Theories explaining global inequalities
After World. War II, many nations went through a process known as decolonization. Decolonization is defined as being rid of colonization, the process in which a nation is freed from the dependency of another country. Despite being freed, global inequality still reigns. Global inequality involves the absorption of resources in nations that affect the opportunities of individuals living in poverty struck countries. So, if colonialism has been weakened, why is there still global inequalities? Two theories have emerged in hopes to shed some light in understanding why.
There is a functionalist perspective of global inequality where theorists focus on the aspects of society that are essential to survival such as health. A functionalist would explain that global inequality is thriving because some nations adapt well to the continuously innovating world with new technologies, and when adapting nations reach out to unadapting and/or undeveloped nations, they enlarge their economy and benefit the workers. Many imitations of modernization develop from functional views. This suggests that societies able to assimilate to modern views of culture are able to prosper in economic development while those sticking to traditional culture makes is harder for them to develop.
During the Cold War, the world was separated between capitalist and communist economic societies. With this separation came the terms of first world, second wolrd and third world nations. The first world was considered the developed and most effective economic standing nations such as the United States, Canada, and Japan. The second world was considered an industrially developed nation, yet their economy is stressed by political control such as socialism or the Soviet Union. The Third World nations were considered the most underdeveloped, and poor nations. Economist Walt Rostow (1960) describes terms of economic development as being in a natural order of stages. First stage is the traditional society similar to third world with low development. Pre- take off society is next where nations begin to form and shift to industrial production. Then the take- off where rapid growth in development occurs. Maturity is when a modern industrialized economy is born. The last stage is known as the age of high mass consumption is where a nation shifts from basic goods to innovated luxuries and gaining general stability. This is known as s Modernization theory which suggest that societies move through stages to progress toward a stable developed society.
As much as Rostow believed these staged as ‘natural’, third world nations still needed protection and support in order to thrive. This was when the idea of first world responsibility emerged. First world nations believed they should provide aid to the less and underdeveloped nations to catalyst the rate of development.
Immanuel Wallerstein (1979) theorized a world system approach using an economic and political basis to understand global inequality. He believed that development does not come from natural stages but a product of dependency. He developed a theory that global economy was based solely on history. Where there is an economic hierarchy created some nations being in power with an abundance of resources and other nations needing support economically and faced many obstacles to gain modernity. Wallerstein had three terms of identification of these nations; core nations, peripheral nations, and semi-peripheral nations.
Core nations are the dominant countries similar to first world nations. They are fully industrialized, technological and urbanized. Wallerstein claims that the United States is economically dominant and can support or deny important legislation pertaining to the global economy. With this power, the United States is seen as controlling the rising global economy where they can exploit both semi-peripheral and peripheral nations. An example would be trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA was implemented in 1994 to eliminate barriers to trade and invest between the US, Canada, and Mexico. This brought about the immediate elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of Mexico’s exports to the US and more than one -third of US exports to Mexico. This is how core nations can take advantage to peripheral and semi peripheral nations. Due to this agreement, many Mexican citizens were left jobless and looked toward America for stability.
Peripheral Nations also known as third world nations have some industrialization. Their factories are often owned by the core nations or their resources are exploited by the core nations. They usually have an unstable form of government and ineffective social programs as well as being economically dependent on corn nations for jobs and aid. A lot of these peripheral nations reside within Africa, the Middle East, and some areas of Asia. These nations with underdevelopment look towards core nations for support and in turn the core nations look for cheap labor, goods, and resources. An easy example would be the Atlantic Slave trade where West Europeans tried to colonize West Africa and in exchange gained slaves to trade and sell for cheap labor.
Semi-peripheral nations are middle ground nations. Not as powerful as core nations but acting as a major source for raw material. They are seen as a middle- class market for core nations, while they also exploit peripheral nations much like core nations do. China is a great example of a semi-peripheral nation. They provide a surplus amount of goods to the United States for a cheap or low cost yet exploit from other Asian nations for cheap labor.
Wallerstein was in hindsight looking at a skeleton of a dependency theory. The dependency theory was created as a response of the modernization theory. It states that global inequality is primarily caused by core nations. This idea was created by Andre Gunder Frank. He claimed that if peripheral and semi- peripheral nations continue to lean on the support of core nations it would create a “chain like fashion” (Frank 1967:7). Frank theorized that these peripheral and semi-peripheral will never reach modernity due to a vicious cycle of dependency. With that being said, no longer are core nations supporting to help but to really suppress these nations from gaining power.
In conclusion, there are two theories in which we can try to understand the global inequality between nations after colonialism was weakened. The first would be known as the modernization theory in which Rostow theorized that modernity comes as a natural stage of development. He discusses how in order to reach modernity the less and underdeveloped nations must look towards developed nations for support while enduring the next stage. It was Wallerstein who added to Rostow’s theory stating that these nations are looked at as, core, semi- peripheral, and peripheral. Wallerstein seems to believe that these nations are put in these categories from history and the availability of basic resources. It was Andre Gunder Frank who developed the idea of the dependency theory that states that these peripheral nations will never reach modernity due to core nations hindering their ability to strive in a developed world.