Modernisation and Radical Approach to Development

Marxism is an important theoretical idea, which has shaped the way we perceive the economic world. Although the idea arose in the mid-nineteenth century, it has provided an everlasting theoretical lens for critiquing contemporary economic practice. Marxism has provoked a diverse body of academics and theoreticians to contribute to the discussion, as well as use its structure to study modern day manufacturing, most commonly seen in China.

Marxists believe that the most deprived people shouldn’t have a good education and the least deprived people need more of an education so they can get into the better jobs. Least deprived people have more money and more control, Marxists are for this and would rather

Development and underdevelopment are linked and “condition each other mutually” resulting in a divided world that consists of industrial “central” countries and underdeveloped “peripheral” countries (Valenzuela and Valenzuela, 1978, p.544), with the periphery often being constrained by its role in the global capitalist system (Valenzuela and Valenzuela, 1978, p.544).

Before I introduce these concepts it is important I introduce as to where these two theories developed from. In the late nineteenth century, two German philosophers, by the name Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who developed and laid out the foundations and methodology Marxism. According to Ted Trainer, “Marx gave us a theory of society, i.e , an explanation of how society works, of how and why history has unfolded, and especially an account of the nature of capitalism. These are of great value for the task of describing what is going on in the world and for understanding the problems and directions of our society today (Trainer 2010).” Marxism is a method that is known worldwide; it is a method in which focuses on class relations and conflict within society to suppress the individuals at the lower end of the economic ladder. This methodology uses economic and the politics within society to decipher and explore the development of capitalism and the role class plays’ in the economic system. According to their analysis, conflict within the

The Marxist theory in general splits society in half, the rich and the poor. With the poor being exploited by

Marxist sociologists see society as being organised and structured so that some groups do better than others. This means that some people have control and the power to decide what others should do and a society organised in this way automatically involves disagreement and conflict. For example, workers are paid a wage but it is way below the value of the goods they produce as the capitalist class ‘creams off’ the rest of the money in the form of profits. Capitalist are seen to be exploiting their

The lifeblood of these regimes is the dissatisfied citizens, the unimpressed masses who desire revolution and freedom from poverty, which is propogated to have risen out of Capitalist involvement in the Americas. Capitalist economies, on the other hand, believe that it has nothing to do with their involvement and instead sees these stages of development as natural, something that every economy will go through, if they have not already. Despite the appeal, it is untrue to say that every developed nation has gone through stages of development that todays underdeveloped nations are going through. As Andre Gunder Frank puts it “the now developed countries were never underdeveloped, though they may have been undeveloped” (104). This goes to show that the playing field was not even for all, and that today's developing nations had a headstart in developing.

The two theories which shall be compared are the modernisation theory and Neo Liberalism. The modernisation theory is a market oriented development theory which states that low income countries can develop economically if they give up their traditional ways which often can be dated back centuries and take on more modern economic principles, technologies and cultural values which comprise of an emphasis on productive investment and savings.

The Marxist's perspective is dominantly based on economic factors and over emphasizes them; money is assumed to be everything within society and social life. In my view, something is clearly missing here such as values and other social factors. Assuming that money is everything within society leads to assumptions that those owning the productive and therefore economic resources are given the power and use it to control those without to maintain their hegemony. Further factors that can form and shape society like gender, ethnicity, age, culture etc. are not taken into consideration and neglected. Hence the Marxist perspective focuses on having versus not having, earning versus not earning and powerful versus powerless.

Marxists are concerned with the distribution of economic power and wealth. They believe that society is in conflict between two classes. Those classes are the Bourgeoisie; who own the means of production, i.e. land and the Proletariat; who sell labour to these owners for wages. The Proletariat are being

For this reason, this work aims to determine that Marxist critique of capitalism is still pertinent to the understanding and analysis of the modern international system. The founding of Marxist core ideas in the mid 19th century is a general critique towards worldwide capitalist economic practices, and attributes to it the reproduction of injustice as well as social inequality in societies. The modern international system is still governed by the same dominant capitalist economic practices, which reproduce similar exploitative conditions as it did when Marxist critiques emerged. Hence, the employment of Marxist critiques of capitalism is still applicable for the evaluation of the modern international system.

Imperialism as a driving force behind the structures of capitalism and consumerism has stood as an extremely powerful tool taken on by many influential economic world powers. The occidentalist concept of importing goods for consumption from less developed peripheral nations, in recent history, has become a concept with heavy influence. This idea of creating a production dichotomy has become foundational to the modern and increasingly connected world and its means of efficient production by trade; unfortunately, this often results in imperialistic oppression to exacerbate this neoliberal concept’s effects of efficiency and productivity. To have maximum possible efficiency output, workers in developing nations under capitalist forces are

Most of the developing countries are mired deeply in economical obstacles, which prevent them from development significantly. In order to overcome those embarrassments world’s society struggles to find the efficient solution for poor countries’ economies. Historically, developed countries undertook policy of giving aid to their colonies, afterwards by the end of The Second World War the United States and United Nations embarked the global sponsorship to the developing countries and countries of the Third World due to humanitarian considerations. Since then many other countries have joined in the effort to provide financial aid to lesser developed or poverty ridden countries. But none of those countries that received an aid had experienced a prosperity phase and rapid economic growth.

Development is defined as “the process of change operating over time- the process by which countries and societies advance and become richer’’. The modern 20th century defines development as” the process of change which allows all the basic needs of a region to be met, thereby achieving greater social justice and quality of life and encouraging people to fulfill their potential’’. Todaro defines development as “the process of improving the quality of all human lives through raising people’s living standards, their incomes, consumption levels of food, medical services, education, raising people’s self-esteem through the establishment of social, political and economic systems and institutions that promote dignity and respect and increasing people’s

Lack of development in countries in the so-called `Third World' has many political and economical reasons. Historians explain the inadequacy of developing countries with the early imperialism and the resulting colonization of the South. Exploitation of mineral resources, deforestation, slavery, and the adaptation of foreign policies shaped the picture of today's suffering and struggling civilizations and natural rich continents. The omission of concessions and equal negotiations between dependency and supremacy give rise to the contrast of enormous resources and immense poverty in developing countries is. In the last years the outcry of justice and the emancipation of the Third World became louder throughout developing and industrialized