I. Postcolonialism: Economic Development and Globalization

A. Postcolonial conditions

1. Cheap labor, relatively unskilled
2. Cheap raw materials
3. Poor infrastructure
4. Agriculture, mining, or natural resources accounted for a large proportion of national income
5. Dependency on one or two products

B. Development policy

1. Top-down: governments, multi-national corporations, NGOs
2. Primary goals

a. transition from agriculture to industry (industrialization)
b. population movement from rural to urban areas (urbanization)
c. increase in labor productivity and specialization (modernization)
d. rise of state as economic planner (bureaucratization)

3. Key assumptions

a. rural sector declines, not productive, isn't important
b. use agricultural surplus to expand industry

4. Policies to jump-start industry

a. overvalue currency, imported industrial inputs are cheap
b. low industrial workers' wages, at subsistence level
c. low food prices subsidize urban industrial workforce
d. import substitution

5. Policies to extract rural surplus

a. direct export tax
b. cheap food prices
c. State revenues from export taxes go to industry
d. Decline in agricultural productivity frees up more farmers to work in industry
e. Declining profits in rural sector prompt urban migration
f. Nearly infinite supply of cheap labor from rural areas benefits industrialists

6. Secure foreign aid and investment for industry
7. Impact of these policies

a. Economic growth
b. Prestige projects: superhighways, airports
c. Traditional parts of economy saw little development
d. Cheap labor force lacks skills
e. Growing foreign indebtedness
f. Perpetuation of global inequalities created by colonialism

 

II. Two Theories of Economic Development

A. Why has development worked in some places and not others?
B. Modernization Theory

1. W.W. Rostow, 1960s, Politics and the Stages of Growth (1971)
2. Five set stages

a. traditional society
b. Preconditions for take-off
c. Take-off
d. The drive to maturity
e. High mass consumption

3. Optimistic, evolutionary view of modernization, inspires developing countries
4. Doesn't explain why some countries haven't developed

C. Dependency Theory

1. World consists of mutually related parts, first and third worlds
2. Countries in N. America and Europe develop because they exploit other countries
3. Third World isn't traditional, rather it is created by the First World
4. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System (1974)

a. Dominant core: industrial production and distribution, strong states
b. Subordinate periphery: raw materials, weak states
c. Semi-periphery
d. Unequal exchanges allow core to develop

5. Problem: Doesn't explain how peripheries can become part of core

 

III. Sugar Dependency

A. Sidney Mintz: Sweetness and Power (1985)
B. How do core and periphery interact?
C. Focus on interaction between production and consumption
D. Consumption

1. 1000 C.E.: Europe doesn't know sugar
2. 1650: nobility and wealthy
3. 1850: necessity for everyone in England
4. 1900: nearly 1/6 of per capita caloric intake
5. Rise in sugar consumption can't be explained by biology; liking for sweetness is biological, particular form of "sweet tooth" is not
6. Industrial revolution ==> changes in uses for sugar, changes in its meaning

a. at first, sugar = luxury
b. colonies enable cheap production
c. in England, fewer people farming ==> need for cheap, convenient, calorically dense food
d. poor workers use sugar as spice, preservative
e. working women turn to sweetened convenience foods

E. Production

1. Labor intensive crop
2. Mercantile sugar plantations, slave labor, industrial mode of production

F. Mintz's revision of dependency theory: production and consumption feedback loop

1. British Empire expands by developing new colonies and types of production
2. More products ==> more consumption in England
3. Need for cheap food source fuels production
4. Sugar is transformed from a luxury to a necessity
5. Sugar production increases

G. Causal explanation for capitalism

1. Colonial plantations and slave labor stimulated rise of capitalism
2. Site for investment of capital
3. Plantation as industrial mode of production
4. Plantation labor force as market for manufactured goods produced in England
5. Colonial center gets more capital
6. Higher production decreases prices, leads to increased consumer demand, promotes work ethic

H. Internal dependency of working classes in Britain is linked to colonies
I. Who are the agents driving this system?
J. Economics made sugar available, culture determined its uses, meanings, and popularity, but economics pushed people to look for new dietary staples

 

 

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