Acronyms: EOP: The End of Poverty?...NIS: Nectar in a SieveWST: World System TheoryODL/NDL: Old and New Division of Labour WMB: While Man’s BurdenTWCs: Third World CountriesSV: Structural ViolenceSAP: Structural Adjustment ProgrammeWC: Washington ConsensusMNC: Multinational Corporation

Essay topic: Applying the World Systems Theory, compare the causes of Rukmani’s poverty in Nectar in a Sieve with the causes of poverty of those in the Third World countries presented in the DVD: The End of Poverty? Think Again. Illustrate your arguments with examples from the book and the DVD.

Build a comparative framework using all of the following themes and concepts

Power: Colonial vs. Neoliberalist Technology and Control: Factory vs. Structural Violence Labour & Unequal exchange: Subsistence vs. Export production‘White Man’s Burden’ & religion: Missionary vs. the Bible/ Church

Compare the impact of Core-Periphery integration through the World Market :

Power: Colonial vs. Neoliberal (P)Technology: Factory vs. Structural Violence (T & Power of control) Labour: Subsistence vs. Export production (DL & U)Ideology of WMB: Missionary vs. The Bible/ Church (P of religion)

Thesis: (1st example)WST explains that from colonial times, Core’s imperialism and corporate power have globally integrated their colonies as peripheries through the world market strategies of ODL/NDL, superior technologies and unequal exchange. In this context, Core’s missionary and the church blame the TWCs’ disregard for capitalist self-interest and neoliberalism, as the causes for their poverty, thus reinforcing the ideology of ‘the White Man’s Burden’.

(WST: PUT-NDL)

Thesis: (2nd example)WST argues that colonialism and neoliberalism intrude into the economies of the TWCs, maintain the core countries’ power over the peripheries. The core countries integrate the TWCs into the world-system through their control over the world market using DL, unequal exchange and superior technology. The core countries justify this process espousing the ideologies of WMB.

Thesis (cont’d.)• Colonial power imposes capitalism on a subsistence

economy. Intrusion of a factory commodifies the land and turns unemployed tenant farmers as cheap labour while inserting the superiority of the Western values on Rukmani’s village.

• Neoliberalist policies of WB & IMF: SAP & WC, advance the Cores’ political and corporate interests. These policies advance core’s control of TWCs’ resources for export production. They ensure their profit accumulation by resorting to strategies of structural violence and religious manipulation to control the poor from rising against economic and social inequities.

Integration into the world system: Power; Technology; Labour. • Core countries: • P: Hegemony by military power• T: Industrial mass production• U: Appropriate much of the surplus of the whole

world-economy • DL: Concentrate on higher-skill, capital-intensive

production• Peripheral countries:

• P: powerless & poor economies• U: market-imposed low trading value & cheap labour • DL: focus on low-skill, labor-intensive production

and extraction of raw materials

Integration into the world system: Power; Technology; Labour: (cont’d):

Power: (two periods: colonial, neoliberal) • Colonial: Core’s imperialism (total political control)• Neoliberal: Core’s market control of capital

Labour: ODL (colonial) and NDL (neoliberal)• A single division of labor within one world market:

Core controls capital and Peripheries supply cheap labour and raw materials

Core’s Power

India under Colonial

capitalism (NIS)

Technology:Manua

l &Machi

ne

Labour:

(ODL &

Debt)

Subsistence &

Waged

WMB :Missionary& Westernization path

Third World & Neoliberalism

(EOP)

Technology:

Advanced Industrial

Labour:(NDL& U)Cheap

or Slave

workers in

Export Produc

tion

WMB:

The Bible

& Ment

al Colonizatio

n

Power of

control:

Structural

Violence

Power:

Total Coloni

al Contro

l

Hypothesis 1: Power: Differential impact of the Core’s world market hegemony on India & TWCsHypothesis 2: Technology: Cr controls the political and economic power & superior technologies to make decisions on Peri.’s land and resources. In Peri., control of resources shifts from the community to the market. Hypothesis 3: Labour: Through ODL & NDL, Cr’s capital indebts and exploits Peri’s cheap labour to enhance its capital accumulation.Hypothesis 4: The Ideology of the “Whiteman’s Burden” (a blend of colonial/neoliberal power & religious ideology) discredits the local values of TWCs as reasons for their poverty.

Hypothesis 1: Power: Differential impact of the Core’s world market hegemony on India & TWCs

Hypothesis 1

Power: Core’s Hegemony

impact of world market on India

Tannery

intrudes

Disintegrates

community

First stage of integra

tion

impact of world market on TWCs

AICs’ corpor

ate capital

Tightens

market integra

tion

Appropriation of TWCs’ land &

subterranean

resources

Core’s (AICs’) power advances from colonial to corporate capitalism through the development of the world market :

16th –mid 20th C: Colonial capitalism in Nectar in a sieve

Mid-20th C on: Corporate capitalism in End of Poverty?... (EOP)

World Market according to WST:• A single division of labor within one world market • Core states - higher-skill, capital-intensive production and

appropriate much of the economic surplus of the whole world-economy.

• Peripheral areas focus on low-skill, labor-intensive production and extraction of raw materials

World Market transactions:• Commodity & financial instruments traded globally • International trade based on power bargaining• Global financial crisis since 1990s

Two stages of capitalist market integration & control: 1. Colonial: (16th C -20th C): Imperial power of the

colonizing states profit from selling colonial countries’ commodities in the world Market, e.g.:• Rukmani’s village becomes a target

for raw materials for the world market 2. Post-colonial: Neoliberalist policies: SAP (BLeeDS) & WC (LAPDog), facilitate monopolistic corporate capital to acquire TWCs’ resources for Core’s capital accumulation e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFL3GY0RU88

• Core transfers surplus from unequal exchange of trade and thus create debt; Core supports MNCs monopolistic control over, and extraction of subterranean resources of TWCs

Impact of the Core’s world market hegemony on India & TWCs India: Colonial control

1. British colonial capital: market (factory: tannery) power intrudes into Rukmani’s village (26)

2. Disintegrates the community (46-47)3. First stage of integration into the world system.

TWCs: Neoliberalist policies: SAP & WC:4. Colonial land tax, MNCs’ appropriation of common land

belonging to the rural poor, resource mining (Bolivia), Dutch in Asia.

5. MNC’s corporate capital: Export production, e.g., Bolivia’s drinkable water (Bechtel); Kenya's subsistence land & the Yala dam (Dominion); Subsistence land lost due to Venezuelan govts’(replace what was grown with imports), & Brazilian govts’ (South produces cheaper goods for the North) export policies:

6. Trade, debt & MNCs’ monopoly over resources tightens the TWCs’ integration into the global market

Power of Colonial capital & Evolution of capitalism: (“Nectar …” ).

• Colonial trade & Mercantile capital(Merchantile capital)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duxkrv4fSe4 (p1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MlZEfRhTo8 (p2)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-usgczvclNs&feature=endscreen p.3

• Peri.’s Labour moves to Cr’s capital

• Rise of Industrial capital & factory system

India: colonial core’s power (Britain’s)

1. Colonial trade in raw materials accumulates capital

2. Industrialization process

• Mechanical production replaces human energy

• Emergence of the factory system

Power of the corporate capital & TWC’s (DVD):

• Cr’s Corporate capital

• Cr’s Finance capital moves to peri.s’ labour

• Rise of Monopoly corporate capital in the Cr

Corporate capital: MNCs• Economic power and ownership of capital is

concentrated in the hands of a small number of powerful corporations.

• Concentration of capital into large monopolistic or oligopolistic holdings by banks and financiers

EOP (DVD): Neoliberalist policies: SAP & WC facilitate the power of Cores’ corporate capital/MNCs

1.MNCs are Direct Foreign Investments (DFI)2.Rapid accumulation of Finance capital (Banks

and short-term foreign investments)3.Agents of Structural Violence (IMF asks the

poor to pay for educ, health, common resources, e.g., land, water)

4. Capital market liberalization & tax evasion

H. 2: Cr controls the political and economic power & superior Technology to make decisions on Peri.’s land use; In Peri., control of land shifts from the community to the market. India:

• Cr’s industrial technology (factory) produces raw materials on village land that becomes a market commodity (47)

• Rukmani loses her tenancy ( a customary right) to cultivate the land (75-76)

Hypothesis 2

Technology : Cr’s control of Peri.’s land

Factory: industrial technology

Loss of customary right to cultivate her land

Village land as market

commodity

Structural Violence (Hit-man, CIA, Jackals , Military) & TNC:

MNC makes profit/capital

from resource export

produced on TWCs’ land

SV &Military protect flows of profit for

cores’ MNCs

India:Impact of the technology – the factory - on village land and subsistence farming:

What happened to Rukmani’s land?• Colonial factory’s intrusion turns Rukmani’s land

into a commodity for sale (p. 10, 13, 47, 48)What happened to local food production?• Famine as a result of loss of arable land & common

land rights, disintegration of village loyalties and mutual reliance & support (p. 31,72)

What happened to community’s survival?Rent exacting middle-man, Loss of village networks & informal supports (p. 73, 75, 76)

Poverty inevitable due to loss of subsistence land to factory

1. Colonialism changed the ownership of all landed property in India to private hands and eliminates the communal land in villages

2. These changes released a mass of landless workers (serfs) for international labour market

3. Throughout the 19th C, the poor lost their subsistence due to loss of land.

4. Millions faced famine every two years.5. Desperate, starving, land-less Indian peasants - British

rule bankrupted the Indian economy.

DVDPolitical and economic power : SVIn TWCs, importance of SV for the core and their MNCs: Stages of SV:1. Economic hit-men2. CIA’s assassination team 3. CIA Jackals’ Direct intervention4. Military

• SV protects Cores’ flows of profit & MNCs :e.g., assassination of countries’ Presidents, CIA overthrow of govt in Iran to protect BP; direct intervention to execute of Iraq’s Qasim; assassination of Chile’s Allende for IT&T and copper MNCs; military war against Saddam H

• MNC makes profit/capital from resource for exports produced on TWCs’ land

TWCs (DVD)Impact of the SV on the poor and land-deprived:

• What happened to the land once owned by the natives and the poor? e.g.: 50 hectare of land for 1 head of cattle (Bolivia); land tax forced acquisition (Africa, L.Am, Asia); land for colonial mining; Agri MNCs appropriate land (with support of Kenya’s govt) in Kenya;

• What was the corporate interest in TWCs? Unequal trade; monopoly control over resources; profitable exports (water, minerals, agri crops)

• Why did food producing land become a commodity?Privatization of land, profit motive & export production.

DVD: Poverty a result of arable land taken over for export producing industries and SV suppression of the natives & country’s leaders who are against MNCs’ land appropriation

1. Land ownership: concentrated in the hands of the richer

classes & MNCs2. Corporations resist land distribution as it would reduce

their land that is used for export production & cut down their profit

3. United Fruit Co. in Central America & people’s demand for land reform led to overthrow of Guatemala’s govt. (1954), civil war, police repression and 200,000 civilian deaths

How do businesses of export products view the needs of the poor in a subsistence economy?

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Development/PovertyEnv.asp

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Development/PovertyEnv.asp

Rukmani’s view: Factory as power that intrudes:• Overseer ordering villagers (26)• Leather worker’s plight (26)• Land was lost to the tannery (47)• Increasing officials with power (47)• New workers brought from outside (47)• Trouble: strike for better wages (64)• Firing of workers (65)• Son killed in factory (88-89)

Owners’ and investors’ concept of factory production for the market :

• Land is more valuable as a commodity (31, 72)• Moneylender: profit from pawn shop ( 73)• Foreigners: invest capital for extracting raw

material (26-28)• Zamindar: profits from increase in land value

TWCs (DVD): Peasants’/small farmers’/tribes’ views of technology:

• MNCs take the best land • Deprives the poor of land that produces food

for subsistence • Land distribution to peasants is thwarted by

the eviction of the poor. Tribal Massai were deprived of their traditional rights to the land for grazing livestock. Now, the land belongs to the ‘powerful people’ in the govt.

Poor people’s view of their govts:• Support & protect MNCs (dictators of Chile,

Central America, the Congo, Sudan) • Arrests farmers/ peasants for taking their own

countries’ land back (Venezuela)

TWCs (DVD): Colonial theft of technology and destruction of local industries:

• The colonial Dutch destroyed the Indonesian textile & (Java) ceramics industry to eliminate competition

• The British destroyed the industry and trading of Indian textiles to build up their own industrialization. Led to famine & death - undermined the weavers social structure as they lost their livelihoods; destruction of craftsmen structures; peasant’s land tenure replaced by the British land tax

H. 3: Labour: Through ODL & NDL, Cr’s capital indebts and exploits Peri’s cheap labour to improve its capital accumulation. Unequal exchange between Cr’s capital and Peripheries’ Labour, produces profit for Core’s capital accumulation.India: • Labour on land to produce food for subsistence could not

compete with market demands for land as a commodity.• Colonial : India’s colonial labour (wages) is unequal in value to

British capital (fixed capital & profit). TWCs: • Cheap, slave or forced labour for mining (colonial La Mita

(Bolivia), worker as property (colonial Kenya’s Kipande system and plantations (e.g., today’s Brazil’s sugarcane)- the Core to accumulate corporate capital

• Corporate (NDL): Poor wages for labour, contribute to greater corporate profits - (unequal exchange bet. cap and lab = profit)

Hypothesis 3

Labour

ODL

Resource extraction

, Subsisten

ce & Poverty

Unequal exchange between capital

and labour

International

serfs/slaves

NDL

Export production &

MNCs

Unequa

l exchange in Trade

& Debt burden

Internati

onal cheap labour

India: • Labour gets poor wages (64)• Colonial : India’s colonial ‘captive’ labour (67)• Profit from export goes to British factory owners• Profit from land goes to the landlord

Rukmani’s subsistence manual labour is a way of life:

• Grows pumpkin (10, 13)• She predicts market relations (28)• Tenancy & land ownership: (31, 132)• Seed (75)• Drought & water (76)• Working the land (48)• Labour supply to Ceylon (67)

Poverty in India watch the videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCrI-KRqDnU

TWCs (DVD): • Machines of mass production deskill the

workers.• Cheap wages for surplus labour• Core’s consumers get goods at lower cost.

MNCs accumulate corporate profit/capital from cheaper cost of production

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

Crises of Capitalism Prof. David Harvey

H. 4: The Ideology of the “Whiteman’s Burden” (a blend of colonial/corporate power & religious ideology) discredits the local values to promote westernization

• Superiority of the West and disintegration of the community

• Commodification of peripheral countries’ land and resources lead to poverty & destitution.

Hypothesis 4

WMB

Missionary

Concealsraw

power

Westernization of values

Imperial superiori

ty of modernis

m

Church/the Bible

Global Comprador elite

Religion & disintegration of

societies

Superiority of

the West

What do the missionary or church think of the poor countries and people?

• Rukmani initially consider the missionary as helpful

• Church considers the poor people as backward and therefore responsible for their poverty

Why do the missionary & church not continue to help the village or the community?

• Colonial or corporate interests• Belief in Whiteman's burden• blame the poor for not being ‘modern’ like the

West

Religion conceals the exploitive power of the West’s self interest: Colonial extraction: • Market for raw materials (leather)• Import of technology (factory)• Instant urbanization (town)• Impoverishment of rural people Corporate extraction:• Monopoly in the world market (e.g., raw materials)• Capital investment in poor countries (MNCs)• SV operations justified as fight against terrorism or

socialism (against leaders who promote country’s economic interests against foreign domination

• Impoverishment of the poor (peasants & tribes)

Why do we use an ideological metaphor for understanding world problems?

White Man’s burden: Eurocentric view of the world and global economy

Missionary (Nectar …p111)The Bible and Church (DVD: Colonization

of the mind – the worst of colonial control)

What are the solutions?

• Reject the historical White Man’s Burden

• Reject the cultural superiority of the West

• Acknowledge the uniqueness of each country’s social and political culture

• Foster a development path suitable to each country (Easterly).

Conclusion: Integration of markets, technology, and labour into the world system through the ideology of the West’s superiority : • Core countries: (see, WST: PUT-NDL)

• P: Militarily strong• U: Appropriate much of the surplus of the whole

world-economy • DL: Concentrate on higher-skill, capital-intensive

production• Peripheral countries:

• P: powerlessness & poor economies• U: low trading value & cheap labour • DL: focus on low-skill, labor-intensive production

and extraction of raw materials