At 10/22/09 08:14 AM, amaterasu wrote:
I've always wondered if all these countries we've been sending aid to will one day return the favor.
The idea is that the lesser developed nations will be able to develop their own industries in what is really an amazingly quick time, so the world economy can step in and everyone benefits from the system through making more and more money, practically immediately. As far as the mainstream ideas go from world governments, everything else stems from that central idea: social development, environmental issues, class, education, etc.
Only it doesn't work that way.
A lot of us here in the developed world seemed to have created this belief that lesser developed areas of the world should be able to built up using a simple, western methodology, not unlike the principles to modernisation theory (see contents preview page for overview of Rostow's ideas). In reality, it can't work so quickly. It took us several centuries to get where we are now, "what ifs" aside, because they're not really relevant to my point... and hopefully they never are. Granted, that methodology isn't as simple as I make it out to be, but it becomes washed down for us. I've even made an error in bringing it down solely to "rich world vs poor world", because there are individual cultural factors and effects in each "sector". I'll keep at it though, mostly because I don't know manymore effective ways of painting the picture of what I currently believe in.
I strongly doubt we'll see the developing world "returning the favour" in our lifetimes, but there are so many factors that slow it all down on a grand scale even further every day, from inside and outside the poor areas. At times, it may be unfair/incorrect to simply lay it all down to post-colonial dependency, but there's a reason(/many reasons, historical and contemporary) why so many people back that argument. The only risk is that they might dwell solely on history, which is kind of going against the sort of progression we'd like to see.
I was going to get inidividual examples, specifically of developed TNCs causinbg problems as far as this "development" goes, because that's one category I'm particularly interested in (and it's relevant), but I got a bit engrossed in some of the reading without taking quick samples from any of it. Most sources would probably be "biased" in some way, but a lot of the work by independant groups can be interesting in understanding development. Take McSpotlight for instance. That group focuses on McDonald's, but this page goes a little further. Biased? Oh yeah. Does it provide some reasoning as to why development won't happen overnight in poor countries? I'm pretty certain it does.
One example I can recall quite easily: Nestle baby milk products (although in all fairness, it's not just been Nestle, they just own a large part of the market). That's a famous one, and it's relevant as a vague example here. Blow up the picture of the developing world's development, and that's the sort of stuff you see.
Actually on the point of discussion that's not just me ranting at you (seriously, forgive me; I know I don't really have a right to speak to you in some of these ways, but this is just something I'm interested in and all that), I can realise that might seem hypocritical, big-headed and simply rude for some public figures to clearly "prefer" certain groups over others in their donations, though a lot of them tend to have good reasons for what they do - it's not that they hate the more developed world, it's just that they might feel some sort of responsibility about this, or if you're in a more negative mood, out for the publicity, but as frustrating as that might be, you're not them. We do have problems in our own socieites, definitely, but there's nothing saying we can't try to help everyone with what we have, if we indeed can. Some names in particular can be very obnoxious about what they believe in, I know that too. My advice is to try and look further than the names. Their reasons won't neccessarily be your reasons for helping something, and that's not a harsh comment on either side, I'm trying to be positive.
Some people also get struck how some attempts on a larger stage just don't get followed up or fall far less than expectations... or you know, far less than what was agreed to. As much as it's the publicly funded, the celebrity backed projects and speeches that are publicised most frequently, the greatest amounts of aid reaches poorer nations directly from our govenments. When you bring loans, TNC oppurtunities, radical governmental issues (the "Marxist" government in Ethiopia refused aid at times... and at other times, richer nations refused to give the aid as a result; likewise, some of our governments have preferences for potentially harmful foreign governments which allow them to gain more, see Thatcher and Pinochet, etc.(may not be the best example)) into it, that nice neat structure of how the less developed nations were supposed to develop quickly is toppled... again.
So yeah. Jumbled reading, but I like reading about this stuff, as depressing as it is.
