History Matters II: The Origins of Development Underdevelopment & the Global Gap

History Matters II:The Origins of Development

Underdevelopment &

the Global GapPOL2 204Fall 2011

The Global

TraditionalUndevelopedPre-Industrial

Developed

Underdeveloped

Develop

me

nt

Underdeve lopment

State1 Process State2

The Great Divergence

The Global Gap

Industrial RevolutionColonialismDecolonization

The Three Main Historical “Paths” in the Processes of Development & UnderdevelopmentNote: Years are approximate beginning and ending points

Prof. William A. Joseph / Wellesley College

The Industrial Revolution

Gregory Clark, A Farewell To Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (2007)

c. 1770

"The Day the World Took Off, Part 2. Wheeling and Dealing"

Angus Maddison, "The Contours of World Development," ch. 1 in The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (2001).

THE GREAT DIVERGENCE

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/World_GDP_Capita_1-2003_A.D.png

Zheng He 郑和 (1371-1434)

Zheng He 郑和 (1371-1435)

*Adapted from http://law.jrank.org/pages/9534/Proximate-Cause.html#ixzz0TM7O00Vb

**law.jrank.org/pages/7483/Immediate-Cause.html

Three levels of causation

immediate cause**The final act in a series of provocations leading to a particular result

or event, directly producing such result without the intervention of any further provocation.

proximate cause*An act from which [an outcome] results as a . . . direct,

uninterrupted consequence and without which [it would] not have occurred. . .It is not necessarily the closest cause in time or space nor the first event that sets in motion a sequence of events leading to an outcome.

ultimate causeThe most fundamental explanation for an outcome; the deepest

root of what is being explained; the true origins of something.

ULTIMATE CAUSE

PROXIMATE CAUSES

IMMEDIATE CAUSES

THE GLOBAL GAP

SUSTAINING FACTORS e.g. governance; culture;

global economy & institutionsThe Global Gap

IMMEDIATE FACTORS

From Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, 87.

Colonialism, Industrial Revolution