Underdevelopment Development Africa And Latin America Politics Essay

Underdevelopment Development Africa And Latin America Politics Essay Introduction The widespread economic international inequities and the big technological gap that exits between the rich and the poor-the developed and the developing countries-have virtually divided the world into two parts: The Rich or the North, and the Poor or the South. The rich countries are technologically developed and economically well off. By virtue of this, they are in a position to maintain and even strengthen their hold not only over international economic system but also over the economies and policies of the poor countries. The poor countries, which are industrially, technologically and economically under-developed, continue to live under the neo-colonial dependence upon the rich. In the past, they were the victims of imperialism and colonialism, and even after becoming sovereign independent states, they continue to suffer from poverty and under-development as the legacies of the past history and face continued exploitation at the hands of the rich countries. The latter through seve ral devices like foreign aid, multi-national corporations,, control over international economic institutions and protectionist trade and economic policies, are virtually forcing the under-developed countries to live with under developed nation and these developed nations create hegemony upon the underdevelopment countries, so called third world countries. If we study the population and resources among these two, developed and underdeveloped nations; 70 percent of population are living in the later category and 30 percent of populations are living as developed nations, but at same time on the side of the spectrum 70 percent of resources excess by developed nations and only 30 percent of resources excess by the underdeveloped nations. This is undoubtedly a very wide disparity. In the international arena every nation interacts with others because of technology and free trading. But the developed countries have been creating hegemony in many ground with their powerful aids of advance technology, sophisticated weapons and powerful army. In this paper I would like to draw the condition of Africa and Latin America and their positions in the contemporary international standards. How these two nations have been suffering chronic hunger, poverty, contagious diseases, racial discrimination, gender disparity, low literacy rate and unstable government all through in the earlier twentieth century. Attributable to these issues, Africa and Latin America have paid heavy prices But the developed nations settled their industries in this region. They pulled out natural resources and used cheap labours and finally they exported goods in the international market. But these two nations did not get any noteworthy benefits out of this, because their lands were merely used for the purpose of industrial development without a reciprocal promise of development even the labour contribution by these two nations are not very significantly rewards . And these industries created more pollution for these nation ultimately the environment pollute d what eventually native people were affected with many diseases. At the rudimentary stages the positions and conditions of both, Africa and Latin America were some how similar. If we see the history of these two nations, the prime source of income was farming. But the rural oligarchies and the rich men were holding the 70 percent of lands and where as there were only 30 percent for the rest of the population. After the independence, African countries they settled their new farming policy, which were based on the cooperative model. In this model the new government was settled down with some reforms in the farming sectors. The government checked the middle men profit for the shake of farmers to sale directly the crops in the market. The new Govt. revised the colonial price standard. It introduced opened market system for market prices. It created the cooperative farms for price fixing and also created present friendly opportunities for a market oriented development. But due to some adverse forces and conditions the policies made by the Govt. were no t effective. Seidman mentioned, how the managerial was so corrupt as a result the price was very low for the peasants to sell their crops out side the county. [INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY SERIES1, Page 242.] Seidman point out that, In Ghana, the peasants objected to the Nkrumah governments state buying agency, the United Ghana Farmers Council. The post-1966 coup government tried to persuade the transnational buying firms to purchase cocoa directly from the peasants, but they refused. Apparently, they preferred to let local traders or cooperatives do the task. That insulated the transnational from blame when falling world prices pushed producer prices down. The Tanzanian government also tried to substitute government agents for marketing cooperatives; but costs mounted, export prices fell, and, blaming the government, many peasants simply stopped cultivating export crops. After several years, the government re-established the marketing cooperatives.The developed countries farmers used pesticides and they cultivate the crops in the large amount of area. But the Africa and Latin Americas farmers did not have capacity to apply in the farming land for increase of the production capacity and t he land fertility was decrease and the environment degradation due to this farmers lost their fertile land. Many African family, they invested their money in the cattle, but send their cattle near the desert sand because of feeding. [INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY SERIES1, Page 243,258] The African society mainly dominated by patriarchy system, so the condition of women was so venerable. The women did not have any property right, even the girl child did not send to school. In Kenya the private ownership only acknowledged to the male members. The Kenya society totally male domination, even in the bureaucracy also effected by the male domination. Whatever policy took place in the bureaucratic level, the women did not include in that policy formulation. The bank also did not give lone to the female members of the family. Particularly any country or a society for their development, the both male and female participation should be necessary. But in Africa and Latin America society was totally mail domination. So it is the one of prime causes of underdevelopment. Hence the position of women have to develop as they have same capacity to generate wealth, and they also have rights to participate in the development process what ultimately help for the progress of nation building.Any society or nation comes in to sphere of underdevelopment due to several reasons, viz. hunger, poverty, unstable government and not solely from the backwardness. Same kind of situation was happening in Africa and Latin America. [The Crisis of African Development: Conflicting Interpretations and Resolutions., p. 527.] Immediately after independent many third world countries adopted some structural development, in the nation building process viz. road, port, hospital, new institution, education and high expenditure in the military sector. However these govt. expenditures remained consistently below those of high income countries. The foreign private investment and exim policy in the international market, But the market did not grow because of inherent corruption in the structure. The developed countries exported the heavy machinery, croups, clothing and food and the third world countries likes Africa and Latin America export the oil, gold and luxury item in the developed countries. We can closely observe how the underdeveloped countries exploit in the international market. The open market gave benefits to the rich developed or the rich countries. The Africa and Latin America did not gain any benefits from the open market and therefore the economy was shrunk. [Underdevelopment of Development, p. 301. Copyright  © 1996 by Sage Publications,] In the 19th century the Latin America society has had barbarism and the European cultural value influenced the Latin American culture. The elite saw the European domination in the society. In the second half of 19th century the Latin America excess the scientific knowledge and export the raw material and import the industrial products. [p. 150 Latin American past, present and future.] For the Latin America economy development, the United Nation Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA )laid the foundation for the economic analysis, empirical groundwork, and institutional support that would later inform the search for the bases of Latin American development. The ECLA scholar such as, Andre Gunder Frank, Raul Prebisch, Paul Baran, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, combinely worked for the development of Latin America. Andre Gunder Frank gave the dependency theory. In his theory he says that, the capitalism generates the wealth so that, the underdeveloped nations they can interact in the capital global market. But the developed nations they settled down their industries in the underdeveloped reasons. In the open market process the underdeveloped nations they became loser, because the developed nations they settled industries in this poor reason. Extract the minerals and export in the world market. But they did not get benefits out of it. He studied the Chile and Braz il past and present history. This two countries histories reflect that, during the epochs of colonialism free trade, imperialism excess the wealth from this reason. At the present time also the free market capitalism exploit in the name of development. Fernando Henrique Cardoso one of the scholar, who among the ECLA group also gives the theory of dependency. How the poor nations became poorer, due to capitalism and free market the developed nations they access raw material in low price from the underdeveloped countries. Cardoso is a sociologist. He studied the socio economy condition of Latin America. He was the president of Brazil and earlier he worked as a economic minister for Brazil in 1980. [Underdevelopment of Development, p. 162. Copyright  © 1996 by Sage Publications.] After imperialist predominance were able to cope with the new situation by maintaining proprietorship of the local export economy in the hands of native bourgeoisies. Some countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Chile the export sectors controlled by the local bourgeoisie directly linked with productive sector and they gained their own benefits and create the hegemony. So the country was unable to overcome from the poverty. The Africa and Latin American countries has some regional conflicts and for which the neighboring country do not interact with its neighboring countries. For example, in Africa the Zimbabwe is a land lock country, so for its treading, it needed for treading communication through South African countries. But Zimbabwe did not get the permission. So these are the things which are create the situation for the underdevelopment. The World Bank and the IMF funding the finance for structural adjustment. But Africa and Latin American countries still underdevelopment. All the financial support are meet with failure, due to corruption and the institution were not capable to maintained the funds and the bureaucracy was corrupt too. So the World Bank and the IMF funds were not benefits for the development of the Africa and Latin America. But many scholar they criticizes the World Bank and IMF policies. Because these financing agencies, they saw their own benefits, and the return duration was 7 to 8 years and the interest rate was so high and how a country can sustain development within a sort period. Some scholar they said that, the world bank and the IMF work for the developed nation and it controlled by them. [ INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY SERIES1, p. 306. ] Immanuel Wallerstein criticizes the imperialism and he says that neo-imperialism creates its hegemony through open market. The USA and other developed nations they capture the global market and access the raw materials from the underdevelopment reasons, in the low price. So it is a new kind of colonialism settled through MNC and TNC. These agencies work for the developed nations and give the finance support to the underdeveloped countries for industrial development. [p. 355. underdevelopment of development] Conclusion The development and underdevelopment mainly based on the policies and more importantly the structural adjustment. But in Africa and Latin American countries suffered due to many causes, these two reasons have many disparity such as racial discrimination, gender discrimination and feudal base society and many other cause for underdevelopment in Africa and Latin American countries.