6. The Global Southin a World of Great Powers

Some Definitions

• the Global South: less-developed countries primarily in the Southern

Hemisphere • the Global North

: wealthy industrialized countries primarily in the Northern Hemisphere

• Third World: Cold War term for Global South• First World: Cold War term for Global North democracies• Second World: Cold War term for Soviet Union and other

communist countries

Map 6.1 The Global North and Global South

Map 6.2 Population

Source: From WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1999/2000: by World Bank, copyright 2000 by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

Global North and South

• Five major dimensions that differentiate the Global North and South: Politics, colonialism, technology, wealth, and demography

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- • Global North - democratic - imperialism - technologically inventive - wealthy - aging populations / low population growth

• Global South• most states (the least developed of the less-developed

countries or third world’s third world):- not democratic- colonial experience- low technology use- poor- rapid population growth

• Saudi Arabia: rich but not democratic

• China: a fraction becomes wealthy but not democratic

• India: democratic but growing population

• Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong: wealthy and democratic

• Singapore: wealthy and technologically inventive but not democratic

• 80 percent global population/15 percent global wealth

: North-South conflict

• 2 billion people earn less than $2 per day

• even though average income has been growing- the disparities between the “haves” and the “have

nots” are growing• “a civilizational clash”

: “not so much over Christ, Confucius, Muhammad : as it is over the unequal distribution of wealth,

world power”

• the origin and persistence of the inequality?• why the Global South did not develop?

Ivory Coast

(1) History

• Population

: 18 million people

: 25 per cent of them in Abidjan (the size of Toronto)

• for the first 20 years after independence,

: Ivory Coast - the envy of Africa, with its economy growing, eight per cent a year.

• France

: its initial contact with Ivory Coast in 1637

: Ivory Coast - a source of slaves

• Ivory Coast

: a French colony in 1893

: in 1958, an autonomous republic within the French community

(2) Politics• Ivory Coast: political stability from its independence

until late 1999.

• but, potential instabilities from a country whose ethnic unity is fragile: the northerners - mainly Muslim : the southerners - mainly Christian: Christian southerners prevailed against the

mainly Muslim northerners : constructed by the colonialists without regard to the

local people

• the more than 5 million - non-Ivorian Africans

: one-third from Burkina Faso

: the rest from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Liberia, and Mauritania.

: the northerners and immigrants - the backbone of plantation labor force

: a civil war between the northerners and the southerners

(3) Economics

• the Ivorian economy

: the agricultural sector

: Ivory Coast produces 40% of the world's cocoa crop

: almost 70% of the Ivorian people - agricultural activity

: reliance on raw cocoa and coffee exports, which account for 40% of total exports

: the economy performed poorly in the 1980s and early 1990s

- falling world market prices of Cote d'Ivoire's primary export crops of cocoa and coffee

- a steady fall in living standards

- recession

- an important cause of the political instability

1. Dependence on Western Powers

• most of developing countries

: historically colonies of major Western powers.

• their economic, educational, religious, and political system

: heavily influenced by their histories

(1) The first wave of European Colonialism (15C –18C)• late 1400s

: Europe used transportation and military technology to conquer colonies(2) The Second Wave of European Colonialism (1870s – the outbreak of

WWI)• the portion of the globe that European controlled

: one-third in 1800, two-thirds by 1878, and four-fifths by 1914• 1880s

: final burst colonizes most of Africa• all of the Far East and the Pacific except

: China, Japan, Siam (Thailand) • Great Britain

: one-fifth of the earth’s land, one-fourth of its population

(3) Decolonization from 1947-1960s

• the British relinquished India and Pakistan (1947)

• the French gave up Indochina, Algeria (1950s and 1960s)

• Yet, neocolonialism: continued domination of the developing countries by the developed countries through economic means

2. Population Growth

• 6.2 billion people

• the developing countries: 80 percent of global population

• The U.S. makes up less than 5 percent of the world population

- One-fifth: Chinese

- 17 percent: Indian

Population

Source: From WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 1999/2000: by World Bank, copyright 2000 by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. Used by permission of Oxford University Press, Inc.

• all the population growth occurs in the developing countries

- 95% of total added population (77 million) were appended in the developing countries

- Sub-Saharan Africa: one of rapid population growth

- the surge in the developing countries’ population; a combination of high birthrates and relatively low death rates

• often unable to deal with social, economic and environmental problems of larger population

• the larger families, the lower incomes

3. Delayed Modernization

• high rates of illiteracy and a shortage of skilled teachers, and technicians etc.

• a lack of capital and technology• only one-third of the developing countries: access to

adequate sanitation of food, water, and environment : in India, less than 10% of population has toilets

4. Unequal Distribution of Wealth

• the developing countries live at a subsistence level• 1.1 billion people’s (one-fifth of the world population)

annual incomes: less than $370 (the U.S.: $36,200) • conditions in Africa: its share of the world’s poor

doubled from 16% to 32% in the last decade• civil wars in Liberia, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique,

Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan• over 43% of the population south of the Sahara: in

poverty in 2000

Why Global South did not develop

• all three continents of what is now Global South

: the home of civilizations

: mathematics, astronomy, and medicine were highly

developed

: in an intellectual, moral and spiritual sense, several

of them were in advance of the West

• Europe was able to be ahead of them because of

: development of material respects

: breakthroughs in the technology of war and of sea travel

: evolution of industrial revolution

Summer Palace

Emperor’s Residence Hall

1. Asia: Oriental despots

• China - more advanced than Europe in technical respects until the 16th century: the Great Wall - stretches for more than 4,000

miles, the Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC).: many of the preconditions for industrialization

existed- automatic water-driven machines- large concentration of capital in the hands of

merchants- banks with branches all over China

Automatic Water-Driven machine

Merchants in Hong Kong

• The impediment to the emergence of industrialization - the institution of oriental despotism- the despot

: suppressed all sources of power and wealth independent of himself.

: appealed to straightforward power lust. : lived in luxury.

: took the agricultural surplus

- little motivation for private enterprise.

• the people

: invested their ambitions in passing exams rather than expanding enterprises

Zheng He (1405 – 1433)

• General Zheng He

: several famous naval expedition during the early Ming dynasty.

: in 1405 his fleet of 300 ships and 27,000 men

- visited Vietnam, Siam, Java, Ceylon, and the West coast of India.

: six more such voyages in the following 24 years

- sailing all the way to Arabia and Egypt.

• no interest in oversea expansion: Middle Kingdom: the Chinese saw no use for anything foreign

• all outlying countries : barbarians who were permitted to pay tribute to the

emperor

• expeditions brought back the news : “there wasn’t anything worthwhile beyond the seas”

• for centuries, China remained a stay-at-home country

2. Africa

• market empires: main trade routes across the Sahara from North Africa

to the Guinea Coast: gold, slaves, ivory; salt, horses, beads, cloth

• Ghana: an old civilization.: in the 9th C, one of the most organized states in Africa: its rulers – known for their wealth (gold and

diamonds) and skills, masters of trade

• the reason of poverty

: the absence of agricultural surplus above the survival needs of the farmers

: the infertility of the soil

: the primitive state of agricultural technology

- there was no need to develop the technology

(sparse population, no shortage of land, adequate production to meet people’s needs)

3. Latin America: Empires of the sun

• Incas

• civil engineering

: in advance of Europe

: royal highway stretched 3,250 miles down the Andes from Ecuador to Chile

• the agricultural surplus

: kept in public granary for times of famine

• soil conservation: the most advanced in the world

• But technology - primitive : no domesticated animals for plough: all transport – on foot: non-agricultural enterprise

- the gold and silver mines: state-run enterprise- the individual Peruvian: never advance himself

by his industry: no ambition, no avarice, no love of change

Why Europe did develop: free cities and bourgeois merchants

• The essential elements1. a healthy agricultural surplus by innovation

: provided the basis on which cities and industry could grow

2. Western cities: evolved as market centers for the exchange of

agricultural surplus.

3. a class of merchants and entrepreneurs free to pursue wealth.: more freedom to act independently of their rulers.: their eye for profits

- motivated the voyages of discovery: the merchants

- massive profits from their trade with the other world by the unfair terms of trade.

- it made possible the accumulation of capital to finance larger manufacturing enterprise.

- the tainted profits of conquest and of slavery in colonies added to the pile of capital.

4. the development of a practical science: based on mathematics, experiment and mechanics.

5. the availability of markets in the colonies: encouraged the rapid development of machine

production.

6. the final key to Europe’s world hegemony: her military superiority on land as well as at sea.

“Without exploitation, the West would never have industrialized in the first place.” - Harrison