The lands of Asia, Africa and Latin America have long produced great treasures of foods, minerals and other natural resources. That is why Europeans went through so much trouble to steal and plunder them. One does not go to poor places for self-enrichment. The Third World is rich. Only its people are poor--and it is because of the pillage they have endured. The dominant theory of the last half-century maintains that it is up of the rich nations of the North to help uplift the 'backward' nations of the South, bringing them technology and proper work habits. This is an updated version of 'the white man´s burden,' a favorite imperialist fantasy.
This 'development theory' or 'modernization theory' bears little relation to reality. What has emerged in The Third World is an intensely exploitive form of dependent capitalism. Economic conditions have worsened drastically with the growth of transnational corporative investment. The problem is not poor lands or unproductive populations but foreign exploitation and class inequality. Investors go into a country not to uplift it but to enrich themselves.
- Michael Parenti
Excerpted from Against Empire
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