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The
making of global poverty
It is sometimes called the Third World, though now expressions
such as ‘the South’ or ‘the Majority World’ are felt to be more
acceptable. Equally, ‘developing countries’ is seen as more accurate
than ‘underdeveloped’. Yet whatever label is used, it cannot be denied
that much of the Earth’s population endure lives of poverty and
squalor, of undernourishment that often crosses into famine, of
insecurity and lack of opportunity. Their lives are often brutally
short, with life expectancy far below that in wealthier countries (just
37 years in Sierra Leone, for instance, against a global average of 67
years). Each year around 14 million children die in the Third World,
mostly from entirely preventable diseases. But such conditions have not
always existed, nor has there always been such a chasm between rich and
poor parts of the world. For capitalism created, or at least
exacerbated, these inequalities, by the way in which it exploited
pre-capitalist societies as it was expanding across the globe in search
of markets, raw materials and labour.
The slave trade, for instance, was perhaps the worst example —
it can only euphemistically be called a ‘trade’. Labour supplies were
needed in the new colonies, especially in the Caribbean, but the native
inhabitants were not strong or healthy enough to provide this. The
solution was to ship labour power from Africa, not as ‘voluntary’
immigrants but as slaves, captured in battle or purchased from local
rulers, transported in appalling conditions and forced to work on
plantations. British capitalism in particular benefited from the slave
trade: its products and profits helped towns like Liverpool, Manchester
and Bristol to develop industries such as shipbuilding, cotton
processing and sugar refining, for colonies were forced to send their
produce to England and forbidden to manufacture anything locally. Banks
such as Barclays and Barings were set up with profits from slavery.
‘The West Indian islands’, says Eric Williams, writing of the late
eighteenth century in Capitalism and Slavery, ‘became the hub of the
British Empire, of immense importance to the grandeur and prosperity of
England.’ And at the same time Africa was impoverished, as it was
usually the youngest and fittest who were abducted, thus depopulating
the land and leaving the old or infirm, who could not cultivate the
farms adequately. Africa’s population scarcely grew between 1650 and
1900, while Europe’s increased fourfold.
In addition, the Third World was a source of raw materials which
fed the ever-growing demands of European capitalism. Africa, for
instance, supplied groundnuts, cotton and rubber (nowadays it’s
diamonds, timber, oil and rare metals). Profits from all this were
repatriated, leading to further development in Europe rather than in
Africa. Cotton goods and soft furnishings manufactured in India were
enormously popular in seventeenth-century Europe. But the cloth
industries in India, Africa and elsewhere were deliberately destroyed,
primarily by British capitalism, both to do away with potential rivals
and to open up new markets. In one area of the Philippines, for
instance, the British vice-consul deliberately forced the replacement
of locally-produced textiles with machine-made British ones, and
encouraged production of sugar for export. All in all, Third World
industry was undermined or at least kept on a low level while western
capitalism forged ahead, partly on the basis of its colonial profits.
In 1830, China was responsible for 30 percent of world manufacturing
output, and India for 17 percent; by 1900, these shares were down to 6
percent and under 2 percent, respectively, while over the same period
Europe’s share rose from 34 percent to 63 percent.
The end of the nineteenth century saw widespread droughts and
famines, the Late Victorian Holocausts of Mike Davis’ book. Though
figures can only be estimates, perhaps fifty million died in China,
India and Brazil alone, as food was exported to the West, and local
agriculture was disrupted by a mixture of ignorance and intent. In
North Africa in the 1870s, peasants were forced to sell their livestock
cheap to French dealers in order to stave off starvation in the short
term. In other cases new taxes that had to be paid in money were
introduced, forcing peasants to become wage-labourers. While the
British rulers of India were lavishly celebrating Victoria’s sixty
years as queen in 1897, wheat was being exported to Britain or left to
rot in railway sidings, and poorhouses were being set up to further
punish the destitute. (The Socialist Party’s predecessor organisation,
the Social Democratic Federation, was the only grouping that
consistently protested against the suffering being inflicted on India’s
peasants.)
One of the most notorious events of the Western creation of the
Third World was the Scramble for Africa (which can be roughly dated
1876-1912). This took place partly for strategic reasons: Britain
needed to control both the Cape of Good Hope and the Suez Canal in
order to ensure access to its Indian Empire. In addition, tropical
produce was being exported to Europe, and there were many raw materials
available cheaply — Germany needed access to cotton, oil, cocoa and
rubber, for instance. Revenue could be boosted by taking over the tax
and rental income of local ‘chiefs’, and forced labour could only
increase profits. King Leopold of Belgium’s exploitation of the Congo,
supposedly carried out to do away with the remnants of slavery, was the
most extreme example. Edmond Morel, the journalist who exposed the
extent of Leopold’s scheming, described what was happening as ‘a secret
society of murderers with a King for a croniman’. African rulers often
gave their lands away in return for old rifles and strings of beads, or
unknowingly signed a treaty in English or French that contained
different provisions from that in the local language. Lord Salisbury,
British Prime Minister during much of the Scramble, prided himself that
Africa had been carved up with no European power firing a shot against
another (and African troops employed by Europeans did much of the
actual fighting against other Africans). Salisbury’s policies served
the British ruling class well:
‘He had certainly made sure that the
lion’s share of new colonies and protectorates — fifteen out of thirty
— went to Britain. If his preoccupation had always been to give Britain
the strategic advantage, it was fortunate for Britain that he also gave
it most of Africa’s most profitable territory: the gold-mines of the
Transvaal, the teeming markets of the Niger, the tea and coffee of
Uganda, the cotton of Egypt and the Sudan.’ (Thomas Pakenham: The
Scramble for Africa)
Thus British capitalism benefited at the same time as Africa was
impoverished.
All in all, it cannot be argued that underdevelopment is due to Third
World countries not (yet) enjoying the benefits of capitalism, that
they have missed out on development by missing out on capitalism. The
truth is that their current condition is a result of the role they
played in the development of capitalism. Africa and many parts of Asia
and South America, were colonised, formally or informally, for the sake
of the European powers, whose ruling classes grew rich on the profits
of this exploitation, in addition to the surplus value they extracted
from workers ‘at home’.
Paul Bennett
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