Elmo Recio

30 April 2000

Sociology 330: Problems and Policies of Developing Countries

Exam #1

Set A; Question 2

2.Discuss the concept of dualism as it relates to development. Define the concepts and give examples of the areas in which dualism is observed in development.

The concept of dualism in developing nations is not foreign. Most, if not all, so called third world countries are in the midst of a dualistic battle visible in all sectors of society, from social, to political to economic. Let's take a look at the three aspects of dualism as visible in various developing nations.

Urban primacy is an example which is visible in many developing nations. You have a majority of the country's population in urban centres. While the rural portions of the country remain severely underpopulated. This results in over-urbanisation, there not being enough jobs for the rural to urban migrates, and since these people cannot find jobs, an unofficial sector of the economy emerges, along with shanty towns on the periphery. The dualism exists in population of rural dwellers being too low, and the population of urban dwellers being too high.

Economic exploitation in the OPEC countries is another example. While the GNP skyrockets the quality of life in these countries is rather stagnant. This is because the elite few (in for example, Nigeria) reap the rewards of booming oil prices. While the populous of these countries remain relatively poor. The dualism, in this case, exist in the uneven distribution of wealth.

Political exploitation in countries like South Africa is another example of dualism. The white minority had a strangle hold on the country's power. In fact, until just recently, the indigenous (or native) people of the country had no say in the political matters. The dualism, here, exist in the uneven distribution of power, where the elite few control most (or all) of the political scene.

Set B; Question 1

1.Describe the type of economic goals or strategies which a country said the be pursuing a policy of rapid aggregate economic growth might include in its national economic plan. What weaknesses, if any, do you observe in this strategy? Begin with a definition of "rapid growth model."

Most of the major advisory organisations are concentrating on the rapid aggregate growth model as the most efficient way for a developing nation to industrialise and become a player in the world market. Fallaciously they believe that a change in the GNP is the best indicator on the country's economic stability. If the country, however, is bent on using this model, there are several short term goals that ought to be established for this model to work well.

The first assumption on the rapid aggregate growth model is that these developing nations would invest part of the GNP. In this way, there would be a balance between supply and demand. Then the intended investments would be equal to the savings. If your investments would be equal to your savings then during the next cycle, you would have an increase in your earnings. There should be a focus on increased savings so that eventually, all that you earn would becomes your savings. The cycle would proceed such that you can continue to divert some of your savings towards investments and the production of capital.

One way to do this would be to switch to industry. In doing so, you take what you have now, and purchase capital goods (industrial machinery) from the world market. If you don't have the initial capital to invest in the conversion, then you would take out a public loan to purchase (for example) a widget manufacturing plant. With the purchase of the widget manufacturing plant, you would increase production of widgets, and export them to the world market. With the economic return from the world market on widgets, you would take this money and divide it in such a way that you concentrate on savings, and reinvestment in widget plants. You then continue to take part of that money and invest it on infrastructure and public services.

Unfortunately, the major problem is the ability to pay back these public loans. Widgets produced by your country for export are unable to compete in the world market. So what happens is that the return from the world market on widget manufacturing becomes very low. And immediately you are into debt. Your only option is to borrow some more money to be able to pay back the original loan, and still try to make the original goals set forth in the economic plan. Very few countries, if any, have been able to get out of this ``debt trap.''

Set C; Question 1

1.Describe the two kinds of farming which characterise agriculture in the developing world. Compare and contrast the key problems of agriculture in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

There are two kinds of farming present in developing nations. The first kind is the ``little guy'' farming-for the most part subsistence farming. It consists of small agricultural producers, and peasant agriculture. These farmers usually produce enough for their family to live on, and for next year's crop. They usually till the soil using manual labour and lack in technology. This includes use of genetically altered foods.

The second kind consists of commercial farming. Commercial farming is large scale technologically advanced farming. It consists of cash cropping primarily for the world market (mainly for export.) Few of the crops that are cultivated get distributed to the local market. It's mainly automated labour, genetically engineered crops, and chemical pesticides. Unfortunately, these technological wonders cause havoc on the environment and ultimately render the soil useless.

Taking these two forms of agriculture in the developing countries into consideration, we see various trends throughout that demonstrate the sharply polarised agriculture. For example, in Asia, the agricultural problem emerges in the amount of land per person. The more people you attempt to fit into a finite portion of land, the lower the overall productivity for that piece of land becomes. The land can only support so many people, after which it becomes useless, because there just isn't enough food to go around. In Africa, in contrast, it's the ability for the land to support its inhabitants. Africa has very little arable land. Although the population density is not as much as in Asia; the usefulness of the land decreases tremendously. So once again, you have a certain portion of the land which is arable, attempting to support more of the populous than its able to. This portion of arable land is then decimated through its ownership by while settlers. Much like Latin America, whose issue isn't arable land, but land distribution. An elite few hold a disproportionately great amount of land. So those ``small time'' farmers (and their families) are dependant on a much less amount of land than is able to productively support them. Ultimately, it comes down to the people who need the land rarely get enough of it.