Abstract
In the introduction I said that I would be reviewing what has been happening to the Third World in world development:
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(a)
at the level of economic realities;
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(b)
at the level of international political responses; and
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(c)
at the level of theoretical appraisals.
The period under study is the 1970s, that is, the Second United Nations Development Decade.
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Notes and References
On the history of the non-aligned movement, see P. Willets, The Non-Aligned Movement: the Origins of a Third World Alliance (London: Frances Pinter, 1978).
More especially in relation to the New International Economic Order, see Odette Jankowitsch and Karl Sauvant, ‘The Evolution of the UN-aligned Movement as a Pressure Group for a New International Economic Order’, a contribution to the 26th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Toronto, February 1976, mimeo, UN Centre on Transnational Enterprises.
R. Prebisch, Towards a New Trade Policy for Development, vol. II of Proceedings of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Geneva: UNCTAD, 1964).
A seminal version of this paper had appeared as an ECLA Document in 1950, and was mainly concerned with Latin America: R. Prebisch, The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems (New York: Economic Commission for Latin America, 1950).
For a full discussion of Prebisch’s theory and UNCTAD’s perspective, see A. S. Friedberg, The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 1964; the Theory of the Peripheral Economy at the Centre of International Political Discussion (Rotterdam University Press, 1969). Prebisch’s thesis was based on the ‘deterioration of the terms of trade argument’. Recent years have seen mounting attacks on this supposition: cf. I. M. D. Little, ‘Economic Relations with the Third World — Old Myths and New Prospects’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, November 1975, pp. 223–5; and J. Spraos, ‘The Statistical Debate on the Net Barter Terms of Trade between Primary Commodities and Manufactures’, Economic Journal, no. 90, March 1980, pp. 107–27.
Cf. Kees den Boer, ‘The EEC Generalised System of Preferences: With Special Reference to Latin America’, Development and Change, vol. VI, no. 4, October 1975, pp. 63–73. Den Boer comes to the conclusion that on the whole no more than 3.9–4.3 per cent of Third World exports to the EEC were given preference under the scheme.
Also useful here is the argument developed by Kuhn Pederson in Kirsten Worm et al. (eds), Industrialisation and Development in the Context of Demands for a New International Economic Order (Copenhagen: Samfunds Videnskare Ugt Forlag, 1978) pp. 41–80. See also G. Helleiner, ‘Manufactured Exports from Less Developed Countries and Multinational Firms’, Economic Journal, March 1973, p. 32, where he suggests that the tariffs and trade barriers of the industrial countries are not neutral in their impact upon various types of industrial exports which less developed countries seek to expand. While the UNCTAD sponsored generalised system of preferences and the European Association schemes may partially mitigate the existing structure of industrially effective protection, there is every reason to expect that success with manufactured exports of the ‘traditional’ final product type — textiles, leather goods, toys, shoes, etc. — will in the future, as in the past, be met with tariff increases, quotas and retaliation. While expansion of these types of manufactured exports will face ‘traditional’ barriers to markets, the export of labour-intensive components and processes (or even, in some instances, final product lines) within internationally integrated industries is likely to be ‘relatively easy’.
Finally, for a balanced assessment see Kathryn Morton and Peter Tulloch, Trade and Developing Countries (London: Croom Helm-Overseas Development Institute, 1977) pp. 169–75.
The Under-Secretary of the UN Commission for Economic and Social Affairs (ECOSOC), Phillipe de Seynes, in his address to UNCTAD III signalled the phenomenal spread of multinationals since the Second World War, and argued that ‘it would be unreasonable to continue to ignore a serious gap in the system of international institutions, namely the lack of any arrangement for the supervision … of the activities of multinational corporations’. (It is significant to observe that this important Third World demand was first publicly formulated by a UN official.) Quoted in Orlando Letelier and Michael Moffit, The International Economic Order, Part II (Amsterdam: Transnational Institute, 1978) p. 22.
This interpretation on the convergence between UNCTAD and the non-aligned movement owes much to Karl P. Sauvant’s excellent ‘Introduction’ to K. P. Sauvant and H. Hasenpflug, The New International Economic Order (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1979). The interpretation is, however, a fairly common one to make. See also Letelier and Moffit, The International Economic Order, and Kirsten Worm’s ‘Introduction’ to Worm et al. (eds), Industrialisation and Development in the Context of Demands for a New International Economic Order.
Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, UN Resolution 3281(XXIX), 12 December 1974. The text of the Charter is reprinted in full in R. Meagher, An International Redistribution of Wealth and Power: a Study of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979). Meagher’s study has been an invaluable guide to the present chapter.
This summary of the integrated community programme (ICP) is taken from H. Hasenpflug, ‘Developing Countries in World Trade’, in Sauvant and Hasenpflug, The New International Economic Order. The ICP has stimulated a vast amount of literature. For general discussion, see UNCTAD, Problems of Raw Materials and Development, TD/B/488 (New York: United Nations, 1974)
UNCTAD, An Integrated Programme for Commodities, Report by the Secretary General of UNCTAD, TD/B/488 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 1974)
J. R. Behrman, International Commodity Agreements (Washington: Overseas Development Council, 1977)
Geoffrey Goodwin, ‘The UNCTAD Common Fund’, The World Today, vol. XI, 1977, pp. 425–32. As it happens, views from the ‘right’ and from the ‘extreme left’ are often both cautious and even negative. Right-wing arguments usually revolve around the undesirability of bureaucratic intervention in the free market, which after all remains, so it is believed, the best allocator of goods and services. It is also argued that such bureaucratic intervention might distract attention from the developing countries’ own development responsibility.
For a fair representation of such views see the collection of papers edited by J. Bhagwati, The New International Economic Order: the North-South Debate (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977). For a left-wing, negative, view, see Johan Galtung, ‘Poor Countries versus Rich: Poor People versus Rich. Whom Will the NIEO Benefit?’, mimeo., Vienna Institute for Development, 1977. His view is that the NIEO (and the commodity programme in particular) will benefit the ruling classes in Third World countries, and will moreover divide the Third World deeply into those countries which can benefit most from increased integration into the world capitalist system (at the expense of their own marginalised masses) and those which cannot. Sympathy for the NIEO demands, and the ICP in particular, comes mainly from progressive liberals in the West (see Chapter 4) who believe that the ICP is the right tool to achieve some form of international redistribution of wealth which will in turn stimulate the capitalist world economy (some of the contributions in Bhagwati, The New International Economic Order, reflect this position; cf. Paul Streeten’s article).
See also R. H. Green and H. W. Singer, ‘Toward a Rational and Equitable New International Economic Order’, World Development, vol. 3, no. 6, June 1975, pp. 427–44; and D. Avromovic, ‘Common Fund, Why and of What Kind?’, Journal of World Trade Law, vol. 12, no. 5, September–October 1978.
UNIDO, Lima Declaration and Plan of Action on Industrial Development and Cooperation, Resolution adopted at the Second General Conference of UNIDO, Lima, Peru, March 1975.
The Lima Declaration contains detailed proposals as regards recommended measures for industrialisation of the developing countries within the framework of the NIEO. The 25 per cent target formulated is reckoned by Singer to be attainable by the year 2000: cf. H. Singer, ‘Reflections on the Lima (25%) Target’, Conference Proceedings, Anniversary Conference of the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 1977.
In this context see also the contribution by W. Bandstecher in William G. Tyler (ed.), Issues and Prospects for the New International Economic Order (Lexington, Mass: Heath & Co., 1977).
On the so-called ‘adjustment policies’ see Helen Hughes, Prospects for Partnership, a World Bank seminar report (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).
For a brief and clear exposition of the IMF and how it works, see a cover story of the new Third World magazine, South, no. 2, November 1980, from which the figures presented in this section have been taken. Cheryl Payer, The Debt Trap (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974) is a good study of how the IMF’s conditionality time and again thwarts progressive self-reliance policies of Third World countries.
These figures are taken from Jyon Shankar Singh, A New International Economic Order (New York: Praeger, 1977).
G. Corea, ‘UNCTAD and the New International Economic Order’, International Affairs, vol. 53, no. 2, 1977, pp. 177–87, this on p. 184.
This contradiction is the major focus of Fishlow’s collection of essays on the NIEO: cf. A. Fishlow et al., Rich and Poor Nations in the World Economy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978).
Cf. Harry Magdoff, ‘The Limits of International Reform’, Monthly Review, vol. 30, no. 1, May 1978, pp. 1–11. Magdoff asks if self-reliant development in the Third World is at all possible if these countries remain enmeshed in the imperialist network and in the basic dependency relationship with the advanced world.
It is worth comparing this Marxist critique with that of arch-conservative P. T. Bauer, ‘Western Guilt and Third World Poverty’, Commentary, 59, January 1976, pp. 31–8.
Helge Hveem, ‘The Politics of the New International Economic Order’, Bulletin of Peace Proposals, vol. 7, 1976, pp. 3–6, this quote on p. 3.
This particular topic has probably stimulated more research and academic debate than any other in the NIEO era. I have here quoted the very influential views of the Trilateral Commission, as expressed in one of its Task Force Reports, no. 10, p. 66. See Trilateral Commission, Task Force Reports, nos 9–14 (New York University Press, 1978).
But see also Benson Varon and Keji Tachauchi, ‘Developing Countries and Non-Fuel Minerals’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 52, no. 3, April 1974, pp. 497–510. Varon and Tachauchi see very limited scope for OPEC-type cartelisations by other developing countries, as does Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Oil is the Exception’, Foreign Policy, no. 14. 1972–3. A counter-position has been taken by Fred C. Bergsten, ‘The Threat from the Third World’, Foreign Policy, no. 11, 1971–2, and again in his reply to Krasner in ‘The Response to the Third World’, Foreign Policy, no. 17, 1974–5, pp. 3–34.
Michael Tanzer, in his recent book The Race for Resources (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980), sees the prospects for an effective OPEC type of collective action as very limited for almost all minerals except copper (cf. his p. 229).
Gwin, ‘The Seventh Special Session’, p. 111. On this topic see also Theodore Moran, ‘Transnational Strategies of Protection and Defense by Multinational Corporations: Spreading the Risk and Raising the Cost for Nationalization in Natural Resources’, International Organization, vol. 27, 1973, pp. 273–88. Moran suggests that in the absence of military options to counter risks of nationalisation, MNCs have taken to lining up ‘transnational alliances’ to defend their positions.
Cf. Jeff Frieden, ‘The Trilateral Commission: Economics and Politics in the 1970s’, Monthly Review, vol. 29, no. 7, December 1977, pp. 1–18.
Not much is known about the actual process of social interaction and opinion-making that goes on inside these international organisations. It is indeed a much neglected area of social study. However, there is one interesting study which examines the process of opinion formation inside UNCTAD’s Secretariat: Robert L. Rothstein, Global Bargaining (Princeton University Press, 1979).
See also Thomas George Weiss, International Bureaucracy: an Analysis of the Operation of Functional and Global International Secretariats (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1975).
The most influential and internationally reputable of these are: Samir Amin, who is a prolific Marxist writer, and Director of UNDP in Dakar; Gamani Corea, Secretary-General of UNCTAD; and Mahbub Ul Haq, who holds a key position in the World Bank and has written various books and articles on economic development from a progressive liberal perspective. Further, on the overlap of membership of radical Third World writers and the permanent staff of international organisations, see R. W. Cox, ‘On Ideologies and the NIEO’, International Organization, vol. 33, no. 2, Spring 1979, pp. 257–302, esp. p. 262.
For the successfully industrialising Third World countries, exports of manufactures grew by 14 per cent between 1965 and 1972; and they increased their share of total trade in manufactures by 50 per cent in this period. Cf. A Singh, ‘The Basic Needs Approach to Development versus the New International Economic Order: the Significance of Third World Industrialisation’, World Development, vol. 7, 1979, pp. 585–606, esp. p. 587.
In this same context it is worth noting that while between 1954 and 1964 imports into developing countries of capital goods from the advanced countries had risen faster than any other imports, namely by an average rate of 9 per cent, this growth of capital imports had begun to decline after 1965, possibly a sign that the benefits for the advanced world of Third World industrialisation had come to an end: cf. table 9 in Paul Bairoch, ‘Trends in 1960–67 and Short-term Perspectives of Third World Economy’, in Colin Legum (ed.), The First UN Development Decade and the Lessons for the 1970s (New York: Praeger, 1970) ch. 2.
N. Hicks and P. Streeten, ‘Indicators of Development: the Search for a Basic Needs Yardstick’, World Development, vol. 7, 1979, pp. 567–80 (quote on p. 568).
Paul Streeten and S. J. Burki, ‘Basic Needs: Some Issues’, World Development, vol. 6, 1978, pp. 411–21 (quote on p. 412).
The seven characteristics listed in the text are largely culled from Dharam Gai, ‘What the Basic Needs Approach to Development is All About’, paper presented at the Kenya National Seminar on Employment and Basic Needs, May 1977. For a discussion of the pros and cons of basic needs strategies in relation to economic development, see R. H. Green, ‘Basic Human Needs: Concept or Slogan, Synthesis or Smoke-Screen?’, IDS Bulletin, June 1978; and Dharam Gai, ‘Basic Needs and its Critics’, IDS Bulletin, June 1978. Furthermore, the IMF/World Bank monthly entitled Finance and Development has produced numerous articles on basic needs: cf. the issues of September 1979, December 1979, March 1980 and June 1980. This serves as an indication of these institutions’ great interest in this particular development strategy. The most prolific World Bank scribe on the basic needs approach is Paul Streeten, who has written many articles in World Development and other journals on the subject.
He has also written a book: Paul Streeten, Basic Needs (Washington: IBRD, 1977).
Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, ‘Investment in the Poor, a Critical Analysis of the New World Bank Policy’, Bieleveld, Department of Sociology, unpublished manuscript, 1979.
Her interpretation of the concept of ‘marginalisation’ as both a consequence of and functional to capitalism goes back to Quijano’s original definition of the concept: cf. A. Quijano, ‘Pole marginal de l’économie et main d’oevre marginalisée’, in A. Abdel-Malek (ed.), Sociologie de l’impérialisme (Paris: Anthropos, 1971).
These data are from South Magazine, no. 1, October 1980, p. 41, where Frances Moorelappe, Joseph Collins and David Kinley, Aid as Obstacle (New York: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1980) is quoted.
Cf. A. v. d. Laar, ‘The World Bank and the Poor’, thesis (Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 1979) pp. 130–1. This writer, too, comes to the conclusion that ‘a major concentration of effort and funds on the poorer countries would seem to call for a more drastic curtailment of countries that are eligible for bank lending in the future’ (p. 127).
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© 1982 Ankie M. M. Hoogvelt
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Hoogvelt, A.M.M. (1982). Political Responses: The Rise and Fall of Third World Solidarity. In: The Third World in Global Development. The Sociology of Developing Societies. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16777-7_3
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