation
because a less rebellious labor force makes possible the extraction of a
larger quantity of surplus value.
The introduction of welfare arrangements might enhance exploitation
because it renders the labor force quiescent and leads to an increase of
production, and thereby profit.
In the work of Anre Gunder Frank, functional explanation takes the
form of relating events and processes occurring in the capitalist world
system, or in parts thereof, to the interests of the dominant part of the
system, the metropolis, and the ruling class. Specifically, occurrences are related to the
accumulation of capital in the metropolis. These are considered to take place because of their
contribution to the accumulation of capital. 54
- "Economic
development and underdevelopment are the opposite faces of the same
coin. Both are the necessary
result and contemporary manifestation of internal contradictions in the
world capitalist system.
Economic development and underdevelopment are not just relative and
quantitative, in that one represents more economic development than the
other; economic development and underdevelopment are relational and
qualitative, in that each is structurally different from, yet caused by
its relation with, the other.
Yet development and underdevelopment are the same in that they are
the product of a single, but dialectically contradictory, economic
structure and process capitalism.
Thus they cannot be viewed as the products of supposedly different
economic structures or systems, or of supposed differences in stages of
economic growth achieved within the same system. One of the same historical process of the expansion and
development of capitalism throughout the world has simultaneously generated
- and continues to generate - both economic development and structural
underdevelopment" (Frank, A.G. (1969) Capitalism and
Underdevelopment in Latin America, Historical Studies of Chile and
Brazil, New York: Monthly Review Press, p. 9). 56
- Frank
has mentioned several mechanisms of exploitations, which can be grouped
into broad categories of exploitation by means of trade and exploitation
by means of investment. The
first category has already been referred to above: it concerns the
exchange of manufactured goods from the metropolis for agricultural
products and raw materials from the satellites. According to Andre Gunder Frank, this exchange is
unequal because the prices of the satellites' products show a tendency to
fall relative to those of the metropolitan products. This tendency is reflected in the
deterioration of the terms of trade of the developing countries. The second category of
exploitation is connected to the metropolitan investments in the satellite
economies. According to Andre
Gunder Frank, the exploitative element of these investments is to be found
in the use of their returns.
Unlike the situation in which capital owners invest for productive
purposes - a situation usually characterized by the reinvestment of the
returns from the original investment -, the metropolis-satellite
relationship causes the use of profits in a way that is detrimental to the
developing countries. Profits
made on investments in developing countries will usually not be reinvested
there. In the case of
domestic capital, the profits will normally be spent on luxury
consumption. When the profits
are the result of foreign investments, a substantial part will as a rule
be repatriated by the form responsible for the project. In either case, the developing
country as a whole does not benefit from the investments. 60
- Frank's
solution for underdeveloped countries is a radical one: they have to
withdraw or, in other words, dissociate, from the existing world system
and follow a non-exploitative development strategy, which enables the
underdeveloped countries to accumulate the capital they need for their own
purposes. 60
- "If
dependence were purely 'external', it could be argued that objective
conditions exist which would permit the 'national' bourgeoisie to propose
'nationalist' or 'autonomous' solution to the problem of
underdevelopment. But in our
view, such a solution does not exist - precisely because dependence is
invisible and makes the bourgeoisie itself dependent" (Frank, A.G.
(1972) Lumpenbourgeoisie: Lumpendevelopment: Dependence, Class, and
Politics in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press, pp.
3-4). 61
- [Double
determinism] First, the dependence on the metropolis is seen as a factor
influencing and conditioning the political, social and economic situation
in the satellite countries.
Secondly, the economic requirements connected with the position of
the satellite bourgeoisies are interpreted as dominating the political and
social circumstances of the underdeveloped countries. As a result, politics and social
relations are extremely polarized; there is hardly any common ground on
the basis of which cooperation between political and social groups would
be possible. 61
- "…the
development of an export economy with an excessively unequal distribution
of income, the drain of economic surplus to the metropolis, the
transformation of the national and local economic and class structure as a
function of world capitalist development and metropolitan developmental
needs, the natural alaliance between the metropolitan colonial power and
the local reactionary interests and their underdevelopment policy, the
close connection between the length and intensity of capitalist
colonization and the ultra-underdevelopment" (Frank, A.G. (1979) Dependent
Accumulation and Underdevelopment, New York: Monthly Review Press, pp.
148-9). 62
- According
to Andre Gunder Frank, the effect of the internationalization of the
division of labor on the indigenous modes of production in the
non-European areas was not the same in all parts of the world. The Spanish colonies in Latin America
were the first to experience its influence: the conditions under which
agriculture and mining operated there were adapted to the needs and
interests of the metropolitan economies. This meant that production became increasingly
commercialized and oriented toward Europe. During the same eighteenth centuries, Africa has become
part of the 'historical process of world capitalist development as a
consequence of the creation of plantation economies in the America's that
were dependent on imported slave labor. 63
- North
America became part of the capitalist metropolis, with the southern part
of the United States becoming a regional satellite; in Frank's
interpretation, "the development of the North at the expense of the
underdevelopment of the South itself generated a growing crisis as a
result of the development of northern productive forces: the Civil
War" (Frank, 1979, p. 81, as above). 64
- In
Asia, it was especially India that experienced important changes in its
relation to the developed countries.
According to Frank, the development of Industry in the metropolis
required "the destruction of industry and of the socio-economic nexus
between manufacturing and agriculture in the countryside" (Frank,
1979, p. 88, as above). As a
consequence of Britain's protectionism, India's textile, iron and steel
industries were destroyed. 65
- "The
desperate need of Third World countries to borrow from Peter to pay Paul
exposes them to pressures so intense they amount to blackmail by the
International Monetary Fund and the big Western banks to adopt policies
that further export promotion.
These policies are the standard IMF package: currency devaluation,
reductions in public spending and in subsidies for social purposes and reduced
wages, all of which increase the exploitation of the poor and often lead
to "IMF riots".
Therefore, the imposition of these measures usually requires an
increase in political repression, which the IMF sometimes calls for by
demanding the replacement of one economies minister or even a whole government
by another" (Frank, A.G. (1981) Crisis in the Third World,
London: Heinemann, pp. 132).
68
- Capital
accumulation can be considered the motive force for the capitalist world
system, and since it is dependent upon the rate of profit of the economic
transactions - this itself being dependent upon exploitation - the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall causes periodic crises. According to Frank, the crises
generate a pressure for new inventions and also engender "an
accelerated change of transformation in the international division of
labor." Frank concludes
that "it is in the periods of economic crises that the unequal
structure of the world economy undergoes its most rapid transformation"
((1983) The Unequal and Uneven Historical Development of the World
Economy, Research Memorandum, No. 8327, Amsterdam: University of
Amsterdam, p. 16). It is also
during those crises that "the 'rise' from the periphery and …the
'decline' at the center" takes place and leads to the
"development of intermediate, semiperipheral economies and
powers" ((1981) Crisis:
In the Third World, London: Heinemann, p. 3). The major crises in the capitalist
world system, in Frank's view, took place during the seventeenth century,
from 1762-1790, from 1873-1895, in the 1930s (the Great Depression) and
between 1967 and the mid-1980s.
The main reaction to those crises were, respectively, the
commercial revolution of the eighteenth century, the Industrial
Revolution,, the metropolitan expansion by means of imperialism, the
creation of neoimperialism and monopoly capitalism, and the rise of
neo-conservatism in the West and the transfer of (parts of) production
processes to the Third World.
68
- In
Frank's view, the military coups in many Third World countries are to be
explained in the context of the periodic crises pervading the world
capitalist system. The
internal polarization of the satellite countries is an important variable
in the dependency-development nexus.
On the one hand, the degree of dependence determines the rise to power
of certain socio-economic groups that are to play a role in world-wide
exploitation and accumulation.
On the other hand, the internal polarization contributes to the
underdevelopment of the satellite countries, because then some groups have
an interest in exploiting and, thereby underdeveloping parts of their own
countries. The concentration
of production, meaning the reliance on the production of a small number of
commodities, is influenced by the degree of dependence and by the
situation in the capitalist world system. The more dependent countries will be driven to a
situation of (near-) monoculture, which in itself is seen as an impediment
to achieving more development.
The situation in the capitalist world system also influences the
concentration of production.
It has already been indicated above that a situation of world
economic countries enables the satellite countries to change something
about their own situation.
During periods of crises, the satellite countries will therefore
try to diversify their economy by producing more types of commodities than
before. This is thought to
curtail the possibilities of exploitation by the metropolitan countries
and to reduce the level of underdevelopment. 71
- …Amin's
explanation of the rise of imperialism during the final decades of the
nineteenth century: " Throughout the nineteenth century, until the
1880s, because real wages at the center did not increase sufficiently, a
form of expansionism was necessary that conferred certain functions upon
the periphery. Since the last
decades of the nineteenth century, however, real wages at the center
increased at a faster rate, and this has caused the expansionism of the
capitalist mode to assume new forms (imperialism and the export of
capital) and has also given the periphery new functions to perform"
(Amin, S. (1976) Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations
of Peripheral Capitalism, New York: Monthly Review Press, p. 76). 75
- "Products,
when they are commodities, posses value; …this value is measurable; …the
yardstick for measuring it is the quantity of abstract labor socially
necessary to produce them; and, finally, …this sum is the sum of the
quantities of labor, direct and indirect (transferred), which are used in
the process of production.
The concept of the commodity and the existence of the law of value,
formulated in this way, are inseparably interconnected" (Amin, S.
(1978) The Law of Value and Historical Materialism, New York:
Monthly Review Press, p. 9).
76
- "The
imports that the advanced countries of the West receive from the Third
World represent, it is true, only 2 or 3 percent of their gross internal
product. … But these exports from the underdeveloped countries represent
20 percent of their product. … The hidden transfer of value due to
unequal exchange is thus of the order of 15 percent of this product, which
is far from being negligible in relative terms, and is alone sufficient to
account for the blocking of the growth of the periphery, and the
increasing gap between it and the center. The contribution that this transfer makes is not
negligible, either, when seen from the standpoint of the center, which
benefits from it, since it comes to about 1.5 percent of the center's
product. But this transfer is
especially important for the giant firms that are its direct
beneficiaries" (Amin, S., 1976, as above, p. 144). 79-80
- Underdevelopment
is not so much a quantitative as it is a qualitative
characteristic. 80
- "The
reason for the creation of such an export sector has been the possibility
to obtain from the periphery those products which are necessary for the
formation of constant capital (raw materials) or variable capital
(foodstuffs) at production prices which are lower than they would have
been at the center for analogous products (or for evident substitutes in
the case of specific product such as coffee or tea" (Amin, S. (1972)
"LE MODELE THEORIQUE D'ACCUMULATION ET DE EDEVLOPPEMENT, DANS LE
MONDE CONTEMPORAIN: LA PROBLEMATIQUE DE TRANSITION," REVUE
TIERS-MONDE, vol. 13, No. 52, October-December, pp. 703-26, p. 708). 81
- Since
the periphery is outward-oriented it does not maintain the means necessary
for the pursuit of an autcentered development policy. The surplus that is realized on
the production in the periphery cannot be used for investment, since the
better part is tapped by the center; the remainder of the surplus is
collected by large landowners who tend to use it for the luxury
consumption. This is also the
reason why, according to Amin, the so-called multiplier mechanism does not
apply to underdeveloped countries.
As he writes, the multiplier effect is present "only if demand
creates its own supply through the intermediary if production. This intermediary, overlooked by
Keynes, is essential. In a
country where there are no free productive forces, the extra demand is
lost in a price increase" ((1974) Accumulation on a World Scale: A
Critique of the Theory of Underdevelopment, 2 vols., New York: Monthly
Review Press). 81
- The
processes sketched here lead to the "marginalization of the
masses" (1976, as above, p. 194). This entails, among other things, "the
proletarianizing of the small agricultural and craft producers, rural
semiproletarianization, and impoverishment without proletarianization of
the peasants organized in village communities, urbanization, and massive
growth in both open unemployment and underemployment in the towns,
etc." (1976, as above, p. 194).
These development are not accompanied by industrialization, since…the
extroverted economy of the periphery is not able to generate enough
surplus to support such industrialization. From Amin this concludes that "this lack of a way
forward through autocentric industrialization accounts for the increased
'pressure on the land' that is so frequently to be observed in the Third
World" 1976, as above, p. 205).
This means that many Third World countries experience
"urbanization without industrialization." This situation is
crucially different from the experience of the presently developed
countries during their history, since these have been able to pursue
autocentric development strategies.
82
- The
mercantilist period introduced a major change for the Third
World. The development of
mercantile capitalism in the countries of Europe led to the expansion of
European influence on economic activities across the world. In this period, accouding to Amin,
capitalism was still in a "prehistoric form," with the
bourgeoisie accumulating it on the basis of slave-based export agriculture
in America. In Europe,
furthermore, feudalism disintegrated and agriculture was proletarianized
and commercialized. Linked
with this, capitalist production relations and wage labor started to
develop ((1974, as above, pp. 50-3).
84
- The
period of integration of the periphery into the capitalist world system
started with the industrial revolution in the capitalist countries. The importance of this period is
underlined by Amin when he writes that "it was in this period that
the international specialization between industrial and agricultural
countries was decided" (1974) as above, p. 41). 85
- The
basis of Samir Amin's ideas about delinking is to be found in his fifth
theoretical assumption, stressing that a development policy can only be
successful if it is autocentered or autocentric. This means that economic and
social policy decisions should not be subjected to considerations imposed
by the interests of other countries - if the latter would be the case, the
development policy would be extroverted. According to Amin, the presently developed countries
are the ones that have followed an autocentered development course par
excellence. With, and
because, of, the expansion of capitalism and the creation of capitalist
world system, no country - with the exception of Japan, which has never
been integrated in the system - has been able to pursue an autocentered
capitalist development policy since the rise of modern imperialism. The
underdeveloped countries, which have been exposed to extroverted
development, have not been able to orient their economies towards the
production of mass consumption and capitals goods, which is the essential
precondition for autocentered development. Their economies have, on the contrary, been
export-oriented; the internal markets have not been able to grow and for
this reason mass consumption has not developed. 88
- "Delinking
is not synonymous with autocentric development. It indicates another phenomena: a demand imposed by the
system. It is the condition
for autocentric development, on the basis of a legacy of peripheral capitalism. … In a word, it deals with a principle: that of
'delinking' the criteria of rationality of internal economic choices from
those governing the world system.
These criteria are only the economic choices from those governing
the socio-economic system. We
have argued that the world capitalist system as a whole - centers and
peripheries included - was governed by the same law of value that we
categorize as 'world capitalist.'
… We have therefore
proposed that one should define the criteria of economic rationality on
the basis of constraints and social relations internal to the nation"
(Amin, S. (1990) Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World, London: Zed, pp.
18-9). 89
- He
argues that, therefore, any attempt at introducing a development policy
conducive to the needs of the presently underdeveloped countries will
require a socialist political order: "we support the view that
delinking, whether one likes it or not, is associated with a 'transition'
- outside capitalism and over a long time - towards socialism" (Amin,
1990, as above, p. 55). 89
- Samir
Amin has formulated several conditions which, in his view, are necessary
for a policy of delinking to succeed. In the first place, agriculture should be given
economic priority to ensure that enough food be obtained for the entire
population. Secondly, the
interests of industry should be made subservient to the progress of
productivity in agriculture; industrial production should therefore be
focused on inputs for agriculture (fertilizer, equipment), infrastructural
works and preservation and processing of the produce. Thirdly, the production process
should be subjected to national and popular control, exercised by the
workers and peasants, on the one hand, and the government, on the
other. Fourthly, technology
should not be "bought," in the developed countries, but should
be developed or adjusted to the specific needs of Third World
countries. Fifthly, external
relations should be limited and differ fundamentally from those
characteristic of the import substitution and export-oriented
strategies. Finally, a
"national structure of interdependent pricing and financial
instrument" should be developed, in order to bring incomes in
accordance with needs and not necessarily with (sectorally unequal)
productivity. According to
Amin, a strategy of delinking can only be introduced when the country
concerned is characterized by a minimum level of "real"
democracy. The history of the
world capitalist system has resulted in a sharp polarization between
distinct parts of the system and it is this polarization. 90
- The
kind of democracy accompanying the process of delinking should have, in
Amin's view, an explicit "social dimension." It is not
sufficient for the peripheral countries to have a formal democratic political
system, since this does not ensure popular involvement and support. Instead, the democratization
following delinking should entail the participation of workers and
peasants in economic decisions regarding, for instance, investments,
prices and wages. 90-1
- Galtung
elaborates on the these of self-reliance because it is, in his
perspective, a policy option that would enable the developing countries to
further their development without having to make too many concessions in
the developed countries. 94
- "Imperialism
permits center countries to grow and theoretically even able to become
increasingly egalitarian because the periphery needed for capitalist
growth is located outside themselves. But these periphery countries have no outside
peripheries unless they also engage in imperialism, as they sometimes
do. If not, then their
peripheries are doomed to stagnation, unless they break out of the
structure" (Galtung, J. (1980) The True World: A Transnational
Perspective, New York: Free Press, p. 126). 97
- "Imperialism
is a relation between a center and a periphery Nation so that (1) there is
harmony of interest between the center in the Center nation
and the center in the periphery nation, (2) there is disharmony
of interest within the Periphery nation than within the Center
nations, (3) there is disharmony of interest between the periphery
in the Center nation and the periphery in the Periphery
nation" (Galtung, J. (1971) "A Structural Theory of
Imperialism," Journal of Peace Research, vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 81-117,
p. 83). 98
- "There
is a pattern, a total social formation that drives people towards
overconsumption in one ay or another. … This
pattern, or social formation, is what could be referred to as
overdevelopment, just like underdevelopment is a pattern that enforces
underconsumption upon people.
It is obvious from what has been said that these are two sides of
the sme coin, that they are dialectically related" (Galtung, J.,
Preiswerk, R., and Wemegah, M. (1981) A Concept of Development Centered
on the Human Being: Some Western European Perspectives, No. 8, Geneva:
University Institute for the Study of Development, pp. 16-17). 101
- …the
only way for the periphery to attain a reasonable level of development is
found in its dissociation from the capitalist world system and its
pursuit of self-reliance.
104
- Self-reliance
is to be interpreted as a strategy for periphery countries to attain a
higher level of development, coping with the structural limitations
imposed by the capitalist world system. The strategic view is directly linked to a substantive
definition of development in different books and articles, it is clear
that the satisfaction of human needs is fundamental to his conception of
development. 104
- As
the fundamental material needs he mentions: physiological needs,
individual environmental needs, the need for group/family environmental
protection, health, education, the freedom of expression and impression,
and the freedom to move and to be visited. The basic non-material needs concern the following:
creativity, identity, autonomy, togetherness, participation,
self-fulfillment, and a sense of meaning in life. In order to have these needs
fulfilled in the periphery countries, most attention should be paid to the
least privileged in those countries: "The best strategy for
development … would be to stimulate those processes that give first
priority to the satisfaction of the basic needs of those most in
need. This would mean,
concretely, giving first priority to the production of food, clothes, housing,
etc., for the undernourished, the unclad and the shelterless, and giving
first priority to the provision of more opportunities for, say, creative,
meaningful work for those who have the most boring, degrading work (not
necessarily the same people a those who are undernourished). Thus, what is rejected is … the
idea that need satisfaction will take place, or can only take place,
through a tricke-down process, starting with providing those already well
off materially with more material satisfaction, and those well-off
non-materially (intellectuals, for instance) with even more non-material
satisfaction" (Galtung, J. (1979) Development, Environment and
Technology: Towards a Technology for Self-Reliance, New York, UN, p.
4). 104-5
- The
first requirement [in order to guarantee an adequate process of
development in the periphery, according to Galtung] is the
decentralization of the periphery society, meaning that the dependence on
the center in the periphery is reduced. Decentralization is also meant as an instrument of
emancipation for the people of the periphery: people would regain control
over their own resources, be it capital, labor or raw materials. The second, requirement…is that
the "local parasitic elites" have to be removed from the
opposition of power which they have obtained. It is assumed that the elites will use the resources of
the periphery country primarily for their own benefit and that their
(economic or political) power has to be broken in order to permit an
equitable development of all social groups. Galtung's third and fourth requirements are closely
related. …s stronger
political mobilization in the periphery and a higher level of
consciousness about the functioning of the current structures and the
possibilities for building new structures would be essential for the
periphery to sustain a viable development strategy. 105
- …self-reliance
is not the same as autarky; self reliance "implies a redirection and
recomposition of trade and cooperation, not the building of tight walls
around all units" (Galtung, J. (1980) "Self-Reliance: Concepts,
Practice and Rationale, in J. Galtung, P. O'Brien and R. Preiswerk (eds.)
Self-Reliance: A strategy for Development, London: Bogle-L' Ouverture,
pp. 19-44, p. 27).
Self-reliance, understood as the enhanced autonomy of the
periphery, can be realized at several levels. Apart from the national level, Galtung, has alos
mentioned the local (i.e., sub-national) and regional (Third World)
levels: "Thus, far from being antithetical to trade, exchange and cooperation
a consistent policy of self-reliance may even increase the exchange level
in the world because it will engender much more cooperation between
neighbors in geographical and social space. The point is not to cut out trade but to redirect it
and recompose it by giving preference to cooperation with those in the
same position, preferring the neighbor to the more distant possibility,
cooperation to exchange, and intra-sector to inter-sector trade"
(Galtung, 1980, as above, p. 26). 105-6
- The
building of a self-reliant society and, a fortiori, of a world
system consisting of self-reliant societies could only take place
"from the bottom up": "One would start with what is
available locally and needed locally, and build from their in circles of
equitable exchange" (Galtung, J. (1980) "The politics of
Self-Reliance, in G, O and P as above, pp. 355-83, p. 360). 106
- In
order for self-reliance to be a viable policy, the Western technology (or
alpha-type technology) has to be supplanted, at least partially, by a
non-Western variant (or beta-type technology). The alpha-type technology, as a
representative of alpha-structure, tends to increase its scale as it has
no size limitation, and results in the total manipulation of nature. The beta-type technology has size
limitations and is more dependent on nature: "If people are to have
meaningful relations with each other and not be fitted into
center-periphery hierarchies, and in addition are to participate in
deciding what happens around them, then there is an upper limit to how
many can become members of a beta-unit. This is one reason why family-run farms and shops, and
villages, have the size they have.
Moreover, if the beta-structure is more inward-oriented, more local
and decentralized, the economic cycles (not super-cycles, which belong to
the alpha-structure) on which it is based materially would be more exposed
to the discontinuities of nature in space and time" (Galtung, J.,
1979, as above, p. 10). 106-7
- By
introducing beta-type technologies, which imply equal exchange, a
horizontal division of labor, autonomy, solidarity, participation and
integration, the currently underdeveloped countries would be able to
escape from the oppression and exploitation of the alpha-type capitalist
world-system. 107
- In
Galtung's view, countries can only alter their position in the world
division of labor when they succeed in breaking out of the existing world
structure and are able to establish, economic, social and political
self-reliance. 107
- "If
there is one thing which distinguishes a world-system perspective from any
other, is its insistence that the united of analysis is a world-system
defined in terms of economic processes and links, and not any units
defined in terms of juridical, political, vultural, geological, or other
criteria" (Hopkins, T.K., and Wallerstein, I. and associates (1982)
"Patterns of Development of the Modern World-System," in T.K.
Hopkins, I. Wallerstein, R.L. Bach, C. Chase-Dunn, and R. Mukherjee (eds.)
World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology, vol. 1, Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 41-82, p. 72). 114
- "The
development of the capitalist world-economy has involved the creation of
all the major institutions of the modern world class: classes,
ethnic/national groups, households - and the 'states.' All of these structures postdate,
not antedate capitalism; all are consequences, not case"
(Wallerstein, I. (1984) The Politics of the World-Economy: The State,
the Movement, and the Civilization, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, p. 29). 115
- "Ethno-national
consciousness is the constant resort for all those for whom class
organization offers the risk of a loss of relative advantage through the
normal workings of the market and class dominated political
bargaining" ((1979) The Capitalist World-Economy, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, p. 228).
115
- "Where
can we find 'societies' other than in the minds of analysts, or of the
orators? Social science
would, in my view, make a great leap forward if it dispensed entirely with
the term. … My own unit of analysis is based
on the measurable social reality of interdependent productive activities,
what may be called an 'effective social division of labor' or, in code
language, an 'economy'" (Wallerstein, 1984, as above, p. 2). 116
- In
Wallerstein's view, the capitalist world economy managed to survive over
more than 500 years because no one political entity succeeded in
controlling the world-wide division of labor. Wallerstein goes as far as considering capitalism and
the modern world economy (a single division of labor couples with multiple
polities and cultures) as 'obverse sides of the same coin.' implying that
the one could not have survived with the other (1979 as above, p. 6). 117
- According
to Wallerstein, the history of the capitalist world system demonstrates
that a mode of exploitation will be eliminated when it becomes less
economical than other modes.
For instance, slavery was abolished when cash-crop production and
wage labor proved to be more efficient means of exploiting the work force
(1979 as above, p. 28). 117
- "…there
is a middle tier, which shares in the exploitation of the lower tier, but
also shares in being exploited by the upper tier" (1979 as above, p.
223). 118
- The
capitalist world economy has expanded gradually over the last five
centuries; it was not until the twentieth century that all parts of the
world were incorporated into this world economy. Before the twentieth century, large parts of the world
still belonged to the external arena of the world economy. According to Wallerstein, the
defining characteristic of the external arena is the fact that production
processes can be accounted for by other considerations than the
maximization of capital accumulation in the core. 119
- "Incorporation
means fundamentally that at least some significant production processes in
a given geographic location become integral to various of the commodity
chains that constitute the ongoing divisioning of labor in the capitalist
world-system" (Wallerstein, I. (1989) The Modern World-System III,
The Second Era of the Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy,
1730-1840s, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, p. 130). 119
- France
has been the principal industrial power in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but it was not in this country that the industrial revolution
took place, since its position in the capitalist world economy was not
favorable. Wallerstein argues
that "it is the world-economy which develops over time and not
subunits within it" (1989 as above, p. 33), and therefore the relative
competitive strength of France and Britain is a prime explanatory factor
in the account of the industrial revolution. The French Revolution is, in his view, part and parcel
of the development of the capitalist world economy: it is interpreted as
"the moment when the ideological superstructure finally caught up
with the economic base. It
was the consequence of the transition not its cause nor the moment of its
occurrence" (1989 as above, p. 52). According to Wallerstein, the French Revolution occurred
as a consequence of France's sense of imminent defeat in the struggle for
hegemony with Britain. He
sees the revolution as "a relatively conscious attempt by a diverse
group of the ruling capitalist strata to force through urgency needed
reforms of the French state in light of the perceived British leap forward
to hegemonic status in the world economy" (1989 as above, p.
111). The revolution was also
the first important antisystemic or anticapitalist movement in the modern
world system; it was the rise of the popular masses - the peasants and the
sansculottes - against the feudal ruling classes. 125
- The
most important antisystemic movements in the history of the modern world
system, according to Wallerstein, were the socialist and nationalist
movements, in recent times supplemented by "new social movement"
(1984 as above, pp. 123-6).
128
- The
socialist movement, which was created in the nineteenth century, "was
rooted in the intensification of the processes of capitalist
centralization of economic activities" (Arrighi, G., Hopkins, T.K.,
and Wallerstein, I. (1989) Antisystemic Movements, London: Verso,
p. 88). At first the movement
had a revolutionary aim, the overthrow of the capitalist system. In the West, the movement
gradually became reformist and participated in the political process. …the
social democratic parties in Western Europe achieved a large number of
their objectives in the two decades after the Second World Way. The working class experienced a
substantial rise in its standard of living and its organizations obtained
an equal position in the political structure. 128
- The
deterioration of the developing countries' terms of trade has often been
interpreted as an indication of the extent of exploitation of these
countries. It has been argued
that, as the price level of primary products decreases while the price
level of manufactured goods increases, the developed countries are paying
less and less for the imports of raw materials and agricultural products. The consequence of this tendency
for the developing countries would be reduced export revenues. 143
- The
analysis have also shown…that the dependence on a small number of primary
commodities is potentially harmful to the development of Third World
countries. 170
- Some
theories consider imperialism to be a direct result of capitalism. Most notably, these are the
traditional economic and neo-Marxist theories of imperialism. To a certain extent, the dependency
theorists also adhere to this view.
The identification of imperialism with capitalism is not a
necessary element of structural theories of the world system,
however. Many authors are led
to believe that the coincidence of the spread of capitalism and the heyday
of imperialism during the nineteenth century is not accidental, but that
one factor (capitalism) caused the other (imperialism). Many studies show that there is
certainly no one-to-one relationship between capitalism and
imperialism. Secondly, there
are non-capitalist states that can aptly be called imperialist. Thirdly, many actions of the
imperialist nations cannot be explained as economically inspired. 173
- …the
Keynesian economist Joan Robinson has argued that "the misery of
being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not
being exploited at all" ((1964) Economic Philosophy,
Harmondsworth, Penguin, p. 46).
174
Putnam, R. (1993) Making
Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NY: Princeton
University Press, chapters 1 and 4.
- The
rules and standard operating procedures that make up institutions leave
their imprint on political outcomes by structuring political
behavior. Outcomes are not
simply reducible to the billiard-ball interaction of individuals nor to
the intersection of board social forces. Institutions influence outcomes because they shape
actors’ identities, power, and strategies. Whatever other factors may affect their form,
institutions have inertia and “robustness.” They therefore embody historical trajectories and
turning points. 8
- In
the Republic Plato argued that
governments vary in accordance with the dispositions of their
citizenry. 11
- Economic
modernity is somehow associated with high-performance public
institutions. 86
- Citizenship
in a civic community is marked, first of all, by active participation in public
affairs. 87
- The
dichotomy between self-interest and altruism can easily be overdrawn, for
no mortal, and no successful society, can renounce the powerful motivation
of self-interest. Citizens in
the civic community are not required to be altruists. In the civic community, however,
citizens pursue what Tocqueville termed “self-interest properly
understood,” that is, self-interest defined in the context of broader
public needs, self-interest that is “enlightened” rather than “myopic,”
self-interests that is alive to the interests of others. 88
- Such
a community is bound together by horizontal relations of reciprocity and
cooperation, not by vertical relations of authority and dependency. 88
- The
more that politics approximates the ideal of political equality among
citizens following norms of reciprocity and engaged in self-government,
the more civic that community may be said to be. 88
- Civil
associations contribute to the effectiveness and stability of democratic
government, it is argued, both because of their “internal” effects on
individual members and because of their “external” effects on the wider
polity. 89
- Participation
in civic organizations inculcates skills of cooperation as well as a sense
of shared responsibility for collective endeavors. 90
- “When
some view is represented by an association, it must take clearer and more
precise shape. It counts its
supporters and involves them in its cause; these supporters get to know
one another, and numbers increase zeal. An association unites the energies of divergent minds
and vigorously directs them towards a clearly indicated goal.”
(Tocqueville) 90
- …associationism
is a necessary precondition for effective self-government. 90
- The
most successful local organizations represent indigenous, participatory
initiatives in relatively cohesive local communities. 91
- In
every community, the more educated feel more efficacious, for education
represents social status, personal skills, and connections. 110
- Educated
citizens in the least civic regions feel almost as impotent as less
educated citizens in the most civic regions. 110
- Social
disharmony and political conflict are often thought inimical to effective
governance. Consensus is said
to be a prerequisite for stable democracy. 116
- Edmund
Burke suggested that the well ordered society must be considered a
partnerships, “ a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a
partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.” 116
Schuurman, F. (1993) “Introduction: Development Theory in
the 1990s,” in Frans Schuurman (ed.) Beyond
the Impasse, New York: Zed, pp. 1-49.
- There
was also a reasonable level of agreement about the role of multinational
corporations:
- Multinationals
impose a universal consumption pattern, without taking local needs into
account.
- They
use capital-intensive techniques in areas with large labor resources.
- They
out-compete national capital, or undertake joint ventures with local
capital.
- They
use a variety of methods to transfer capital (e.g., fictitious price
systems).
- They
involve themselves in national political economic affairs, via (among
others) their relationships with the local bourgeoisie. 5
- The
basic idea of the modes of production theory is that a number of modes of
production coexist in a society, and that they have a relationship to each
other (regarding exchange of labor, goods, capital, etc.). 6
- …it
was thought that a relationship between capitalist and non-capitalist
modes of production was favorable for the capitalist mode of
production. Apartheid was
used as a classic example of an articulation between capitalist and
non-capitalist modes of production.
The workers lived in their traditional homelands, where they had
land that didn’t produce enough to live on, and so had to offer their
labor to South African industry.
Salaries, however, could remain low, because workers had some
income from their land. This
example shows that a capitalist mode of production not only relates to
existing non-capitalist modes of production, but it can also create new
ones. The conclusion was that
in many developing countries capitalism articulated with non-capitalist
modes of production and so retarded the development of these
countries. 6-7
- Like
Frank, Wallerstein argued that a capitalist world economy had existed
since the 16th century, that is, since the beginning of the
colonial era. 8
- …in
the modernization theory, culture is seen as something static and, in the
Third World, a possible obstacle to development. In Marxist analysis, on the other hand, culture is seen
as being determined by the economy.
The neo-Weberian approach, however, sees culture as creative
process that must be studied in locally oriented research. 15
- Post-imperialism
is not a development theory; at most it is a theory regarding a recently
arisen international oligarchy.
This ‘managerial’ bourgeoisie is a new class which defends its
interests against the proletariat and the old oligarchic classes. In the Third World this results in
a great diversity in relations between the state and (international)
capital. 20
- Exploitative
behavior towards nature, it is argued, is a typical patriarchal attitude,
in which both women and nature are given a subordinate role. Women’s emancipation would,
therefore, also lead to less exploitative relations with nature. In addition, attention to ethnic
minorities in the Third World—who generally are considered to treat nature
in a less damaging manner—can give further shape to sustainable
development. 22
- Science
is not employed to emancipate humanity, but enlisted by capital and
subjugated to efficiency rather than truth. There is no one single truth, as depicted by modernity
philosophy; rather there is a plurality of perspectives, each with its own
language, its own rules and myths.
23
- …certain
emancipatory goals, such as Citizenship and Participation, are found in
all social movements and as such there is a feasible basis for meaningful
relations between social movements, which can further substantiate the
concept of radical democracy.
29
Slater, D. (1993) “The Political Meanings of Development:
In Search of New Horizons,” Frans Schuurman (ed.), Beyond the Impasse,
Zed Books, pp. 93-112.
- “…democracy
is impossible without a democratic passion, a passion for the freedom of
each and of all, a passion for common affairs which become….the personal
affairs of each” (Castoriadis, C. 1990, “Does the idea of Revolution Still
Make Sense? –an Interview with Cornelius Castoriadis,” Thesis Eleven no.
26, pp. 123-38: 137).
- I
would argue that the primary thrust of the Marxist position has been
characterized by three interrelated problems. In the first place, there has been a strong tendency to
view the economy as determinant in the last instance. This has meant that the
accumulation, valorization, and devalorization of capital have been a
logic which determines the pattern of social and political processes. 101
- …when
there has been an analysis of socio-political change, the key subject is
always a class subject, a clas struggle has always been defined as the struggle. Here we have two major
difficulties: i) the constitution or formation of the subjectivity of
social agents is short-circuited, that is, the process through which an
individual is constituted as a social subject, in all its complexity and
potential volatility, and in some instances as an eventual class subject,
is by-passed – instead the class category, as one possible point of
arrival, is taken as a pre-given analytical point of departure; and ii) in
a related manner, it has been assumed that in the construction of social
consciousness, the point of production is central. 102
- …there
has always been a strong inclination to pre-suppose that there is a
pre-given, privileged social subject, cast in the role of the historical
bearer of the revolutionary break from capitalism – I refer of course to
the working class. But
history has shown something else.
Looking at the Cuban or Nicaraguan revolutions, it is clear that at
a certain historical moment, a variety of social subjects, unified around
a certain vision, a particular political horizon, which combined a range
of attitudes, feelings, objectives, hopes and ideas around questionsn of
the nation, of the fight against dictatorship, of social justice, of the
struggle against imperialism, came together and took a series of actions
that culminated in the moment of revolution. 102
- Another
meaning of development can be found in the context of movements of
resistance and the creation within civil society of another kind of
democratic innovation. 108
- Sustainable
development is most often defined as a strategy to satisfy the needs of
the present generation without interfering with the needs of future
generations. 22-3
- The
term sustainable development encompasses development strategies which
range from light-green to dark-green, from romantic nostalgic conservatism
to utopian socialism, from absolute zero growth in the economy to
maintaining the present world economic growth rate. As a result, the ‘green’ notion of
sustainable development could be incorporated without effort into both the
‘blue’ development model (neo-liberal) and the ‘red’ development model
(socialist, and these days social democratic). In a number of cases one can therefore hardly speak of
an alternative development
model. 22
- Exploitative
behavior towards nature, it is argued, is a typical patriarchal attitude,
in which both women and nature are given a subordinate role. Women’s emancipation would,
therefore, also lead to less exploitative relations with nature. In addition, attention to ethnic
minorities in the Third World – who generally are considered to treat
nature in a less damaging manner—can give further shape to sustainable
development. 22
- Bill
Adams (in this volume) finds sustainable development to be a flag for many
ships, and because of this concept does not enjoy an accepted theoretical
foundation. Yet, the power of
the concept lies in the insights derived from micro-level praxis. Thus, Adams favors a theory
formation of sustainable development which includes the macro as well as
the micro: the transnational corporation and the peasant, the biosphere
and the field. The fragmented
praxis of ecological research, planning and policy, in developed as well
as in underdeveloped countries, indicate the necessity of theory formation
for sustainable development.
22
- Post-modernism
is a reaction to the Enlightenment narrative of the development of
scientific knowledge, along lines laid out by Galileo and Newton, which
could lead to a rational control by man over his natural and social
surroundings. 23
- …development
theories address situations where large parts of the human population
suffer from substantial inequalities in emancipation. 31
- The
point is not to strive for one grand and glorious development metatheory per se but rather to stress that a
lot of new ground has already been covered, but that the plots still
remain rather isolated.
Seddon, W., J., and D. (1994) Free Markets and Food Riots, Cambridge: Blackwell, pp. 5-134.
- Most
orthodox economists (including those in the World Bank, at least until
very recently) have seen the changes in this period simply as aspects of a
process of “transition” as the emergence of new development
(industrializing) countries (NICs) challenges the old international
economic order and the global economy “adjusts” to these new
circumstances. 4
- For
the economists more influences by the theories of Keynes, the evident
changes of the period under consideration are in part at least associated
with a deepening crisis in international economic and public relations
associated with a lack of effective international management of
increasingly interdependent global economy and giving rise to conflict
between and within states, growing inequality (both international and
national) and mass poverty. 4
- …writing
from a more radical perspective (and often referred to as “neo-Marxist”)
the crisis is a classical crisis of over accumulation and is thus
intrinsic to the international capitalist economy and its associated
political regime. 5
- Mediation
is this struggle (class struggle within states, and international
competition and conflict at the global level) is likely to be ineffective
and based on wishful thinking.
5
- In
fact, in many developing countries today the combination of the recession
and specific adjustment and austerity measures has been devastating. Rapis social change has been a
feature of the past half-century to be sure, and the process of class
formation and transformation, the rural exodus and the growth of urban
areas, has generated enormous social changes, But social change in times
of prosperity generates less effective tension than change under duress in
conditions of economic stringency and austerity. 20
- For
the contemporary global crisis in capitalism is not only a
financial-economic, but also a political-economic crisis; it is also
(although this is less considered to be the economists who dominate the debates on “the
world in transition”) a social and cultural crisis. In the last 20 years, the world
has been turned “upside down” and a process of fundamental restructuring
of social relations, ideas, and values has taken place. 21
- Rapid
changes in the structure of social relations, taking place particularly at
a time when the relationship between the state and civil society is
undergoing fundamental restructuring and reconsideration, has given rise
to new social divisions and solidarities and to new forms of identity and
morality. New certainties (fundamentalisms
of various kinds) have merged just as old certainties or faiths have
crumbled. 21
- Food
riots took several forms: (a) the blockage
or entrave that prevented the
export of gran from an area in which shortages existed; (b) the price riot or taxation populaire in which food was seized by protestors, a
just price set, and the lot sold; (c) the agrarian demonstration in which farmers destroyed their own
produce as a dramatic protest; and (d) the market riot in which the crowd took retributive action against
commercial agents (e.g., bankers, millers) or local magistrates in the
form of looting or “tumultuous assembly to force dealers or local
authorities to reduce prices.
25-6
- Food
riots were most common in towns, particularly in industrial localities
specializing in textiles and mining, as well as in distributional centers
such as ports and market towns.
Location reflected function: “riots resulted in market expansion
and…erupted in productive areas in which the grain was drained by
metropolitan, military, or oversea demand, and in large cities” (L. Tilly
1971:26).
- The
most clearly established proposition about food riots is that they were
not chaotic or violent spasms of irrational crows, but organized and
purposeful political actions.
Nowhere is this interpretation better illustrated but in the
selectivity of riot targets.
Protestors did not rampage indiscriminately, but focused their
wrath on particular individuals and institutions whom the crowd held
responsible for unjust actions.
Typically, it was not the producers or retailers of food but the
middlemen who were seen as responsible for shortages and price rises; the
grain dealers, wholesalers, speculators, and mills. 29
- The
aims of food riots were modest: to solve short-run problems on supply and
price, restore normality to markets, activate relief measures by local
officials, or remind merchants of their obligations to consumers. 29
- Harvest
failures, trade slumps, industrial depressions, unemployment, military
exactions, and related events that produce either rapid price rises or
distributional imbalances predict the occurrence of popular protest
without the necessity of positing intervening mechanisms. 31
- The
community theory of food riots is persuasive for its attention to
political detail and fine-grained explanation of variation in the
location, timing, and mobilization of protest support. 33
- Any
general explanation of food riots must be consistent with the collective
results of studies at the local level and important mechanisms of protest
mobilization may be revealed only to the close observer of community
action. Yet it is also true
that a full explanation of food riots must look beyond local actions to
discover their causes in the economy and state organization which appear
in community theory simple as “external threats.” 33
- Food
riots are generated at the intersection of local grievances and national
or even international forces of economy and politics. A complete explanation must
address both community and societal conditions as well as the form of
their interaction. 33
- On
behalf of community theory, Bohstedt (1983; 223) suggests two related
reasons for the decline of food riots: expanding markets led to reduced
prices and fewer shortages while the efficacy of community politics was
eroded by new “vertical” relations.
36
- In
summary, the classical food riot disappeared from the European scene for
three closely related reasons.
Improvements in production and distribution simultaneously lowered
prices and reduced the likelihood of famine. State expansion shifted the terrain of politics away
from local village and paternalistic arrangements as it simultaneously
introduced more effective forms of repression in the anti-Jacobin spirit
of the early nineteenth century.
And industrialization, coupled with state centralization, realigned
politics by shifting its axis to national class struggles over wages and
working conditions. 37
- …food
riots should not reappear in the late twentieth century, at least not in
countries that have undergone industrialization, unionization, creation of
political parties, and modern state formation. Yet from the mid 1970s onward, austerity protests in
the form of price riots and popular uprisings have swept across the
developing countries, including many of those in Latin America (e.g.
Argentina Brazil, Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland), and Africa (e.g. Zambia)
that rank among the world’s most industrial economies, possess vigorous
traditions of labor organization, and provide prototypical forms of
centralized, “bureaucratic-authoritarian” states. 37
- …riots
and demonstrations over the cost of living are common occurrences in
market societies; forms of popular protests that change in interaction
with state and economic organization, but also persevere as a result of
recurring moral and material forces.
In both the classical and contemporary periods, riot politics are
introduced by far-reaching policy changes that promote free-market
economies at the national and international levels respectively. Riots respond to the elimination,
in different ways, of “paternalistic” consumer protections understood by
the populace as legitimate rights.
50
- It
is not the availability of good that is at issue, but their price—a fact
that accounts for the characteristically modern way of looting. Austerity protests, moreover,
respond to a variety of price increases (food, petroleum, transportation,
and school fees) that stem directly from government policy changes rather
than from the actions of a number of private sellers. 51
- Riot
and street demonstrations are the natural means of redress for popular
assemblies mobilized by a sense of immediacy, betrayal, and the need for
autonomous action. Popular
protests understandably distrust conventional forms of political
participation, the failure of which typically defines the immediate
crisis, and therefore resort to means at their own disposal. 53
- The
key links between international demands, state action, and protest
include: an “overurbanzied” or large urban population not absorbed in
formal sector and industrial employment and so more likely to experience
the pains of austerity; cities that are socially and politically organized
in a strong civil society (e.g. in unions, political groups, community
associations, churches); and a moral economy that provides ideological
legitimation for popular protest based on the social pact previously
negotiated by developmental regimes.
54
- The
food riot as a means of popular protest is a common, perhaps even
universal, feature of market societies—less a vestige of
political-industrial evolution than a strategy of empowerment in which
poor and dispossessed groups assert their claims to social justice. In the modern system of states and
international economic integration, the explosive point of popular protest
has moved, with most of the world’s population, to the cities where the
process of global accumulation, national development, and popular justice
intersect. 54
- …it
is undeniable that a number of protests have no appreciable effect—at
least no effect on ameliorating hardship. 129
- …a
number of insurgencies successful blocked price hikes, at least for a
time, and reduced the overall scope of the austerity package. Governments frequently retained
the basic structural adjustment program, but attempted to compensate for
cost-of-living increases with higher wages (e.g. Jamaica. Ecuador), public
works and employment situation (Chile, Brazil), and price freezes
(Guatemala). Although these
concessions were palliative and usually temporary, they lent efficacy to
the protest movement and put governments on the defensive. 129
- …austerity
protests contributed directly and indirectly to regime shifts… 130
- …regime
changes are paralleled, and sometimes produced, by a changing structure of
popular mobilization. The
venerable pattern of patron-client urban politics is on the decline, not
least because states no longer command the financial resources to provide
cheap food and transportation, public employment, lo-cost housing options,
easy access to imported consumer goods, and all the mobility opportunities
that go with influence-trading in a patronage system. 130
- …the
debt crisis in all of its antecedents and complexity has introduced a
national political transformation in which global policy issues
increasingly intrude on the state in Latin America. The consequences of this intrusion
move in two directions. On
one hand, as grudgingly implemented structural adjustment programs
demonstrate, states have sacrificed political sovereignty to foreign
banks, agencies, and governments in the interests of economic
assistance. No doubt the
pattern has historical precedent, but the scale has never been as
great. On the other hand,
states have been subject to forceful and contradictory pressures from
below. The demands of their
own urban poor have never been so outraged and violent. 131
- …developing
societies around the world have experienced two fundamental
transformations in the last decade.
The first is a global trend towards neo-liberal economic
reorganization—the shift from centrally planned to market-oriented
economies in Eastern Europe and the more general adoption of
liberalization policies throughout the Third World. … Second, and clearly related, is a
global trend towards the democratization of authoritarian and one-party
regimes in the wake of popular protest movements. 333
- Neo-liberal
reforms…foster the opportunity for popular participation in the process of
building a consensus and sharing the burden of change. International agencies want
democratic reform and those who are asked to sacrifice for their own good
demand a voice in public policy.
334
- Democratization
is no panacea. It does not
necessarily solve the old problems of underdevelopment and surely brings
some new ones in train. 338
- The
fitful social movement for democratization in authoritarian countries by
means of multiparty systems, free elections, and human rights is not the
same as functioning egalitarian democracy. Yet history suggests that democracy is reached through
democratic struggle. 338
Evans, P. (1995) Embedded Autonomy: States and
Industrial Transformation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Fervent
calls for the dismantling of the state by late twentieth-century
capitalist free marketers served to derail the state's ability to act as
an instrument of distributive justice, but not to reduce its overall
importance. 4
- The
modern nation-state is first and foremost a war-making machine that is the
product of the exigencies of group survival in the condition of
international anarchy. 5
- When
the state exercises its monopoly on violence internally, its
identification with the interests of the nation is no longer automatic. 5
- Making
war and enforcing internal order are classic roles, shared by ancient and
modern states. In modern times, a third role has increasingly stolen the
limelight. As political survival and internal peace are more often defined
in economic terms, states have become responsible for economic
transformation. 5
- Eliciting
entrepreneurship and facilitating the creation of new productive
capacities require a more complicated involvement in the affairs of the
citizenry than simply eliciting loyalty and enforcing good behavior. The
capacity required for what I would call the state's "transformative
role" is correspondingly greater. 6
- Countries
that attempt activities other than those compatible with their productive
endowments simply saddle themselves with wasteful output and lose
potential gains from trade. 8
- A
simple assessment of natural resource endowments or the relative scarcity
of different factors of production cannot tell us who will have a
comparative advantage in chemicals or designer jeans. Social and political
institutions must be analyzed as well. 9
- Different
kinds of state structures create different capacities for action.
Structures define the range of roles that the state is capable of playing.
Outcomes depend both on whether the roles fit the context and how well
they are executed. 11
- A
state that was only autonomous would lack both sources of intelligence and
the ability to rely on decentralized private implementation. Dense
connecting networks without a robust internal structure would leave the
state incapable of resolving "collective action" problems, of
transcending the individual interests of its private counterparts. Only
when embeddedness and autonomy are joined together can a state be called
developmental. 12
- Neo-utilitarian
political economy is both cynical and utopian: cynical in denying the
practical importance of "public spirit" and utopian in assuming
that the "invisible hand" offers an easy substitute. 25
- Neo-utilitarian
conceptions of the market…tend to slip from the assertion of neo-classical
economics that competitive markets will result in short run allocative
efficiency to the much stronger assertion that competitive markets are sufficient
to produce the kind of structural transformation that lies at the heart of
development. Neoclassical economic theory is much more agnostic on the
likelihood that marginal maximization will move inexorably in the
direction needed to achieve long-run optimization. 25
- Neo-utilitarians
often go well beyond the assertions of classical political economy in
denying the importance of cultural norms and other kinds of social
relations in sustaining exchange. Adam Smith, after all, considered The
Theory of Moral Sentiments a natural complement to The Wealth of
Nations. 26
- Looking
at established market societies, Weber argued that the operation of
large-scale capitalist enterprise depended on the availability of the kind
of order that only a modern bureaucratic state could provide. 29
- If
Weber is right, imposing different policies on a state apparatus without
changing the structure of the state itself will not work. Real changes in
policies and behavior depend on the possibility of erecting new state
structures. 30
- Bureaucracies
and organizations do not necessarily stand in opposition to markets.
Rather they are often put in place in an effort to underpin and to unleash
market forces. 35
- This
"embedded autonomy," which is precisely the mirror image of the
incoherent despotism of the predatory state, is the key to the
developmental state's effectiveness. "Embedded autonomy"
combines Weberian bureaucratic insulation with intense connection to the
surrounding social structure. 50
- Only
a state that is capable of acting autonomously can provide this essential
"collective good." Embeddedness is necessary for information and
implementation, but without autonomy, embeddedness will degenerate into a
super-cartel, aimed, like all cartels, at protecting members from changes in
the status quo.
- It
is an autonomy embedded in a concrete set of social ties that bind the
state to society and provide institutionalized channels for the continual
negotiation and regeneration of goals and policies. 59
- Embeddedness…implies
a concrete set of connections that link the state intimately and
aggressively to particular social groups with whom the state shares a
joint project of transformation. 59
- Either
autonomy or embeddedness may produce perverse results without the other.
Without autonomy, the distinction between embeddedness and capture
disappears. Autonomy by itself does not necessarily predict an interest in
development, either in the narrow sense of economic growth or in the
broader sense of improved welfare. The secret of the developmental state
lies in the amalgam. 59
- The
kind of embeddedness that might allow state managers to provide
information dissemination, consensus building, tutelage, and cajoling to
potential entrepreneurs seems almost entirely absent from the Indian
scene.
- Less
internal capacity, more difficult environments, and less carefully defined
agendas of involvement combined to put embedded autonomy of the sort that
characterizes the developmental state out of reach. 70
- Simplistic
notions of the virtues of insulating state from society must be rejected.
Some degree of "insulation" is inherent in creating a cohesive
collectivity, but real effectiveness requires combining internal loyalties
with external ties. 72
- Zero-sum
visions in which the state's ability to behave as a coherent corporate
sector varies inversely with its connectedness to civil society set us on
the wrong track. Internal cohesiveness and dense external ties should be
seen as complementary and mutually reinforcing. Efficacious states combine
well-developed, bureaucratic internal organization with dense
public-private ties. 72
- One
thing remains clear: variations in internal state organization and
state-society relations create differential degrees of developmental
capacity. 73
- A
dynamic, carefully and rationally planned, state enterprise sector could,
as far-sighted helmsman of the economy, mobilize scarce resources,
stimulate markets, adopt new technologies, and rapidly lift the entire
economy to a level of self-sustaining industrial growth. 79
- The
global context creates a changing array of opportunities, but taking
advantage of them requires institutional capacity effectively implemented
through a variety of roles. 93
- State
involvement varies systematically across sectors. What roles states try to
play depends of the technological and organizational characteristics of
the sector. How well the roles are played and with what consequences
depend on each state's institutional characteristics. 93
- Countries
with local producers, who understood local cultural and organizational
patterns and had a strong incentive to make the technology fit, would have
a big advantage in becoming good users. 96
- The
best explanation for indigenization in computers is the need for
self-reliance in defense. 106
- The
relatively weak contribution of transnational capital to the development
of local information technology made self-reliance more attractive. 106
- The
ability to control and assimilate borrowed innovations, not
"technological autonomy", was the name of the game. Constructing
local technological capacity remained the primary goal but the relation
between local technological development and foreign ties was seen as
complementary. Instead of trying to restrict and discipline technological
connections between local and international firms, the aim of policy was
to proliferate international ties while mediating them in order to
increase their positive impact on local capabilities. 111
- Policing
and promotion do not connect "the state" with "economic
elites"; they connect specific state agencies and the people that run
them with specific firms and their owners. Sectoral relations reflect
larger structural patterns, but it is at the level of firm and agencies
that roles really play themselves out. 127
- Using
state firms as substitutes for private production in the manufacture of
commodity products is a mistake. It channels scarce state capacity into
activities where the state has no comparative institutional advantage,
generates relations of conflict rather than complementarity with local entrepreneurs,
and complicates state firms' ability to serve as a front of indigenous
technological capacity. 139
- In
the cases of Brazil and India, government research institutes appear to
have operated with a minimum of collaboration with those firms which would
ultimately manufacture the switches. Technology development and diffusion
were treated as distinct activities, whereas in Korea they were closely
inter-related. 143
- The
embedded autonomy that characterized state-society relations in general
created a matrix for public-private collaboration adapted to the special
circumstances of building high-technology industry. 146
- Private
entrepreneurs hoping to carve out a market niches based on indigenous
product innovation were often frustrated by other contradictions between
the state's support in principle for indigenous development and the
weakness of institutionalized efforts on behalf of would-be local
innovators. 151
- It
makes sense that these countries might have had a comparative advantage in
tasks that required skilled professionals, like engineers and software
designers, but it took on the ground experimentation to create a
convincing demonstration. 178
- Some
skeptics still want to argue that the rise of local firms and the state's
efforts at promoting information technology production are only
coincidentally connected, that the apparent relation is spurious, and that
local firms would have come into being and grown just as rapidly if the
state had ignored information technology. Unfortunately, disproving this
counterfactual argument would take evidence from a range of countries
vastly broader than the range that has been considered here. Nonetheless,
believers in spuriousness have a lot to explain away. There are too many
instances where the connection between the initiation of a policy and the
initiation of an investment is undeniable. Some local firms have had
started anyway, but to argue that the information technology industries
that existed in these three countries at the end of the 1980s were only
coincidentally related to patterns of state involvement over the prior
twenty years strains credulity. 179
- For
local firms, successfully negotiating the new internationalization meant
combining a multiplicity of international linkages with indigenous
innovation, increasing local value-added, offering superior solutions for
local users, and exploiting niches in international markets. 188
- Since
responsibility for defending technological autonomy was allocated
primarily to state firms, local hardware manufacturers has always been
more open to internationalized strategies. 190
- Neither
new ties between transnational and local capital nor new exports were
laurels on which to rest. 203
- Investment
in high technology infrastructure complimented both general support for
knowledge creation and specific support for new products. 213
- With
the growth of local companies came more, not less, involvement with
international markets, global technology, and transnational capital. 216
- Embeddedness
is not necessarily restricted to connections with industrial capital.
Reconstruction must involve a more encompassing definition of
embeddedness. 240
- Once
the state is connected to all major social actors, the image of
independent bureaucrats forming their own project and imposing it on
society becomes implausible. At the same time, the notion that
transformative projects are forged independently of the state apparatus
becomes even more implausible. Since any strategy for change must
reconcile conflicting interests, the necessity of a strong mediating
institution is obvious. The state's independent influence depends on a
balance of forces in civil society, but the balance is actively
constructed rather than the result of exogenous stalemate. 242
- If
reconstruction of the development state occurs, it will undoubtedly take
the form of a indigenous innovation. Implausible institutional innovation
is, after all, central to the process that produced the development state
to begin with. 243
- The
power of embedded autonomy arises from the fusion of what seem at first to
be contradictory characteristics. Embeddedness provides sources of
intelligence and channels of implementation that enhance the competence of
the state. Autonomy complements embeddedness, protecting the state from
the piecemeal capture, which would destroy the cohesiveness of the state
itself and eventually undermine the coherence of its social interlocutors.
The state's corporate coherence enhances the cohesiveness of external
networks and helps groups that share its vision overcome their own
collective action problems. Just as predatory states deliberately
disorganize society, development states help organize it. 248
- The
fate of civil society is inextricably bound to the robustness of the state
apparatus. Deterioration of state institutions is likely to go hand in
hand with the disorganization of civil society. Sustaining or regaining
the institutional integrity of state bureaucracies increases the
possibility of mounting projects of social transformation. 249
- Bureaucracy
is not enough. Even the most bureaucratically coherent state cannot effect
transformation without a network of ties to social groups and classes with
which it shares a project. Connectedness is as important as coherence and
cohesion. 249
- Nationalist
initiatives ended up contributing to the emergence of internationalized
industries that were, for at least some of the initiators, mirror images
of what they had hoped for. 249
- Social
structural changes, even if partially put in motion by the state itself,
supersede the organizations and policies that created them, forcing
changes in the state itself. 250
- Disdain
is often deserved, but state bureaucracies can also be homes to creative
and entrepreneurial initiatives. Used imaginatively, they can spark new
sources of social energy. 250
Killick, T. (ed.) (1995) The Flexible Economy: Causes and
Consequences of the Adaptability of National Economies, London: Routledge.
"Relevance, meaning and determinants of flexibility," T. Killick, pp.
1-33.
- An
economy with a flexible structure, which can readily adjust with the needs
of the time, will achieve faster development than an economy with rigid
structure. Inflexible economies can expect retarded growth, with
disjunctures between demand and supply creating bottlenecks, balance-of-payments
strains, inflationary pressures and other economic dislocations. 1
- The
flexibility of national economies is a distinctive concept, worthy of
separate study, which is not adequately treated in the present literature
on market efficiency and long-run development. 1
- Responsive
flexibility refers to the reaction of economic agents to altered relative
prices or other economic stimuli. By contrast, innovatory flexibility
refers to changes initiated by the exercise of entrepreneurship. 8 It may involve
the creation of new, or substantially altered , institutions - generally a
protracted process. 9
- …institutions,
and their adaptability, mattered most in explaining the differential rates
of diffusion of economic growth. 10
- A
flexible economy requires a population that is willing to take action to
maximize whatever material benefits may be derived from changing
conditions (or to minimize the costs). This points in favor of an
individualistic (or family-based) welfare maximizing approach, and mobility
in pursuit of this objective, since collective action is apt both to be
slower and more uncertain. 10
- By
reducing risks and losses of equity, and by offering a financial reward,
it tends to increase total saving. It thus also promotes capital
formation, by increasing the supply of investible resources. It thus also
promotes capital formation, by increasing the supply of investible
resources. Savings are transferred to investors with different needs,
degrees of risks and prospective rates of return, thereby permitting more
diversified and efficient investment. 14
- …a
society with a vigorous entrepreneurial culture is likely to have a
flexible economy. 16
- Product
and process changes are self-evidently among the most important forms of
innovatory flexibility. 16
- …we
can define a flexible economy as one which individuals, organizations and
institutions efficiently adjust their goals and resources to changing
constraints and opportunities. 18
"Flexibility
and long-term economic development", M. Syrquin, 34-63
- Flexibility
and adaptability appear to be key elements in facilitating the all
encompassing transformation required by modern economic growth,
particularly in view of the conflictual nature of the process. 34
- The
level of flexibility of an economy can be said to depend on (a)
informational and incentive systems and (b) factors bearing on the
responsiveness of economic agents to those systems. The first category
refers to factors affecting the opportunity sets of economic agents, while
the second focuses on the agents' reactions. 35
- More
generally, [flexibility] is the ability to create new opportunities in
addition to recognizing and exploiting available ones. 36
- To
enhance flexibility, we need inducement mechanisms that can help mobilize
the underutilized resources. 40
- The
concept of flexibility is particularly relevant in disequilibrium
situations, but mainstream economics is not as developed in dealing w/
such situations as its is for the analysis of equilibrium. 42
- A
central component for the acquisition of human capital is 'the value of
the ability to deal with disequilibria'. Education is shown to influence
positively the ability to cope with change. 42
- As
the level of income goes up we can expect flexibility to increase as a
result of the following development-related changes: an improvement in the
systems generating and disseminating information, a rise in the levels of
education and skills in the labor force, a change in the attitudes of the
population leading to a higher mobility and responsiveness in general, and
a greater commitment to growth of the part of the government. 50
- The
main conclusion...is that flexibility can probably be enhanced by very
prosaic methods. Foremost is education and more generally, the development
of human capabilities, which ultimately determine the capacity to adapt
and to transform. 59
"Adapting the economies of Eastern Europe: Behavioral and
institutional aspects of flexibility," A. Neuber, pp. 111-153
- "Institutions
are the constraints that human beings impose upon themselves to structure
human interaction. They consist of formal rules and informal standards of
behavior and of their enforcement characteristics. Formal rules include
political (and juridical) rules, economic rules, and contracts...Given the
bargaining strength and the interests of decision making parties, the
function of the rules is to facilitate exchange, political or economic.
Informal constraints include conventions that evolve as solutions to coordination
problems and that all parties are interested in having maintained; norms
of behavior that are recognized standards of conduct; and self-imposed
codes of conduct such as personal standards of honesty and integrity.
Conventions are self-enforcing. Norms of behavior are enforced by the
second party (the threat of retaliation for contract violation) or by a
third party (societal sanctions). North D. 1992, "Privatization,
incentives, and economic performance", in H. Siebert (ed.) Privatization:
Symposium in Honor of H. Giersch, Tubingen: J.C. Mohr.
- …institutions
also fulfill enabling functions, by stabilizing the environment for
economic activity and by reducing uncertainty. 120
- …the
adaptability of institutions has been identified as the major determinant
of sustained economic development. 122
- …"a
neoclassical vision of the world is one of flexibility". Little,
I.M. 1982, p.25, Economic Development: Theory Policy and International
Relations, New York: Basic Books.
So, A., Stephen, W. and Chiu, K. (1995) East Asia and
the World Economy, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 3-30, 189-278.
- …exports
make it possible for East Asian NIEs to overcome the limitations of their
small domestic markets by ensuring economies of scale and full capacity
utilization. 6
- …although
import substitutions often leads to protectionism and monopolies,
export-oriented industrialization provides the carrot-and-stick of
competition, inducing technological change in export industries that must
keep up with modern technology in order to improve their position in the
world market. 6
- …four
determinants of East Asian NIEs’ favorable economic performance are:
stability of the incentive system, limited government intervention,
well-functioning labor and capital markets, and a reliance on private capital. 6
- The
neoclassical perspective contributes by pointing to the importance of
export-led industrialization in East Asian development. Highlighting the factors of
private enterprise, free markets, and positive but limited government
intervention, this neoclassical perspective has received strong support
from transnational corporations, which have sought to open markets in
developing countries to allow them to move their assets worldwide in
search of profit maximization.
This is because neoclassical economists’ doctrines of free trade
and investment, free market, and limited government intervention have
enabled the transnational corporations to present their own interests as
entirely consistent with the interests of developing countries. What is missing in the
neoclassical perspective, then, is its critical examination of the impact
of transnational corporations, an interstate system, and regional dynamics
on East Asian development. 7
- …the
cultural perspective allows researchers to relate development policy
choices and institutions to certain cultural antecedents that make the
reasons for such choices easier to understand. In other words, the cultural perspective is aimed at
providing researchers with a frame of reference within which they can see
how values, attitudes, and practices have influenced the developing
countries. Thus, the cultural
perspective complements rather than contradicts the neoclassical economic
interpretation. 8
- For
a society to move into modernity, the classical modernization school
argues, the traditional structures and values must be totally replaced by
a set of modern values. The
economic backwardness of the developing countries, therefore, is explained
by their inability to get rid of traditional cultural elements. For instance, the economic
stagnation in Japan and South Korea in the early 1950s was routinely
attributed to their Confucian heritage, because the formal Confucian
tradition frowned on merchants and cast suspicion on easy money from
unproductive activities. 8
- …Westerners
and early Asian reformers had originally wrongly dismissed Confucian
learning as a handicap to development, because they saw it merely as a
process of training in textual memorization. Rather than closing people’s minds, Confucian tradition
was capable of opening them, teaching individuals to “learn how to learn,”
and giving them the tools to observe, interpret, and take on new
knowledge. It also
taught them to internalize ethical principles friendly to economic
development, such as diligence, self-sacrifice, and delayed
gratification. In addition,
in its primary concern of improving social relations, Confucianism
established a precedent of focusing on education. Individuals were urged to seek
self-improvement through intense study and purification of their
minds. Furthermore, education
in Confucian teachings urged the most highly trained to serve their
community and country and prepared the masses to view learning as a path
to improving their lot in life.
9
- The
path to success was not through leaving the family to find one’s fortune,
but through relying on and providing family assistance. 10
- Thus
small family enterprises commonly started out with family savings or
credit from relatives, drew on the labor of many unpaid family members,
turned sitting rooms and family bedrooms into production sites, and relied
on kin to obtain contracts and markets. 10
- The
history of the firm emphasizes pride in distinctive traditions over many
generations, and the firm employs a set of rituals and ceremonies to
smooth the way for harmonious human relations. As a result of this pattern of personalistic
management, the transition from the risk-oriented founders of pioneer
industries to the more cautious managers of well-established enterprises
has proven relatively easy in the East Asian region. 10
- …public
belief in the rhetoric of public service to the national community is far
more pervasive in East Asia than in the West. 11
- The
cultural perspective contributes by highlighting the crucial role of
Confucianism—especially its orientation toward learning and education,
familism, personalistic management, and the high prestige of government
service—in East Asian industrialization. 11
- Instead
of emphasizing free markets, trade liberalization, private enterprise, and
the restricted role of the state, the statist perspective contend that
states have a strategic role to play in taming domestic and international
market forces and harnessing them to national ends. Instead of focusing on maximum
profitability on the basis of current comparative advantage, the statist
perspective focuses on the phenomenon of “late industrialization.” 12
- [Statist
perspective] …arguing for the importance of a strong state to overcome
market imperfections and the various bottlenecks of industrialization. 12
- the
latest pertinent question of the statist perspective is how to find the
appropriate mixture of market orientation and government intervention in a
manner consistent with rapid and efficient late industrialization. 12
- …because
huge business conglomerates (like the chaebols
of South Korea) owed their phenomenal growth to special incentives
provided by the state, and they remained dependent on the state for their
survival. As a result, the
private sector cooperated highly with the state policy of subsidies and
discipline. …this unusual
mixture of bureaucratic autonomy and public-private sector cooperation
caused the emergence of a strong autonomous state that was not only able
to formulate strategic developmental goals but was also able to translate
these broad national goals into effective policy action to promote late
industrialization in East Asia.
15
- If
the neoclassical economic perspective is used by the transnational
corporations to justify their claims to opening national markets for free
trade and investment, then the statist perspective is a defense used by
the East Asian state managers and planners to justify protectionism and
intervention in their economy.
15
- What
is missing in the statist perspective, then, are studies of labor
repression, violation of human rights, environmental degradation, conflict
with foreign corporations, and economic crises. 16
- Instead
of predicting that the developing countries will eventually catch up with
the West and modernize themselves, the dependency perspective foresees
further economic backwardness, and even bankruptcy of the developing
countries, if their present exploitative links with the West remain
unchallenged. 16
- Instead
of trying to gain the support of transnational capitalists and domestic
state managers, the dependency perspective wants to appeal to those forces
that have the greatest stake in a new strategy of democratic
development—namely, farmers, workers, environmentalists, and small
businessmen. 20
- …the
dependency perspective holds a deterministic outlook that East Asian
states, except Japan, are unable to solve their deep-rooted developmental
problems. Thus it fails to
address the issue that many East Asian states in the 1990s are not only
experiencing upward mobility into advanced industrial countries but are
also starting to diversify their investment in many Southeast Asian
countries. 20
- What
is missing in the literature…is a comprehensive meta-perspective that examines
the complex interactions among economic, political, and cultural forces in
shaping East Asian development.
21
- To
conclude, world-system analysis, in its mature version, has gone beyond
the problems of the dependency perspective to provide a methodological
break with 19th century social scientific inquiry. It offers a new mode of thinking
that stresses large-scale, long-term, and holistic methodology. In addition, it has formulated many
innovative concepts—such as incorporation, semiperiphery, regionalization,
hegemony, rivalry, and anti-systemic movements—to examine the changing
development in the world economy.
26
- Instead
of focusing on what happened within any given nation-state boundary, the
large scale orientation of world-systems analysis will call upon
researchers to extend their unit of analysis to the entire East Asian
region.
- Instead
of confining itself to the study of capitalist states in East Asia, the
world- systems analysis concept of antisystemic movements will call upon
researchers to examine the origins, development, and transformation of
Communist regimes in the East Asian region. 29
- In
the aftermath of World War II, there were serious economic and political
problems in South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Yet, in a short span pf about 3 decades, these three
states quickly transformed themselves into newly industrializing
economies. This chapter shows
that the favorable postwar capitalist world economy, huge amounts of U.S.
aid, and influxes of refugee capital in the 1950s laid the groundwork for
the industrial takeoff of the East Asian NIEs. Then, the Vietnam War provided a further influx of U.S.
money, and the U.S. market and U.S. planners induced the East Asian NIEs
to pursue the strategy of export-led industrialization in the 1960s. Finally, cheap credit in the
1970s, the arrival of Japanese capital in East Asia, and the relative
decline of U.S. hegemony in the region provided more space for the NIEs
states to intervene actively in the industrialization process. 211
- The
1945-1967 period saw an incredible expansion of U.S. cultural influence
worldwide, which can be observed through such phenomena as the universal
of the ideology of developmentalism, the U.S. leadership in the
contemporary social sciences and the arts, and the successful imposition
of English as the sole lingua franca of the world system. Therefore, such American cultural
constructs as free trade, democracy, individualism, and consumerism spread
around the world. 231
- …the
erosion of U.S. economic hegemony also began to weaken the foundations of
U.S. cultural hegemony. By
the late 1980s there were several signs to suggest that Japan and East
Asia were having more cultural influence in the capitalist world economy. 231
- Where
American developmentalism stresses the role of the individual,
Confucianism emphasizes the subordination of the individual to group
harmony. Where American
developmentalism endorses liberty and democracy, Confucianism supports
enlightened authoritarian rule by a centralized bureaucracy. Where American developmentalism
promotes consumerism, Confucianism values frugality, saving, discipline,
and hard work. 231-2
Chew, S., and Denemark, R. (1996) The Underdevelopment
of Development: Essays in Honor of Andre Gunder Frank, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
"On Development: For Gunder Frank", 61-86,
Samir Amin
- [Conclusions
of dependency school] a) that polarization (seen from the periphery, it
manifests itself as dependency) is a fact (no one denies this); b) that
polarization is inherent in capitalism (this viewpoint is not that of the
bourgeois ideologists), although the analysis of the mechanism of
polarization opens the field to fertile debates; c) that the polarization
inherent in capitalism gained momentum during the mercantilist epoch,
deployed itself with the industrial revolution, took it present form with
imperialism in the sense of Lenin, and perhaps has embarked on a new stage
of intensification (my argument); d) that consequently the peoples of the
periphery can only liberate themselves from the disastrous effects by
breaking with the world capitalist system (by delinking) and in doing so
with the social logic of capitalism tout court by building
socialism; and e) that delinking and building socialism constitute
projects that develop in revolutionary states. 63
- For
those of us who see development as a shorthand term for progressive social
design, the democratization of society is, by definition, an integral part
of the development process. Without it, the liberation and empowerment of
the people are only empty words. 80
- …at
the level of the world system, the struggle should aim at the
reconstruction based on the negotiated creation of major regional blocs
strong enough to meet current challenges. 84
- The
task ahead is first and foremost the reconstruction of the social power of
the popular classes that has been eroded by the ongoing crisis. (Last
sentence in essay) 85
"World Systems: Similarities and Differences," pp. 246-258,
Christopher Chase-Dunn
- Modern
hegemons do not conquer adjacent core states to extract taxes and tribute.
Rather, they sought to control international trade, especially oceanic
trade, that linked cores with peripheries. This is why the modern world
system is resistant to empire formation. The most powerful state in the system
acts to block empire-formation and to preserve the interstate system.
"The Art of Hegemony," Albert Bergesen, pp. 259-278
- …the
evolution of sequential stages within a social formation is interrupted in
some parts of the world (the South) when other sectors reach certain
levels of development (the predatory North). The development of one part
of the world now inhibits the development of other areas. 261
"Frank justice rather than frankenstein injustice: Homogenous
development as deviance in the diverse world," Pat Lauderdale, pp. 314-343
- [A.G.F.]
I reject as contrary to fact the more commonly held supposition that
underdevelopment is somehow original or traditional, or that developed
countries were once underdeveloped as the underdeveloped ones are now; and
I try to suggest how internationally, nationally, and regionally that
underdevelopment development no less than "development," each in
a close causative relation with the other, as a result of capitalism
development itself. (Quoted on page 318)
- Dependency
works against community determination and autonomy. 326
- [The
sources of injustice] a) the continued exposure of exploitation in labor
relations, b) the exclusion of participants in decision-making and policy
agendas, c) the erosion of community solidarity and identity and the right
to sovereignty, and d) the long-term cost to nature when it is defined in
indigenous terms - that is, both humans and the environment as nature,
rather the modern notion of nature as separate and subservient to humans.
"Underdevelopment and Its Remedies," Immanuel Wallerstein, pp.
355-361
- Because
we are still living in this system and because any transition is still a
matter of fifty years or more, we need a strategy for change that can
rally support, combined with clarifying alternatives. We thus need a
strategy with three time components: immediate, middle run, and long-run.
The immediate involves the struggles that go on now at the local
level (and, of course, local involves state level) that impinge on how
lives are led immediately. It is not that any changes achieved at this
level are wide-ranging. It is rather that people want and need the
immediate ameliorations now at that the struggle to achieve them is not
only mobilizing but also disconcerting for the forces of the status quo.
359
- …two
lessons we can draw from the long history of such immediate struggles.
First, they are useful insofar as they improve lives immediately, but they
can never be allowed to become ends in themselves because, as soon as they
do, they become instruments of our co-optation. Second, because al such
struggles are local and therefore reflect the hurts of some particular
group, it is important to remember that there are many hurts of many
groups and that, therefore, alliances are essential if these struggles are
not to become modes of division.
- [long-run]
we have to engage seriously in the project of inventing the future system
- not by a philosopher-king, but collectively.
Kempe, R. (1996) Development in the Third World: From Policy
Failure to Policy Reform, New York: M.E. Sharpe Armonk.
- The
development-growth distinction is essential in economic thinking. Growth and development are
different processes that are considered complementary in the long run but
competitive in the short run.
Economic growth is regarded as a process of simple increase,
implying more of the same, while economic development is a process of
structural change, implying something different is not something more. 4
- In
the mid-1960s, rapid industrialization was regarded as an illusion and
rapid agricultural growth became the only road to development. It was felt that, in the debate
over industrialization, the relative importance of the agricultural sector
still loomed large in the Third World since it was the sector that
provided employment for the bulk of the labor force, contained the
majority of poor people, and was the birthplace of many of the urban
poor. Furthermore, it was
generally the foreign exchange earnings from the agricultural sector that
tended to permit or constrain the expansion of industrial output and
employment. 6
- Development
and underdevelopment were considered characteristics of the global system
and were linked functionally, and, therefore, interacted and conditioned
each other mutually. 7
- …the
periphery was seen as having a reflex type of development that was
constrained by its incorporation into the global system and that resulted
from its adaptation to the requirements of the expansion of the center. Dependency theory, however, tended
to overstate the role of external influences, and consequently minimized
the internal factors affecting the development of more equitable domestic
economic, social, and political systems. A reduction of dependence on the industrialized nations
would have required better management of local resources and significant
social and economic changes within the Third World. 7
- …that
the policy framework to be considered and adapted by the Third World
should, of necessity, have been more introspective in nature. The exclusive focus on
"dependency" to explain underdevelopment encouraged the
evolution of a paralyzing and self-defeating mythology. 7
- The
basic-needs approach differed conceptually from other poverty-oriented
development strategies. In
defining the objectives and distinguishing features of the basic-needs
policy approach, recognition was given to the fact that countries would
have different requirements as a result of their varying economic,
political, social, cultural, and technological characteristics. As a result there was no objective
criteria for defining the contents of a basic-needs bundle. 9
- During
the 1980s to the present period, the focus shifted to private-sector-led
development. This not only
was the policy thrust emanating from the international development
agencies, but also represented an important policy shift for many Third
World nations that implemented and are implementing such a policy. After decades of growing state
involvement in development, many Third World nations found themselves in
the throes of a serious fiscal crisis that necessitated their policy shift
from the public to the private provision of goods and services. 9
- Without
a viable private sector, Third World governments would not be able to
stimulate or sustain economic growth, and their economies would remain in
crisis indefinitely, thereby contributing to all sorts of negative
externalities. It is worth
repeating here that public enterprises in the world should be privatized,
and further private sector initiatives need to be put in place not only to
benefit from the subterranean economy but also to encourage additional
domestic and foreign private investment in general. It is essential to stress here,
however, that privatization does not necessarily imply termination of
government responsibility for any essential services or for the general
welfare of the citizenry. 156
- …by
the early 1980s, the countries with the highest rates of economic growth
and prosperity were those that emphasized market-oriented policies, while
those with serious economic problems were those that had emphasized state
intervention and regulation of their economies. 172
Levy, M. (1996) Modernization and the Structure of
Societies, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
- There
are two situations in which any conceivable structure might be
fast-changing. One is a
situation in which for whatever reason there develops a charismatic
leader. The other is a
situation in which the reinforcement of previously existing social
structures is destroyed. 798
- One
of the problems always connected with social change - quite apart from the
substantive nature of the change itself - is the rate at which the change
takes place. There are upper
limits on the rate of social change to which human beings can adjust. Save the short run periods in
social history this has probably never been an endemic problem until the
development of highly modernized societies. Nevertheless, apart from this extreme case, societies
vary radically as to the rates of change to which their members can adjust
readily. There is no reason
to believe that the greater the rate of change to which people have
previously been accustomed, the greater is the ease of adjustment to increased
rates of change. The
substantive nature of the changes may be more relevant than the previous
rate of change to which the members of a given society were
accustomed. In the case of
the members of highly modernized societies, within certain limits, a
decrease in the rate of change may be as difficult to adjust to as an
increase would be for persons accustomed to a different situation. 798-9
- In
general, until the development of relatively modernized societies, the
term old-fashioned has never been a general term of derogation, but
even some of the members of the most highly modernized of societies
conceive of a return to the old-fashioned as a solution to current
problems. The more highly
modernized a given society the more radical are the implications of
fundamentalistic reactions.
In this sense the development of high levels of modernization makes
radicals of conservatives and vice versa. 799
- Despite
all the so-called differences amongst cultures (or people) with regard to
the emphasis placed on spiritual rather than material factors, and there
never have been; there are none who do not distinguish between being
relatively better off and being relatively worse off materially, and there
never have been; there are none who do not prefer to some extent to be
relatively better off materially, and there never have been; and there are
none who will make no effort whatsoever to improve their material
positions if the possibility of doing so is made clear to them, and there
never have been. People do
defer in the prices they are prepared to pay to be relatively better off
materially, and that is what most of the sanctimony has been about, but
the biggest difference amongst peoples in the past has probably been that
their general conception of possibilities of material improvement have
only been those of scarce episodic movement. 815
- The
problem that requires explanation is not why people have trouble with
modernization. The patterns
that characterize modernization are so queer - so at adds at what has been
par for the course for human - so different from the commonalities that
enable Shakespeare to communicate across the most difficult language
barriers. The problem that
requires explanation - as Einstein once observed of modern science - is
how it ever arose at all - why some people seem - at least for a time - to
have accommodated themselves to those patterns relatively quickly and
easily. It is the
"successes" of England as a first comer and of Japan as a
late-comer that require explanations, that are mysterious - not the
problems of a China or of a Uganda or of an India even. The patterns to which adjustment
must be made, if "success" is to be achieved, are, by all past
human experience, inhuman. Basically,
one of the most fundamental problems facing new-comers under the impact of
subversive contacts with modernization is a formulate a new basis for
coordination and control, usually incompatible with and alternative to be
previously accepted bases of political allocation. This has sometimes been hampered
by colonial status, no doubt, but it has also been furthered in some cases
by colonial status, regardless of the intentions of the colonial
rulers. 817
Coughlin, R. (1997) How Different is the United States, Journal
of Policy History, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 490-494.
- …the
first and arguably most important point of difference between the United
States and nonimmigrant nations such as those of Western Europe or Japan:
that anybody willing to embrace the American creed can, at least in
theory, join up and (eventually) gain acceptance as an "American." 491
- …the
nation's openness to accepting new members in its ranks and the
unparalleled individual freedom it has offered its citizens are mirrored
by a set of chronic problematic conditions that stem directly or
indirectly from the American creed: the nation's tendency towards
contentiousness and sectarianism; the fierce moralistic fervor the
surrounds the discussion of many issues; the lack of respect for the rule
of law; and the abiding tolerance for the levels of economic inequality
found nowhere else among the ranks of modern industrial societies. 491
Greider, W. (1997) One World, Ready or Not, New
York: Touchstone.
- The
present economic revolution, like revolutions of the past, is fueled by invention
and human ingenuity and a universal aspiration to build and
accumulate. But it is also
driven by a palpable sense of insecurity. No one can be said to control the energies of
unfettered capital, not important governments or financiers, not dictators
or democrats. 12
- McDonald's
measures its market potential with numbers like these: In the United
States, there is a McDonald's restaurant for every 29,000 Americans. In China, despite rapid expansion,
there is one McDonald's for every 40 million Chinese. 14
- "Universal
means taking a risk in order to go beyond the easy certainties provided us
by our background, language, nationality, which so often shield us from
the reality of others. It
also means looking for a trying to uphold a single standard for human
behavior when it comes to such matters as foreign and social policy"
(Said, E. (1994) Representations of Intellectuals, New York:
Pantheon). 17
- The
global economy divides every society into new camps of conflicting
economic interests. It undermines
every nation's ability to maintain social cohesion. It mocks the assumption of shared
political values that supposedly unite people in the nation-state. 18
- Asian
markets now count 33 million incomes of $30,000 or more place them above
the American family median.
By 2000, these Asian affluents are expected to number 50 million, a
market still less rich than the United States but coming up smartly. 19
- During
the last generation the world's 500 largest multinational corporations
have grown sevenfold in sales.
Yet the worldwide unemployment of these global firms has remained
virtually flat since the early 1970s, hovering around 26 million
people. The major multinationals
grew in sales from $721 billion in 1971 to $5.2 trillion in 1991, claiming
a steadily growing share of commerce (one third of all manufacturing
exports, three fourths of commodity trade, four fifths of the trade in
technology and management services).
Yet the human labor required for each unit of their output is
diminished dramatically. 21
- In
1971, 280 of the largest 500 multinationals were American-based. By 1991, the United States had
only 157 on the list.
Europe's largest companies surpassed America's in number and sales
volume during the last half of the 1980s. By 1991, Europe had 168 of the largest 500. Japan, meanwhile, had risen in
twenty years from 53 to 119.
A few important multinational corporations have even emerged in
countries that were once very poor - Korea, Taiwan, even Thailand. The corporate girth of nations is gradually
dispersing, leveling out. 22
- International
bank loans more than quadrupled from 1980 to 1991, reaching $3.6
trillion. Global bond
financing expanded likewise.
Cross-border stockholders in the so-called Triad - Europe, Japan,
and the United States - nearly doubled during a few years in the late
1980s. 23
- The
entire global volume of publicly traded financial assets (about $24
trillion) turns over every twenty-four days. 23
- The
entire traded volume of U.S. Treasury debts ($2.6 trillion) turns over
every eight days. 23
- Marxism
is utterly vanquished, if not yet entirely extinct, as an alternative
economic system. Capitalism
is triumphant. The
ideological argument first joined in the mid-nineteenth century in
response to the rise of industrial capitalism, the deep argument that has
pre-occupied political imagination for 150 years, is ended. 36
- "The
extreme social transformations of this century have caused hardly any
stir. They have proceeded
with a minimum of friction, a minimum of upheavals….Indeed, if this
century proves one thing, it is the futility of politics….[T]hese enormous
transformations in all developed free-market countries were accomplished
without civil war and, in fact, in almost total silence" (Ducker, P.
(November 1994) "The Age of Social Transformation," Atlantic
Monthly). 41
- The
dirt little secret about technological revolution is that it typically
depresses a firm's rate of return per unit, whether the form is making
cars or computers. Falling
prices, as always, threaten profit margins. Production costs may fall dramatically, sales volumes
may expand robustly. Yet the
rate of return remains in jeopardy.
46
- The
process of global economic integration is broadly driven by market forces,
in particular the competitive price pressures to reduce costs, but the
actual events of industrial movement depend crucially upon political
transactions - irregular deals that often offend the reigning principles
of free-market enterprise.
When a multinational corporation seeks to shift production to
low-wage labor markets, a process of political bargaining ensues with the
governments competing for the new factories. Concessions are offered, deals are made, investments
follow. 81
- A
corporation's power is naturally strongest if it is dealing with a small,
very poor country desperate for industrial development. The terms typically involve
special political favors not available to others in commerce: state
subsidies, exemption from taxation, government suppression of workers,
special status as export enclaves free of import duties. With these protective benefits,
commerce is a able to leap across the deepest economic and social
divisions, bringing advanced productive systems to primitive economies, disturbing
ancient cultures with startling elements of modernity. 81
- Multinationals
are, in effect, conducting a peripatetic global jobs competition, awarding
shares of production to those who make the highest bids - that is, the
greatest concessions by the public domain. If a poor country like Malaysia grants public favors to
capital in exchange for scarce jobs, then so will Ohio or Alabama. 82
- To
soften social conflict and compensate for the low industrial wages, Asian
governments also typically constructed elaborate-social-subsidy systems,
public housing and income supports that both ameliorated and
controlled. 87
- …the
United States and some other advanced nations were now mimicking the Third
World - bidding for jobs with public money, offering irregular favors to
migrating capital. The
dispersal of manufacturing might be driven by other imperatives, but
companies naturally collected whatever was available from the
process. In Britain, Ford
threatened to locate production of a new Jaguar model and a thousand jobs
in the United States if the United Kingdom did not provide an additional
$150 million in state aid for the plant. 93
- The
global economy was a feminist issue.
Across Asia and other developing regions, foreign-owned factories,
from electronics to textiles, were typically "manned" by workforces
that were 80 to 90 percent female.
This was not an accident of the marketplace. The companies deliberately
recruited younger women…for "the sense of discipline that women have
acquired through subjection to patriarchal domination in the
household" (Henderson).
As new industrial workers, not unlike the new auto-workers in the
American South, the women would not bring "bad work habits,"
including familiarity with trade unions. 98
- The
same technological imperative that continuously reduces costs and improves
quality has also generated a seemingly permanent and expanding surplus in
the productive capacity of the world. Crudely stated, the technology competition leads
companies to invest in more output of goods than the global marketplace of
consumers can possibly absorb.
New Factories, designed to produce more from less, naturally
increase the capacity for production, but the output potential expands
faster than older, less efficient factories are being closed. This underlying imbalance is
compounded by the accelerating drive for globalization, as firms both
modernize and rush to build new production in the developing markets. 103
- "Inevitably,
as the number of producers grows, the tendencies towards global
oversupplies will be enhanced, competition will get tougher, rates of
return may decline and U.S. based production and the production of other
major developed-country producers will become an even smaller portion of
total world production…. [T]he tendency toward a diminished role for
U.S.-based production in total global production seems quite
inevitable.…" (Lenz, A. (November 1994) "The U.S. Chemical
Industry: Performance in 1994 and Outlook," Chemical Manufacturers
Association). 116
- The
United States was, by far, the most open marketplace in the world and the
leading advocate for opening other markets. Nevertheless, when influential sectors demanded it, the
U.S. government also managed trade in behalf of domestic interests. During the Reagan presidency the
free-market conservatives promoting economic deregulation also worked out
important limiting agreements covering autos, steel, textiles,
semiconductors, machine tools and others. These were usually said to be "voluntary," a
convenient hypocrisy that may have misled some Americans but not the foreign
producers. 137
- …despite
the reigning pieties, the global system could not properly be called a
free-trade regime. When all
the contradictions exceptions and purposeful evasions were taken into
account, most of the world's trade was not a free exchange based on market
prices. One way or another,
trade was massaged and regulated, managed explicitly by governments or
internally by the multinational corporations or often by both in discreet
collaboration. Lawrence B.
Kraus…aggregated all of the different ways in which trade was managed -
openly and covertly - and concluded that only about 15 percent of global
trade was genuinely conducted in free-market circumstances Other scholars
have calculated that governments directly managed 25-30 percent of trade
through their various nontariff barriers. Multinational corporations themselves managed about 40
percent of global trade through the intrafirm among their own
subsidiaries. 137
- Kraus
noted that the top ten sectors, from aircraft to petroleum, were managed
by governments or concerned firms, with the single exception of
paper. These accounted for 22
percent of world trade. 138
- The
globalization of industry - creating regionalized structures of production
around the world - was intended to maximize these profit opportunities
when they appear. It would
simultaneously insulate firms from the fluctuating business cycles in
different economies and regions.
If demand was slowing in Europe or in the United States, shift
output to booming China. If
China crashed, shift it elsewhere.
"If you diversify your sources of supply, you're insulated
against these conditions," Van Bussman said. "Do you design smaller plants
with lower cost curves. The
world is moving toward that because it allows the flexibility to be very
efficient." 158
- [Shamada]
"China is a horror story for the rest of the world if it simply grows
as an exporting nation.
Overcapacity will have to be squeezed down. It will be increasingly
unprofitable for companies to build new capacity in advanced nations. If the Chinese develop the
technology and become productive without wages rising, then they will be a
tremendous competitive ménage against the rest of the world. If you bring in 1.2 billion
workers at those wages, that can destroy the global trading system."
- The
history of capitalism suggested that this was an inevitable stage of
industrial revolution - an explosive run-up of new technology and
production, then intense competition and the emergence of vibrant new
enterprises, followed by their collective struggle to establish order and
more settled business environment.
184
- "Increasing
output and overcapacity intensified competition and drove down
prices. Indeed, the result decline
in prices in manufactured goods characterized the economies of the United
States and the nations of western Europe from the mid 1870s to the end of
the century. On both
continents the standard response by manufacturers to intensified
competition and the resulting price decline was, first, to reach informal
agreements as to price and output, and then to make more formal agreements
(enforced by trade associations) to reduce output, set prices and allocate
regional markets….The incentive to form such associations was particularly
strong in the new capital-and-energy-intensive industries where several
entrepreneurs had simultaneously adopted innovative technologies of
production" (Chandler, A. (1990) Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of
Industrial Capitalism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). 185
- For
roughly fifty years, the U.S. government has served as the tolerant and
broad-shouldered leader that articulates the global system's putative
rules and values and scolds (or sometimes punishes) those nations that
fail to observe them.
American policy permits the liberal dispersal of its own advanced
technologies. It encourages
and subsidizes U.S. multinationals globalizing their production. It provides financial support for
foreign development and for the global institutions that supervise
international finance and developing economies. It generously guarantees the military security of its
economic competitors. It
educates engineers and scientists for the world. But the U.S. economy provides support for the global
system of a more crucial nature: the American market serves as buyer of
last resort for the world, the only major economy that is willing year
after year to absorb gross surpluses of production from other nations. 192
- As
America's economic dominance has steadily weakened, the nation takes on an
increasing volume of foreign indebtedness through its large and persistent
trade deficits - the loss sustained every year by buying more goods from
other economies than they are willing to buy from the United States. At the same time, the nation's
broad capacity for mass consumption is being slowly eroded by declining
wages and the loss of high-income employment, whether from technological
reform or the migration of manufacturing sectors. Thus, the nation's economic
resilience is weakening as its debt obligations accumulate. A very rich nation can manage to
do this for quite a long time.
But not forever.
Sooner or later, like any other kind of debtor, the United States
will be tapped out - no longer able to afford its role as buyer of last
resort. As the enormous U.S.
trade debts accumulate, the dollar declines steadily in foreign-exchange
value, reflecting the country's diminishing strength. At some point, the nation's
devalued purchasing power in global markets will, literally, price it out
of buying so much from others.
Like Britain's before it, and for roughly the same reasons,
American hegemony will be ended.
This reality may surface as a dramatic thunderclap or simply emerge
from the slow, bleeding process that is already in progress. Either way, the moment of
recognition promises crisis, not only for the United States, but also for
the global economy at large.
For Americans, the meaning is already being felt: a lower standard
of living for most people, perhaps abruptly lowered if a sudden financial
markdown of America's economic worth occurs. That by itself does not constitute a global crisis,
given the luxurious and often wasteful nature of American consumption, and
might even be therapeutic for Americans themselves in the long run. But it is sure to trigger a grace
moment in U.S. politics and a deep psychic wound to the national
self-confidence. 192-3
- The
solemn, unexpressed hope of statesmen in that these great shifts of power
will evolve gradually, without provoking a bloody breakdown. In the worst case, if many nations
are abruptly unable to sell all their output and compelled to produce much
less, it will trigger a world-wide implosion of commerce, that is, global
depression. This is more or
less how the last industrial revolution ended in the 1930s - in an abyss
of mass suffering and conflict.
It happened because neither governments nor enterprise was willing
to pull back from the same economic imperatives that were driving them
toward a disastrous climax.
The standard response to this line of analysis is that, one way or
another, things will work out - nations will adjust and the American
imbalances will dissipate. 193-4
- The
concrete evidence from the last two decades points in the opposite
direction: the U.S. trade debt worsens steadily despite the American
government's supposed success at fashioning liberalized trade agreements
and more open markets, despite a much- celebrated revival of American
competitiveness, despite the emergence of hot new markets with rising
consumer demand, despite the declining dollar that has made U.S. goods
cheaper in overseas markets.
Given these facts, one would think it is time to reconsider the prevailing
theory. Instead, American
elites have become even more dogmatic in their attachment to it. 194
- Conceivably,
this event could also renew American society if it prompts citizens to
reevaluate their own social arrangements, to confront the harsh
inequalities generated by the U.S. economic system and the gross
wastefulness embedded in American material life. America's dilemma, however, is really a principal
symptom of the global system's much larger disorder: the imperatives of
industrial revolution create more supply faster than new demand and the
expanding productive capacity overruns the available market
consumers. 194
- NAFTA,
he [Clinton] declared in late 1993, would generate 200,000 good, new jobs
for Americans by boosting U.S. exports to the vibrant Mexican
economy. Two years later
Mexico was mired in depression, and just as NAFTA's critics had predicted,
it was being used by U.S. and foreign multinationals as a convenient
low-wage export platform into the rich American market. America's merchandise trade
deficit with Mexico soared, reaching $15 billion in 1995, a major new
source of U.S. trade debt. If
one relied on the Clinton administration's own dubious formula for trade's
relation to employment, the negative flow with Mexico translated immediately
into 200,00 lost jobs for Americans. 195-6
- …the
theoretical assumption supporting Clinton's claim - that greater global
trade leads automatically to greater U.S. economic growth - is itself
highly suspect. During the
previous twenty years, when global trade and investment entered into dramatic
expansion, the United States experienced the opposite: much slower
economic growth. 196
- General
Electric tripled its revenues and profits during the last fifteen years,
while it shrank its world-wide workforce from 435,000 to 220,000. In the last decade, its employment
feel from 243,000 to 150,000, while offshore it expanded modestly. 216
- In
the global system, the United States faces two essential tasks: First, it
must bring a halt to the unbalanced trade that is draining national
wealth. Second, the
government must shift its primary focus to defending the U.S. industrial
structure and employment, not the U.S. multinationals themselves. On both fronts, the status quo is
not sustainable. Yet both of
these goals can be mutually reinforcing: confronting the persistent trade
imbalances would enhance domestic employment as well as U.S. producers,
and at the same time it could turn the global system in positive
directions - away from the approaching cliff. U.S. multinationals may appear powerful and arrogant…but
they are merely responding to the real imperatives of the present system,
doing what they think is necessary to survive. Thus, their behavior is not likely to change unless the
risks and incentives are altered for them in the system itself. 218
- [Godley]
"It is a well kept secret that the theory of international trade -
the entire story about the benefits every country can gain by exchanging
its goods with other countries - depends upon the assumptions a) that
trade between countries is balanced and b) that trade does not alter the
level of employment or unemployment….International trade, if it is
endemically unbalanced, threatens to impart a disinflationary shock to the
U.S. economy which would cause severe unemployment and the shock would
then be transmitted to the rest of the world." 222
Cardoso, F. “Associated-Dependent Development:
Theoretical and Practical Implications,” pp. 142-176.
ˇ
…it
does not matter greatly whether the industrial firms are owned outright by
foreigners or are owned by Brazilians associated with foreign corporations, for
in either case they are linked to market, investment, and decision-making
structures located outside the dependent country. 146
ˇ
…to
some extent, the interests of the foreign corporations become compatible
with the internal prosperity of the dependent countries. In this sense, they help promote
development. Because of this
factor, the growth of multinational corporations necessitates a reformulation
of the traditional view of economic imperialism which holds that the basic
relationship between a developed capitalist country and an underdeveloped
country is one of extractive exploitation that perpetuates stagnation. 149
ˇ
…the
distinguishing feature of the new type of dependency that is evolving in
countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico is that it is based on a new
international division of labor.
Part of the industrial system of the hegemonic countries is now being
transferred, under the control of international corporations, to countries that
have been already able to reach a relatively advanced level of industrial
development. 156
ˇ
[Brazil] They did…share the goal of a strong
executive, but they placed it under their direct control. This was accomplished, for example, by
changing the organization and role of the military and civil offices of the
presidency; broadening the scope of the National Security Council and
particularly the latter's General Secretariat; creating a national intelligence
service; and establishing security departments in all the ministries and state
enterprises. In short, the aim was
to establish even tighter linkages between the planning and control agencies of
the executive and their counterparts in the armed forces, especially the chiefs
of staff. Through these coordination
devices, they sought to achieve even greater control over all the key economic
sectors and to accelerate economic growth. Thus the military came to accept as their own the goals of
centralization of the administration and the repression of all forms of social
protest. Making the state
apparatus more efficient and increasing repression developed side by side. Both were justified by the doctrine of
national security. 158
ˇ
Dependent
capitalism must…bear all the consequences of absorbing capital-intensive, labor
saving technology, but that is not the main problem. It is crippled because it lacks a fully developed
capital-goods sector. The
accumulation, expansion, and self-realization of local capital requires and
depends on a dynamic compliment outside itself: it must insert itself into the
circuit of international capitalism.
163
ˇ
Any
view that rationalizes de facto political processes, picturing them as the
unfolding of an elite's conscious will, bears the burden of subjectivity. A more objective approach stresses the
conflicts among groups within the arena of organized power as well as the
conflicts between these groups and those located outside the arena who attempt
to make their views felt and to change prevailing orientations. 168
ˇ
The
possibility the coercion increases at the expense of information, to put it
euphemistically, does exist. The
possibility of keeping that tendency within limits will depend of the ability
of some groups within the government, or of outside groups like the church, to
neutralize the spiral of political violence. 174
ˇ
Without
this participation [of the popular classes in politics], any
"technical" formula for mass mobilization will lad to mass
manipulation, and perhaps to an increase in the accumulation of wealth, but
will not bring about political development favoring the majority and increasing
the quality of life. 176
Hunt, L. “Charles Tilly’s Collective Action,” pp.
244-275.
- Tilly
defines collective action very broadly as “people acting together in
pursuit of common interests.”
There is no necessary reference here to mode of production or
social pathology. Tilly
chooses collective action over
collective behavior to emphasize
the importance of agency: Acting together is not simply a response to
changing conditions, for it can entail a purposeful shaping of conditions
(e.g., the proactive type). (From
Mobilization to Revolution, 1978, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, p.
7) 248
- People
act collectively to maximize their collective gains, and they do so within
the constraints set by the costs of such collective action. 251
- Tilly
starts with a problem—collective action—that can be addressed from various
vantage points, and he does not identify himself as the representative of
any one theoretical affiliation.
His most prominent procedure is to derive hypotheses from different
theoretical positions (or from the literature inspired by those positions)
and to test them, before drawing theoretical conclusions. Tilly’s agenda consequently
emphasizes research and methodology, the “how to” of answering theoretical
questions. The answers
provided by research lead in turn to reformulation of theories of
collective action. Thus Tilly’s
own theoretical position is always necessarily in the process of
development and unusually concerned with the problems of research
strategy. 253
- Tilly
explicitly aims to satisfy the cardinal criterion of scientific method; by
making plain his assumptions and procedures, he makes possible the
replication, validation, and falsifications of his conclusions. 258
- Two
kinds of explanations emerge from Tilly’s research: (1) hypotheses that
explain why changes in collective action took place in the way they did
and what their specific, historical consequences were; and (2) general
models of collective action.
The two types represent different levels of generality, and the
second depends on the first.
260
- The
competitive-reactive-proactive classification rests on the claims being
asserted: Competitive actions lay claim to resources also claimed by rival
or competing groups; with reactive forms people act in the name of
threatened rights; with proactive forms they assert group claims that have
not previously been exercised.
261
- The
conclusions that Tilly has drawn in recent years from his analysis of
long-term changes are summarized most conveniently in The Rebellious Century: (1) the changes labeled modernization
has no uniform effects on the level, focus, form, or timing of political
conflict; (2) in the short run, rapid urbanization and industrialization
generally depressed the level of conflict; (3) urbanization and
industrialization could nevertheless stimulate conflict when they diverted
resources from established groups (urban craftsmen, for instance) that
retained their internal organization; (4) the emergence of industrial
capitalism transformed the identities and the interests of the major
contenders for power, as well as the form of their collective action; (5)
the frequency and outcome of collective conflict depends on the operation
of the state. 262-3
- Through
organization, then (rather than social disorganization), modernization has
transformed collective action.
Urbanization channeled protest into the cities; the centralization
and nationalization of politics shifted violent conflict to the national
arena; and proletarianization created a new contender with new claims to
press and encouraged the formation of centralized, bureaucratically
integrated political and trade organizations. 263-4
- …the
state was not just the object of struggle, but itself one of the chief
parties to it. Coupled with
this observation is the recognition that repression often works—periods of
strong repression and central control such as the early years of the
Second Empire and the two world wars produced little or no collective
violence in France. 264
- According
to Tilly, revolutionary situations occur when (1) contenders advance
exclusive alternative exclusive alternative claims to control; (2) a
significant segment of the subject population commits itself to these
claims; (3) the agents of the government prove incapable or unwilling to
suppress the alternative coalition.
Since revolution is one kind of collective action, it is composed
of similar elements, e.g., interests, organization, mobilization, and
opportunity. It follows from
this similarity that in Tilly’s view revolution is not an abnormal or
pathological phenomenon; it is one of the possible outcomes of the
struggle for power. 264
Ragin, C. and Chirit, D. “The World System of Immanuel
Wallerstein: Sociology and Politics as History,” pp. 276-312.
- The
basis of Wallerstein’s synthesis was the idea that whatever small
technological and organizational advantage Western, particularly
northwestern, Europe may have possessed at the end of the fifteenth century,
it was turned into a much greater superiority by the West’s exploitation
of non-Western peripheries.
276
- Drawing
off the periphery’s resources enriched the capitalist core and allowed it
to increase its sphere of control throughout the world. 276
- To
Proudhon’s “Property is Theft,” Wallerstein added, in effect, that
capitalist progress is theft on a global scale. 276-7
- It
is a somewhat modified version of Marxism in which classes are viewed as
transnational actors. The
upper classes are situated primarily but not exclusively in the core, and
peripheral societies contain the most exploited and the majority of the
world’s proletariat. The
upper classes maintain their power by manipulating the core states to
defend their control over the periphery. Social change, in this view, is conditioned by changes
in the world system as a whole, not by events in this or that
country. Socialism can come
only through a revolution in the entire system, not simply in one or
several countries (much as this might help to create the conditions for an
eventual world revolution).
Perhaps most important in this world-system view is the notion that
capitalism’s wealth is critically dependent on its exploitation of the
periphery, not simply the domestic proletariat of the major core states
(which can be bought off with the surplus product taken from the
periphery). As the most
exploited part of the system, the periphery will be the locus of the
future world socialist revolution.
277
- World
economies, by contrast, are integrated economically, not politically. While they lack political
integration, the political entities embraced by a world economy constitute
a single division of labor. This
lack of political unity is one of the strengths of a world economy as a
dynamic social system.
Because of the absence of centralized control, economic actors have
greater freedom of movement, which enhances their opportunities to amass
wealth and promote accumulation of a global scale. These features of world economies
also exacerbate the unequal distribution of wealth. 286
- The
economic stagnation of noncore areas and the growing gap between core and
noncore areas are due ultimately to the political and economic advantages
bestowed on core nations by virtue of their historical priority in the
world economy. 288-9
- Even
though the capitalist world system has many different parts, an
understanding of the whole provide a basis for interpreting the fate of
each part. 296
- The
modern world system was “born” in the sixteenth century. It matured and went through stages
of growth. Its aging and
ultimate “demise” are predictable, and it will then turn into a new
organism, the socialist world system. 301-2
- …by
making the world system almost the most meaningful source of change,
except for the occasional “strong personality,” Wallerstein is able to
make a series of important historical evasions. 303
- For
Wallerstein no cultural differences between various peoples need be taken
into account to explain different rates of development. 303
Samuelson, P. Economics: An Introductory Analysis,
7th ed., New York: McGraw Hill.
- Perfect
competition is defined by the economist as a technical term: "perfect
competition" exists only in the case where no farmer, businessman, or
laborer is a big enough part of the total market to have any personal
influence on market price; on the other hand, when his grain, merchandise
or labor, is large enough in size to produce depressing or elevating
effects on market prices, some degree of monopolistic imperfection has set
in, and the virtues of the Invisible Hand must be that much discounted. 41
- Capital
goods, then, represent produced goods that can be used as factor
inputs for further production, whereas labor and land are primary factor
inputs not usefully thought of as being themselves produced by the
economic system. 48
Sunkel, O. "National Development Policy and External
Dependence in Latin America," The Journal of Development Studies.
- In
an adequate historical perspective, development appears as a process of transformation
of economic, social, political, and cultural structures and institutions.
National development policy, to be effective, must therefore stimulate and
promote the institutional and structural changes essential for the
achievement of desired social goals. 23
- The
formulation of a strategy of national development requires, therefore, a
precise diagnosis of the mechanisms of dependence in all its forms:
economic, political, military, and cultural. 28
- …the
traditional agrarian structure has largely been preserved, seriously
limiting modernization and technological improvement of rural production.
Agriculture has been unable to respond efficiently to the demand for farm
produce which has been strongly stimulated both by the growth of
population and of urban incomes and by the development of industry itself,
which, at least in its initial stages, is based largely on primary
agricultural materials. Among other serious consequences this situation
has contributed to the worsening of the balance of payments deficit,
either because exports have been reduced or because agricultural imports
have increased considerably. 28
- …one
of the essential tasks of agrarian policy must be to speed up the growth
of rural production available for the cities, at constant or decreasing relative
prices for the urban consumer. As this must be compatible with an
income rise for the peasants - the rural and urban poor being the
political base of this strategy of development - it will be necessary to
emphasize: (a) a substantial increase in yields per hectare; (b) the
maximum efficiency and reduction of costs in the process of marketing; (
c) a lowering of the costs of agricultural inputs; and (d) a
redistribution of income within the rural sector itself. 36
- From
a strategy based unilaterally on import substitution, we must move in a
decisive way to another which rests on three principle supports: (a) the
expansion and diversification of exports, (b) internal structural changes
in the agricultural sector and in manufacturing activity, and ( c) basic
changes in the nature of foreign financial ties. 37
- …to
the extent that technological progress is the fundamental determining
factor of dynamic comparative advantage, it is absolutely essential to
stimulate it, not just to make our own natural resources more valuable,
but also to assure their optimum utilization. 39
- …to
what extent will the limitations imposed by the web of international
relations within which our countries exist, permit us to adopt policies
and strategies of national development such as those suggested? 43
- It
has become evident...that the revolutionary dangers and tensions in Latin
America have their fundamental origin in the economic and social structure
of these countries. 45
- …the
fulfillment of the objective of reducing external dependence requires very
important re-orientations in traditional development strategy,
particularly relating to agrarian policy, integration, foreign relations,
and industrial policy. 46
Viner, J. International Trade and Economic
Development: Lectures Delivered at the National University of Brazil,
Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
- As
long as a country has a comparative advantage in the expansion of
agriculture over the expansion of manufacturing in the investment in their
own estates of their savings by rural landowners may be the most
productive and the most efficient investment under way in the national
economy. 135
- If
a government draws off from its citizens in taxes a part of what they
otherwise would have spent for current consumption, and uses the proceeds
in useful public works, the government is performing the saving function
for the community. 137
- …foreign
capital, in the absence of major changes in the international scene, will
make but a marginal contribution to the capital needs of most underdeveloped
countries. This renders all the more urgent the fostering of such internal
conditions by these countries as will encourage domestic saving and the
prudent use of the proceeds in the development of productive facilities,
material and human. 140
- The
greater the increase in a country's population, other things equal, the
greater will tend to be the volume of its staple export products which it
will attempt to market abroad, provided these are not also staple articles
of domestic consumption, and therefore the worse will its terms of trade
be. 142
- Primary
commodities generally have a wider amplitude of fluctuation in their
prices during the business cycle than do manufactured commodities.
Countries exporting primary commodities are consequently squeezed during a
depression by a greater drop in their export than in their import prices.
... During booms, primary products rise more in price than do
manufactures. 142
- …for
a country dependent to an important extent on exports of manufactures to
finance its essential imports, any lag in technological progress can be
fatal, this not true to anything like the same degree, if true at all, for
a country which exports mainly primary products. 145
- …as
per capita income rises the proportion of the income spent on primary
products shrinks, so that there results, with rising per incomes, a
relative trend of demand unfavorable to agriculture. ... But the relative
decline in demand for agricultural products will not be a positive
decline. It therefore will not prevent but will only lessen the rate of
progress in per capita agricultural incomes if agriculture does not
increase disproportionately... 145
Wilkie, M. Colonials, Marginals and Immigrants:
Contributions to a Theory of Ethnic Stratefication.
- …ethnic
groups are regarded as those socially differentiated by race, nationality,
language, religion or by some recognizable cultural distinction. 73
- Assimilation
s best regarded, not as a process of becoming socially indistinguishable
from the mainstream groups in urban industrial society, but as accepting
that society as the home base, the prime focus of allegiance and the place
where personal ambitions are formed, achieved and enjoyed. 88