Western Stage Theories of Development - Essay Example

College: Midterm Paper Western stage theories of development These are the theories of development that reveal the development of other nations of the world as a reflection of the western nations and more particularly the European nations. Such theories were developed in 1950s and 1960 after the Second World War. This is the time Europe had regained its confidence from the war and had gained momentum towards economic growth and development after long colonization of the non-Europe states. The end of the war now marked the new era economic growth and development what has been referred to as by different scholars as western ‘development thinking’ (Knutsson 8). Different European leaders through economist and philosophers further reinvented the western ‘development thinking’ by adequately developing concepts of developed, developing and non developed nations of the world as well as First World, Second World and Third Nations. By doing so they developed adequate theories that revealed the progress of economic development of nations of the world. This was further influenced by other prevailing political and economical factors of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries ((Knutsson 8-9). There rose new world’s superpowers; the USA and Russian Soviet Union which readily divided the world into two separate economic systems and also enhanced political influence whereby each of the superpowers was seeking followers to strengthen their political ideologies. Nevertheless, after even facing competition from the Soviet Union, America embarked in reconstruction of Europe with elimination of poverty and decrease in security threats in the front line as the major enemies towards economic development on one side and industrialization as the biggest contributor of economic growth and development on the other. Throughout the 19th century, Europe had made quite bold steps in both economic growth and development and other nations of the world were left to catch up with their pace. According to the different models by the different scholars revealed that the European nations were now amongst the developed nations of the world. The nations of Europe had come up with international organizations such as the World Bank that would aid in grants to different states of the world to facilitate economic development. It is from these development phases witnessed in Europe during 18th and 19th centuries that different scholars came up with the different stages of classifying nations of the world hence the evolution of the western stage theories of development. Western theories of notions of Unilinear progress These are theories developed in 19th century by different scholars explaining how different societies and cultures of the world evolved. According to western unilinear theories, western culture forms the center stage to the different societal and cultural evolutions and changes witnessed in different nations around the world. Before the 18th century, fore founders of the unilinear theories of progress believed that all other societies of the world were on the verge crumbling giving room for western culture to slowly grow and expand to different parts of the world through colonialism. During colonialism, Europeans were able to make use of their new ideas and knowledge to other people from non-Europe states thus being able to dominate them and adequately colonizing them. The colonized persons had undergone limited evolution as compared to the colonizers who had adequately evolved. Following the industrial revolution and rise of political ideological blocks such as capitalism later in the 18thcentury, more influence was piled on the improvement of how different societies of the world were organized. During the 19th century, more theories of evolution including the famous social evolution theory were developed by major scholars of the world and revealed that the fact that humanity was literally under social evolution progress and that the past experiences by the different societies adequately influenced both the future and present occurrences. Limitations of intellectual and practical limitations of western stage theories of development and of ideas of unilinear progress Both the Western stage theories of development and the theories of unilinear progress had several limitations that generally revolve around issues of capitalist ideology and portrayal of the western culture as the most important over the other cultures of the world. Capitalism ideology and western stage theories of development All western stage theories of development literally advocate for capitalism. Apart from the advantages of a capitalist economy different scholar of the world have today come out to outline various disadvantages of a capitalist economy ranging from dangers of free labor in a market, issues of revolution and democracy to major concerns of societies with no class. In fact factors such as free labor in the market typically influence the exploitation of the labor force in the market. These are the incidences that would later become experimental and problematic in America in the 19th century with certain organizations like the railway corporation taking advantage of such situations to underpay its workers. This triggered several strikes that led to loss of lives and destruction of properties. Different labor movements would later be formed by different individuals to force the government intervene. Different scholars have also argued that is not a must that for capitalism to exist different nations have to undergo revolution; it can be achieved through social democracy that would just require change of structural power. The western stage theories of development adequately called for revolution of the different states of the world for these states to be at par with their western counterparts. Unilinear evolution theories and western civilization Every society of the world has its own culture. Every culture has its own beliefs, traditions, customs and norms that are dear to the members of the society. Western theories of unilinear evolution have quite a number of shortcomings. First, these theories highly value the western culture and western civilization to an extent that other cultures of the world cease to be important. Second, unilinear theories make an assumption that all other cultures are similar in terms of the evolution progress they make which is literally not possible since different cultures have different social norms, traditions and even beliefs abiding different members of the society and eradication of such norms depends on how strongly they are valued by the independent members of the society. Third, the issue of civilization is equated to the presence of material things such as towns, big cities and technological presence. One does not require material things to be civilized since civilization can also be viewed as that aspect of embracing solidarity and democracy amongst different members of a society. Viewing civilization in terms of peace, equability distribution of resources among the members of the different societies will make the so called primitive societies to become the most civilized. This further has put a lot of contradictions on the western theories of unilinear evolution since some scholars have even revealed evidences concerning primitive societies of the world which are more democratic and equitable than even the current modern societies. The World Bank and Lesotho lack of development saga According to Ferguson & Lohmann (176), the World Bank through a report put across several key elements that contributed and continued to contribute to the lack of development of the country of Lesotho. Amongst them is the fact that Lesotho continued to be untouched by economic development and therefore still remained a traditional society that has hardly made any economic progress. The population of Lesotho continued to increase despite the shortage of lands to produce food to cater for the growing populations. The able population had in turn ran away to the neighboring country; South Africa to seek employment. Lastly, there were no infrastructural developments ever since independence. The western unilinear theories of progress adequately informed the World Bank’s report of Lesotho’s lack of development in that according to the western unilinear theories Lesotho still shows no symptoms of societal evolution progress. The Lesotho people were still farmers seeking to feed the growing population from food they grow in their farms instead of seeking better means of catering for the societal growth in population. After years of independence there was still no traces of civilization; adequate roads, railways, airports or even big towns and cities that is why much of its working population had ran to South Africa to seek employment for South Africa was more civilized. Also the country continued to show no signs of technological development hence the reason why the country’s infrastructure has not grown since independence its independence. This society therefore continued to be more marginalized and less-evolved to the eyes of the world. Work Cited Ferguson, James & Lohmann, Larry. The Anti-Politics Machine “Development” and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. The Ecologist, 24.5(1994): 176-181. Knutsson, Beniamin. The Intellectual History of Development towards a Widening Potential Repertoire, Perspectives, 13(2009): 1-47 Read More