A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE (Part 14). This blog is a continuation of review of The Creation of World Poverty by Teresa Hayter, published in 1990.
A massive gravy train for the experts
The British Opium War to force the Chinese authorities to allow the importation of opium was justified by John Quincy Adams, in a public lecture in 1842. Europeans convinced themselves that they were the bearers of order, civilization and Christian principles to the benighted natives and are still convinced that they know best. The development expert business has developed into a massive gravy train for the experts. Multinational companies sell themselves as the purveyors of technology and efficiency.
Remitting their profits abroad
Failure to develop is put down to ‘lack of entrepreneurs’. Writers on the economics of underdeveloped, or ‘backward’, countries still argue seriously that people in these countries are poor because they live in hot climates and imply that this makes them lazy and, therefore, lacking in enterprise. Another ‘explanation’ for the extreme poverty of underdeveloped countries is ‘lack of capital’. This, like the ‘low level equilibrium trap’ of neo-classical economics jargon, amounts to saying that they are poor because they are poor. But this begs the question of what constitutes capital. It also fails to answer the question why developed countries have the ‘capital’ or indeed whether, in any but the narrow sense of having access to it and control over it, they have it at all. Foreign businesses commonly raise around 80% of their capital in underdeveloped countries while at the same time remitting their profits abroad.
A direct export of capital to support the British standard of living
Because the distribution of income in underdeveloped countries is so unequal, much of the capital which could otherwise be available for investment is squandered in extravagant living, property speculation and Swiss bank accounts. The British colonies were forced to accumulate, between 1945 and 1961, sterling balances of 1 billion pounds, which constituted a direct export of capital to support the British standard of living, the value of the pound and Britain’s ability to repay its war debts.
The British exterminated the population of Tasmania
Then there is the population theory. People in underdeveloped countries are said to be poor because their populations have been increasing too fast. This, in turn, is said to be the result of superior medical techniques introduced by Europeans. These have, of course, produced undeniable benefits. They have been relatively recent. The first irruption of Europeans particularly into North and South America, decimated many local populations, partly through exhaustion in mines and plantations, partly by introducing European disease, and partly by outright massacre. As late as the 19th century, the British exterminated the population of Tasmania. And during the period of the European slave trade the population of Africa declined substantially, so much so that some writers ascribe the lack of development in Africa during this period to the decline of its population and the shortage, in particular, of able-bodied men and women.
An increasingly unequal distribution of income
In the early stages of the industrial revolution in Europe, population was increasing quite rapidly. Some highly industrialized countries have population densities much greater than those in most countries where there are extremes of poverty. Food supplies in the world as a whole are more than adequate, actually and potentially, to feed a population much larger than the existing population, although as Susan George in her book How the Other Half Dies puts it, it would obviously ‘not be ecologically desirable to decimate the last natural forest in order to provide arable land and food for tens of billions of people.’ In many countries with the greatest problems of malnutrition overall food supplies have been increasing faster than the increase in population. The most likely explanation for increasing impoverishment in rural areas is not to be found in population increases, but rather in an increasingly unequal distribution of income.