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| How we understand the causes of poverty in the world? |
Centuries of technological
development improved the standard of living of the poorest community and
absolute poverty was finally being eradicated from human society. The end of
World War Ⅱ
in 1945 brought peace to humanity, but even after several decades of the
post-war period, impoverishment of developing economies and significant
financial inequalities among nations still exist worldwide. Besides, when it
comes to economic disparities between prosperous and disadvantaged countries,
they are still considerable. The rapid process of the decolonisation and
dissolution of the Soviet Union created an immediate need to investigate the
relationship between poverty and development in penurious countries, where
majority of population was suffering from destitution for ages. In order to
elucidate the primary cause of impecuniosity and structure of maldistribution
of resources, sociologists advocated the two classic theories of poverty, which
were the Modernisation and the Dependency theories. This article will concisely
describe these two major theories and will analyse which theory provides
utterly reliable interpretation of poverty in the developing world.
The Modernisation theory is “a model of economic and social development that explains global inequality in terms of differing levels of technological development among societies”, which emerged in the 1950s (Macionis, 2008, p.281). Macionis delineated the Modernisation theory that, “it was a popular economic theory in the Western countries”, particularly in the post-war period, when countries were eager to reconstruct the war-devastated economy (Macionis, 2008, p.281). However, Macionis also noted that the Socialist economy, especially the Soviet-type economic planning was considered to be more reliable principal than Western capitalism, since the Soviet-type economic model was expanding the influence among low-income countries that had trouble with fragile domestic infrastructure and limited financial capability, by highlighting the drawbacks of capitalistic economy (Macionis, 2008, p.281). Given the strong desire of the United States to unify an allied power among rising economies, according to Macionis, U.S. policy makers established “a broad defence of rich nations’ free-market economies” in order to compete with the influential Socialist economies (Macionis, 2008, p.281). To fill the void, Walt Rostow, the author of “The Stages of Economic Growth”, who was a fierce anti-communist, articulated the Modernisation theory in the early 1960s (Potter et al., 1999, p.89). The Modernisation theory recognises the local practices and rituals as obstacles to economic and technological aspects of social progress that traditional ways provide convincing explanations of the solution to pauperism (Macionis, 2008, p.282). Modernisation theorists claimed that, “some forward-looking societies have eagerly embraced technological innovation while other, more traditional peoples have sternly opposed it” (p.282). It is suggested that technological maturity has direct relevance to the standard of living and economic progress.
According to Rostow’s ‘stages of
modernisation’, as cited in Macionis, “the process of modernisation follows
four overarching stages,” namely traditional stage, take-off stage, drives to
technological maturity and high mass consumption (Macionis, 2008, p.282). In
other words, Rostow concluded that all nations exist at various standpoints
along almost identical developmental path. Macionis claimed that, countries
like Bangladesh and Niger are in the ‘traditional stage’, which was defined by
heavy reliance on kinship-based power structures and relied little on science
or technology. Instead of scientific knowledge or perspective, spiritual
beliefs centering on mythology or superstition have the most irresistible
supremacy in traditional society. Other countries, like Mexico and Korea are in
the ‘drive to technological maturity’ that economic diversification in emerging
economies obliterate absolute poverty from society and impel a population to
maximise technological and financial advantages. Finally, countries like the
United Kingdom and Japan are in ‘high mass consumption’, which already have
reached the pinnacle of development procedure more than a century ago. The
challenge of the post-war development project then, was to scrutinise how to
accelerate countries effectively along economic progress. Modernisation
theorists, in response, expect opulent countries to play a pivotal role in the
global economy (Macionis, 2008, p.283). Aiding developing countries, such as
assisting in population control and increasing food production meant facilitation
of the transition from one stage to the next and as stated by Potter, “it is
quite natural that the original recipe for development given by the developed
countries should emanate from their own experiences and prejudices” (Potter et
al., 1999, p.92). Furthermore, Lewis emphasised the correlation between foreign
investments and economic growth that foreign capital provides the society with
‘an unlimited supply of labour’ for development (Potter et al., 1999, p.91) and
in contrast, developed nations also benefit from ‘import-substitution development’
by increasing foreign direct investment (Ritzer, 2010, p.72).
The Modernisation theory
represented the primary school of developmental thought in the Western
academia, but not surprisingly, the school was not without critics. The
Dependency theory, which is dramatically different from the Modernisation
theory, is “a model of economic and social development that explains global
inequality in terms of historical exploitation of poor societies by rich ones”
(Macionis, 2008, p.284). Development theorists excoriate Modernisation
theorists’ perspective that the Modernisation theory is underestimating the
most important event in history, which is colonialism (Macionis, 2008, p.285).
Andre Gunder Frank, a Dependency theorist and the author of “The development of
Underdevelopment”, argued that although even the developed nations were the
less developed nations in the past, the economic circumstances were completely
different compared to present society (Ritzer, 2010, p.73). He explained that,
“the developed countries were ‘undeveloped’ in the past whilst the current less
developed countries are ‘underdeveloped’” and the result is that “the path
followed by the former is not necessarily the best one for the latter” (Ritzer,
2010, p.73). Even after majority of the nations achieved their independence
several decades ago, Western countries’ Multi-national corporations
successfully inherited the tradition and primary function of colonisation,
which “rich nations effectively prevent poor ones from developing industries of
their own” (Macionis, 2008, p.287). Dependency theorists claim that the basic
composition of structural exploitation of international trade between developed
and developing nations has not changed since the beginning of the colonisation.
Both the Modernisation and the Dependency
theories explain, “why so many of the world’s people are poor and why members
of rich societies enjoy such relative advantages” (Macionis, 2008, p.281).
However, these two theories present intrinsically different frameworks for understanding
and conceptualising destitution in disadvantaged countries. For Modernisation
theorists, the solutions to eradicate poverty are primarily originated in
domestic affairs of underprivileged community, such as unstable social
structures and gender inequalities. So, close ties to the international
economy, highly developed countries in particular, could bolster economic
growth in developing economies. On the other hand, Dependency theorists insist
that the difficulties of development are resulting from the exploitation
structure between ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘overdeveloped’ countries (Ritzer, 1999,
p.72-73). Moreover, Dependency theorists identify “rich nations more as the
cause of global poverty than its solution” (Macionis, 2008, p.284). However, China’s
recent economic success, for instance, the beginning of rapid economic growth
was the Chinese economic reform, which enabled the country to invite numerous
foreign investments and factories in order to accelerate the economy. Recent
economic growth in Asia and Latin American countries is also accompanied by an
increase in foreign capital (Macionis, 2008, p.281). Even Western European
countries and Japan, which are currently one of the most influential economic
giants in the world, have been consumed by enormous amount of U.S. investments
and financial aids for the post-war reconstruction during the late 1940s and
1950s. These historical processes identify the validity of the Modernisation
theory, which emphasizes the significance of international relationships among
countries, foreign aids and investments. Additionally, it is believed that
several critics against the Modernisation theory involve significant ignoratio
elenchi, or irrelevant conclusions. For example, although critics argued that
modernisation simply has not occurred in many countries (Macionis, 2008,
p.284), some least-developing countries, such as Bangladesh and Somalia remain
in the ‘traditional stage’ that these countries are simply still resisting
technological development. As stated above, Rostow’s implications in the
Modernisation theory were the suggestion that all countries, including least-developed
nations, will ultimately proceed along the same developmental progression. For
other critics, the Modernisation theory espouses affluent economies as the
standard evaluation criteria of economic development and they are judging rest
of the developing counties by their own values and obstinacies (Macionis, 2008,
p.284). However, the newly industrialised economies, such as Korea, Hong Kong
and Taiwan, which are actually one of the poorest economies in the past, are
now recognised as the leading industrial economies worldwide for their
sophisticated smartphone and computer industries after they start introducing
foreign capital (Macionis, 2008, p.282). These arguments will sharpen one of
the biggest faults of the Dependency theory, which is “it offering only vague
prescriptions for remedying global poverty” (Macionis, 2008, p.290). Possibly,
the Dependency theory is underestimating the beneficial effects of rich
nations’ aids and investments. Eventually, it is assumed that the Modernisation
theory provides the most useful explanation for poverty in developing
countries. Despite significant differences between the Modernisation and the
Dependency theories, both theories have a basic understanding of the key
factors of poverty that are almost the same. Both theories identify fragile
domestic economic and industrial structure, serious gender inequality, immature
technology, cultural differences and other internal and external factors as the
main causes of global inequality. However, again, a careful analysis of recent
emerging economies shows rather positive effects for rich nations.
In conclusion, both the
Modernisation and the Dependency theories attempt to unravel the primary causes
of poverty in developing countries and pay close attention to the role of rich
nations. The Dependency theory insists that high-income countries are actually
the causes of global inequality and the basic concept of exploitation structure
between rich and poor nations are unchanged since the colonial period.
Modernisation theorists, by contrast, credit the high-income countries with a
substantial role that they are the key to eradicating global inequality. It is
suggested that the Modernisation theory, especially Rostow’s “stages of
modernisation” theory, is the most useful explanation for poverty in the
developing world, which is provable throughout the recent developmental process
and technological advancements in developing countries.
References
Giddens, A., 2009: Sociology: Sixth Edition,
Cambridge: Polity Press, pp548-556
Macionis, J.
and Plummer, K. 2008: Sociology: A Global Introduction: 4th edition, Harlow:
Pearson Education Limited, pp280-291
Ritzer, J., 2010: Globalization: A Basic
Text, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, pp71-73, p98-100
Potter et al. 1999: Geographies of Development.
Harlow: Pearson, pp89-96
