International Economics: European Historical Perspective - Essay Example

The question posited asks how much the destinations of emigrants from Europe during the period 1870-1914 reflected the export of capital during that same period from Europe. Without appearing biased in any particular direction the answer is simple - European emigrants did attract capital from their mother countries wherever they went, whether it was the New World countries like South, Central and North America, African countries or countries in Asia but this capital was primarily utilized to develop facilities that only furthered the interests of the mother country from which the emigrant had originated.

This was with the possible exception of countries in the North Americas like the USA and Canada and other destination countries like Australia, New Zealand and possibly South Africa. These countries are exceptional in the sense that they were all predominantly white in population and both labour and ownership were white. In other underdeveloped countries where the labour was predominantly native and the ownership was in the hands of the new immigrants from Europe there was a sense of instability of stay among the owners who were much more attached to their mother countries than those who were settled in the white predominated countries.

Consequently, whatever capital was exported to native population predominated countries was ultimately utilized primarily to further the interests of the mother country in Europe. This is without denying that much of the legislative, academic and other infrastructure of these countries are ultimately based upon capital deployment from Europe. Nevertheless, it must be noted that this initial investment i8n infrastructure was primarily utilized again to rule the colony so that it could be made to better serve the interests of the mother country.

Thus, whatever capital followed the emigrants was returned many times over to Europe, usually within a very short time span. This answers the next question. The 2nd Question The 2nd question asks how theories of 'underdevelopment' and 'dependency' relate with the uneven distribution of wealth and income in the last half of the 20th century. The answer automatically construes from the 1st one. The net flight of capital from the colonies to the European countries ensured that these latter gathered much economic strength at the expense of their former colonies.

This excess of capital enabled them to go from strength to strength till they were so powerful that not even after independence their former colonies could not escape out of their ambit of power. Strings remained tied. The former colonies continued to depend upon their former master states for much of their economic activities - whether in the form of supply of capital and technology or in the form of demand for