Читать книгу Globalization - George Ritzer - Страница 72

Development can be seen as a historical stage (roughly the 1940s to the 1970s) that preceded the global age (McMichael 2016; Viterna and Robertson 2015). Specifically, development can be viewed as a “project” that pre-dated the project of globalization. As a project, development was primarily concerned with the economic development of specific nations, usually those that were not regarded as sufficiently developed economically. This project was especially relevant after WW II in helping countries devastated by the war, as well as in the Cold War and the efforts by the Western powers, the US in particular, to help various weak nations to develop economically. Much of the latter was motivated by a desire to keep those countries from falling to the communists and becoming part of the Soviet Empire. The focus was on financial aid in order to strengthen these countries’ economies, but development also involved technological and military aid.

Development was inherently an elitist project with the nation-states of the North, given, or better taking, the responsibility for the development of the nation-states of the South (Brooks 2017; Ziai 2019). (Thus, unlike the later globalization project, development was based on the nation-state as the fundamental unit of concern both as that which was to be aided as well as that which was doing the helping.) The assumption was that not only was the North better off economically (and in many other ways) than the South, but it knew best how the South was to develop. Thus, it tended to help the South on its terms rather than on the South’s own terms. Furthermore, there was an assumption that the North was the model, something approaching the ideal model, and the goal was to make the South as much like the North as possible. This often extended beyond simple economics, to making the South resemble the North in many other ways (culturally, morally, politically, etc.). Implied was the fact that the South was “inferior” to the North in various ways and that the only solution was for it to change, or to be changed, so that it came to resemble the North to a greater degree and in many different ways. This tended to be associated with the “Orientalism” that characterized the North (more the West in this case) as well as its academic work, and thinking, on the South (East). Furthermore, it tended to be associated with efforts by the North to exert control over the nation-states of the South. Thus, development was not simply an economic project, but it was also “a method of rule” (McMichael 2016).

There is also a whole body of work critical of the development project and development theory known as dependency theory (Cardoso and Faletto 1979; Mahoney and Rodríguez-Franco 2018). As the name suggests, it emphasizes the fact that the kinds of programs discussed above led not so much to the development of the nation-states of the South, but more to a decline in their independence and to an increase in their dependence on the countries of the North, especially the US. Underdevelopment is not an aberrant condition, or one caused by the less developed nations themselves, but it is built into the development project (as well as into global capitalism). It also involves the idea that instead of bringing economic improvement, development brings with it greater impoverishment. The notion of dependency has wide applicability (e.g. in the food dependency created, at least in part, by food aid).

A key work in dependency theory is Andre Gunder Frank’s (1969) “The Development of Underdevelopment.” One of his arguments is that behind the whole idea of development is the notion that the present of less developed countries resembles the past of the developed countries. Thus, if the less developed countries simply follow the same path taken by developed countries, they too will become developed. However, the developed countries were never in the same position of less developed countries today; the developed countries were undeveloped while the less developed countries were (and are) underdeveloped. The result is that the path followed by the former is not necessarily the best one for the latter.

Frank also rejects the idea that the underdevelopment of a country is traceable to sources internal to that country. Rather, he argues that it is a product of the capitalist system and of the relationship between developed and underdeveloped countries within that system. Further, he rejects the idea that the solution to underdevelopment lies in the diffusion of capital, institutions, values, and so on from the developed world. He contends, however, that the less developed countries can only develop if they are independent of most of these capitalist relationships which, after all, are really the cause of their lack of development. It is capitalism that is the cause of development in the developed nations and of underdevelopment in the less developed nations.

Dependency theory has tended to wane,⁶ but it has been replaced, and to some degree incorporated, in a broader theory known as world system theory (Wallerstein 1974, 2004). This theory (see also Chapter 13) envisions a world divided mainly between the core and the periphery with the nation-states associated with the latter being dependent on, and exploited by, the core nation-states.⁷ Nordstrom (2004: 236) critiques this distinction, as well as the North–South differentiation, arguing that the periphery “is not merely ‘useful’ to cosmopolitan centers; it is critical. It is not the periphery of the economic system; it is central to it.”

While the development project had some successes, it was basically a failure since the world clearly remained, and remains, characterized by great inequalities, especially economic inequalities, between the North and the South. More pointedly, most nations associated with the South did not develop to any appreciable degree. Indeed, it could be argued that they fell further behind, rather than gaining on, the developed countries. Furthermore, the whole development project came to be seen as offensive since it tended to elevate the North, and everything about it, especially its economic system, while demeaning everything associated with the South. In its place, the globalization project at least sounded more equitable since it was inherently multilateral and multidirectional while development was unilateral and unidirectional with money and other assistance flowing from the North to the South. There is much evidence that the globalization project has not worked out much differently than the development project in terms of differences between the North and South. Furthermore, many of the institutions created during the period of dependency (those associated with Bretton Woods and the UN) continue to function and play a central role in globalization. This raises the question of whether globalization is simply development with another, less offensive, label. This would be the view taken by those who are critics of neoliberalism which undergirds much of contemporary economic globalization (see Chapter 4).