Ramirez-Faria, C.B
(1990)
The origins of economic inequality between nations: An historical synthesis of Western theories on development and underdevelopment.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
This dissertation examines Western views on the relations between the West and the rest of the world in order to discover explanations for the origins of the economic inequalities between nations as manifested in the contemporary division between the developed and the underdeveloped countries. This research is focussed on three distinct chronological and intellectual phases: 1) "perception of differences" (from classical Antiquity to the 18th century); 2) Eurocentrism and the anti-imperialist reaction (19th century and up to World War II); and 3) capitalist "developmentalism" and the Marxist general theory of economic imperialism (after WWII), The first two phases trace the sources and the evolution of the concepts underlying the theories analysed in the third part, which is the principal and most extensive of the three. The third phase also includes an investigation of the most recent reactions within the developmentalist and the Marxist camps against, respectively, the so-called orthodoxy of development economics and dependency theory. It synthesizes contemporary research on the development of West European capitalism insofar as it sheds light on long-term influences on the appearance of underdevelopment. Aside from the systematic discussion and criticism of the theories themselves, the research yields a "unified field" approach to the problems and issues of underdevelopment, and it further allows a summatory evaluation of the general question of the possibilities of over-all Third World economic development.
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