The Colonial Division of Labor’s Function in Development Projects
The concept of development was introduced during the colonial era. European countries began to colonize ‘non-European’ countries. According to Philip McMichael, colonialism is “the subjugation of one culture through physical and psychological tactics by another- a colonizing power- with armed forces conquest of territory as well as stereotyping the relationship in between both cultures.” The colonial division of labor was significant in the colonial era since it led to the rearrangement of the globe as a whole.
European nations conquered countries with vast riches, such as China, India, and Africa. They proposed the concept of specialization in order to obtain these resources. Their colonies concentrated in the extraction and manufacture of rare raw materials and resources in Europe. These resources were used by European countries to become industrialized.
As a result, their economy thrived. Colonial division of labor was critical in shaping the development project’s referral terms and establishing the hegemonic relationship. The Europeans initially considered the notion of development and colonized numerous other nations in order for them to industrialize and achieve economic prosperity.
Considered consequently, colonial powers categorized themselves as established countries and their colonies as underdeveloped, assuming that the ‘underdeveloped’ states were trapped in oppressive cultural practices. Because a developed economy was significantly superior to an underdeveloped one, this diction and terminology (developed and underdeveloped) formed the dominant relationship.
Colonized economies do not just use names/labels to define the economy, but also group the countries into such notions, resulting in the partition of the world’s nations. The Colonial powers/European nations were powerful, while the “developed ones and their colonies/non-European nations” became powerless and underdeveloped. Such dominance established a power system once more. The colonial division of labor strengthened the hegemonic link between colonizers and their colonies since conquerors conquered impoverished nations by benefitting from their natural riches. They pushed their colonies to focus on manufacturing raw resources, which was only beneficial to the colonial powers’ economies.
In numerous instances, colonization began through trade connections formed between trading companies. The East India Company, for example, travelled to India to trade spices and cotton. In the future, governments took over the nation because they were effective in leveraging their colonies’ cheap labor, non-existent labor rules, and simple conversion of the colonies’ agricultural-based economy to a producing-based economy, preferring the expansion of the Colonial powers.Colonizers made such systemic changes that host countries had no choice but to join. Decca, a small city in India, for example, was described as “vast, populated as well as rice as the city of London” (34, McMichael).
However, as the division of labor drained their resources, the population fell from 150,000 to 30,000 owing to malaria. According to the book, Decca became an impoverished town as local farming cultures lost their land to commercial agriculture, which was just for European customers and industries. Finally, the job of development itself contributes to the construction of a hierarchy between colonists and colonies. Truman proposed a powerful new program for making the benefits of our scientific advancements and industrial progress available for the development and growth of underdeveloped areas.
He presented the concept of help rather than promoting the concept of achieving economic progress jointly, demonstrating that he was not sincere. He was focused with establishing trade ties with resource-rich nations. The fact that a nation provides aid to another nation puts the country in an advantageous position (since the nation providing the aid has more power, money, and technology) than the nation receiving the aid, as they rely on the nation’s assistance to develop.
This monetary exchange developed a hierarchy, as is the concept of dominant over weak. Finally, the colonial division of labor and the development project established this power structure between colonizers and colonies because “development historically relied on the unequal connections of colonialism, which included an unequal division of labor as well as unequal ecological exchanges-both of which created a legacy of “underdevelopment” in the colonial and postcolonial worlds” (McMicheal, 38).I
n the long term, colonization benefited India since the British introduced technology such as railways (India has the fifth largest and most interconnected railway system in the world) and telegraph. G8 states are UN countries (first globe). Members of the Security Council now have “veto powers” that other member countries do not, which is an example of colonial legacy.
Originally published on Sociologygroup.com. Read the original article.
