Volume 04 Issue 11-2024
100
American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
(ISSN
–
2771-2141)
VOLUME
04
ISSUE
11
P
AGES
:
100-106
OCLC
–
1121105677
Publisher:
Oscar Publishing Services
Servi
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the historical and contemporary impacts of capitalism, colonialism, and economic paradigms on
global inequality and poverty. It highlights how the wealth of powerful nations, such as those in Europe, has been
built on exploitation through colonialism, slavery, and resource extraction. The industrial revolution, fueled by
capitalism, brought about economic growth in these regions but also led to severe environmental degradation and
human suffering. The paper critiques modern economic paradigms that fail to account for these historical injustices,
presenting a misleading roadmap for developing countries. It explores the unequal distribution of wealth, the role of
multinational corporations, and the persistence of neocolonial practices. Furthermore, the study connects poverty
and inequality to violence, migration, and restricted access to healthcare, particularly in marginalized regions. The
conclusion asserts that economic growth models for poorer nations overlook the foundational violence and
exploitation that enabled the wealth of the West, calling for a more honest reckoning with history in shaping global
economic policies.
KEYWORDS
Capitalism, Colonialism, Economic Inequality, Neocolonialism, Economic Paradigms.
JEL
Classification:
B59,
D63,
F54,
P10,
N40,
O10
INTRODUCTION
Research Article
THE ULTIMATE ECONOMIC MODEL HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT
Submission Date:
October 30, 2024,
Accepted Date:
November 04, 2024,
Published Date:
November 16, 2024
Crossref doi:
https://doi.org/10.37547/ajsshr/Volume04Issue11-14
Omolara Adebimpe Adekanbi
Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Journal
Website:
https://theusajournals.
com/index.php/ajsshr
Copyright:
Original
content from this work
may be used under the
terms of the creative
commons
attributes
4.0 licence.
Volume 04 Issue 11-2024
101
American Journal Of Social Sciences And Humanity Research
(ISSN
–
2771-2141)
VOLUME
04
ISSUE
11
P
AGES
:
100-106
OCLC
–
1121105677
Publisher:
Oscar Publishing Services
Servi
A myriad of economic models has been offered as a
blueprint to nations and regions that are supposedly
not yet in the category of developed countries or
high-income regions of the world. First, let us identify
the richest regions of the world and the economic
path that led them to wealth. Some of the first
regions of the world to become wealthy and powerful
include Rome and Egypt. The contributing factors
surely involve advancement in techniques of
production, medicine, and weapons. What else do
these empires have in common? Invasion of territories
and slavery, creating colonies in regions that belong
to people of other descents, maintaining foreign
policies, collecting taxes, and claiming ownership of
lands in other regions of the world.
The ancient Egypt empire expanded colonial regions
in the southern neighboring regions and Canaan, at
first establishing trade relations but later imposing
direct control (The British Museum, 2023). The other
regions that the Egypt invaded for economic
resources include Canaan (Atwood, 2017). Likewise,
the Roman Empire conquered England/Wales (then
known as Britannia), Spain (Hispania), France (Gaul or
Gallia), Greece (Achaea), the Middle East (Judea) and
the North African coastal region. The Roman Empire
built roads to connect conquered regions to Rome to
facilitate supply and travel of roman soldiers. In this
era, Rome had attained a level of civilization in civil
engineering and architecture and military tactics and
weaponry. The Western countries who were
previously under the colonial rule of the Roman
Empire adopted the system of growing wealth
through education, innovation, military force and
colonialism. They exploited other regions through
colonialism as far back as the 15th century into the
18th century (Britannica, 2023) since they had the
upper hand of sophisticated weapons and the reason
for this was to expand production and profit
(capitalism) which contributed to the industrial
revolution.
Moreover, the industrial revolution in Western
countries carries some inherent costs to the
environment and to the people of other nations,
especially poorer countries today and many other
consequences especially poverty that provokes
violence. After the colonial era, the capitalist system
of profit making in favor of the West continued
through various agendas. However, the paradigms
found in economic studies continue to project the
impression that various factors and policies especially
those implemented by countries that have progressed
from primary stage of production -agriculture and the
extraction of raw materials to pre-industrial stage, will
automatically swing poorer and developing countries
into the position of growth. The vacuum left by these
paradigms and economists is a major factor that has
immensely contributed to the wealth of Western
countries
–
hegemony through colonialism and
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slavery. Basically, poorer countries are being asked to
partake in a race where the same rules and conditions
do not apply and the West have a head start. This
paper is a discussion about capitalism, the stages of
economic growth, the consequences of capitalism
specifically poverty and violence in poorer countries.
2.0 Capitalism
Capitalism is generally regarded as an economic
system based on private ownership of the means of
production and the pursuit of profit. The goal of a
capitalist system is centered around individualism and
it is capital accumulation, maximizing profit and
minimizing cost - costs such as labor, energy, natural
resources, etc.
As narrated by Robert Marks (2015), during the
biological old regime which can be termed as the
agricultural revolution
–
production of food, clothing,
shelter, and fuel for heating and cooking came from
the land, from what could be captured from annual
energy flows from the sun to Earth. The textiles,
leather, and construction industry likewise depended
on products from agriculture or the forest. Even iron
and steel making in the biological old regime, required
charcoal obtained from wood. Justifying Malthus
theory, a limitation to the size of the human
population was certain but the productivity of the
economy was affected as well. But by 1750 to 1850,
coal paved way for the industrial revolution, -the use
of coal to generate the heat to fuel repetitive motion
with steam-powered machines, replacing human
muscle, wind, water, and animals to power machines.
However, the use of fossil fuels and coal results in the
release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
3.0 Highlights of Europe’s Capitalist System & Its Co
st
on Humanity
Before the industrial revolution, textile production in
Europe was more expensive than in India. Indian
agriculture was so productive that the amount of
food produced, and hence its cost, was significantly
lower than in Europe. To squash this competition, and
reverse the comparative advantage, they raised tariffs
on imports to Britain of Indian textiles, and the
outright banning of the importation of some kinds of
Indian cotton goods
—
mercantilist protectionism
style.
The English East India Company (EIC) concentrated
trade in India, where Indian states were weak and
European competitors few, especially in Bengal and
Madras. The leader of Bengal demanded increased
payments from the British Companies for privilege of
trading there. The British resisted and a war that
ensued ended in the beginning of British empire in
India, and over the next fifty years the extent of
British control widened, with the entire subcontinent
becoming a formal colony in 1857.
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European New World agriculture was export oriented,
their plantations in the Caribbean and South America,
produced mostly sugar, tobacco, and cotton. The
source of labor was African slaves because of labor
shortages caused by the Great Dying and the
unwillingness of Europeans to migrate to the New
World. These plantations needed fish and grain, and
cheap textiles for the slaves from the North American
colonies. These created demand for textiles produced
by the British cotton textile industry in England.
More quantities of Indian textiles were traded by the
EIC in West Africa for slaves that would be sold in the
Caribbean by the slave traders. New World
products
—
sugar, tobacco, raw cotton
—
were taken
back to England as an exchange.
4.0 Economic Paradigms
With all the strategies mentioned above, Europe and
New Europe specifically had a head start in
experiencing economic growth by engaging strategies
without considering humanity. But what are the
models of growth tailored for developing countries
today?
Economic paradigms since the Middle Ages have been
defined by the dominant sector of the economy in
form of three stages: Primary production (agriculture
and the extraction of raw materials), Secondary
production (industrialization and the manufacturing
of durable goods- modernization) and Tertiary
production (services and manipulating information-
post industrialization). The dominant position has
thus passed from primary to secondary to tertiary
production. This hierarchical position reflects in the
exchange relationships, credit and debt relationships
among nations. The hierarchical structure creates a
situation of dominance and subordination according
to the stage of production an economy is at.
However, false historical analogies have been used as
the foundation of economic policies, claiming that if
developing countries continue on the path previously
taken by the dominant countries and repeat their
economic policies and strategies, they will eventually
enjoy an analogous position or stage. Critiques of the
developmentalist view, posed by underdevelopment
and dependency theories in the 1960s within Latin
American and African contexts, argued that
underdeveloped countries will not attain developed
status, as they are assigned different roles in the
global system (Hardt & Negri, 2002).
5.0 Unequal Distribution of Wealth & Its Effect on
Our Society
There is a divergence in income growth levels
between
developing
and
wealthy
countries.
Developing countries must strive to reach the same
economic status as developed nations, despite a
history of exploitation, colonialism, and trade
regulations that hinder their exports.
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Publisher:
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For instance, although trade liberalization has been
introduced in poorer countries, climate change
—
driven by years of greenhouse gas emissions from
industrial activities in the West
—
has led to droughts
and
floods,
negatively
impacting
agricultural
production in some African countries. According to
conservative estimates, by 2030, 231,000 people could
lose their lives each year in poor countries due to the
climate crisis.
Additionally, it is estimated that between 1765 and
1938, Britain derived approximately $45 billion in
economic benefits from India. Despite this, the British
government continued paying the 'debt' owed to
slave owners for the abolition of slavery in 1835, with
payments completed only in 2015.
Furthermore, the wealth of billionaires saw its largest
annual increase at the onset of COVID-19, driven by
skyrocketing stock prices, the rise of unregulated
entities,
increasing
monopoly
power,
and
privatization, along with the erosion of regulations,
tax rates on individuals and companies, labor rights,
and wages. Simultaneously, unequal access to
opportunities continues to be perpetuated through
the instrumentalization of racism (Ahmed, 2022).
Generally, inequality disproportionately impacts
individuals in poverty, women, girls, and marginalized
racial and oppressed groups. This is evident in the
disparate COVID-19 death rates among racial groups in
the USA and Brazil, where the black population faces
a 1.5 times higher risk of mortality compared to their
white counterparts. Similar patterns persist across
Latin America. In the United States, Native Americans,
Latino, and Black individuals are two to three times
more likely to succumb to COVID-19 than their white
counterparts. Furthermore, compounding this issue,
pharmaceutical giants like Moderna and Pfizer price
their vaccines at exorbitant rates, making them
accessible only to G20 nations while low-income
countries are left unable to afford them. Supported by
Western governments, these companies obstruct
initiatives from low-income nations seeking access to
vaccine production through intellectual property
rights, hindering efforts to save lives (Ahmed, 2022).
Moreover, the impacts of capitalism are evident in the
migration patterns of individuals from impoverished
to wealthier nations. In 2019, Europe accommodated
82 million international migrants, while North America
hosted nearly 59 million, accounting for 22 percent of
the global migrant population (ONU Migracion, 2020).
Lastly, one of the most debilitating effects of
inequality as a result of colonialism and capitalism is
violence in poorer countries, the correlation between
social inequality and crime rates has been widely and
strongly supported at the global level (Adams, 2009).
This is evident in the fierce drug war that have
erupted over the years in Mexico as a result of the
continual and unrelenting drug trafficking to the US.
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Publisher:
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The origin of slavery in Guatemala and Haiti
entrenched poverty among the Afro descents in these
countries and the presence of drug trafficking as well
have created the presence of gangs and urban
violence. Thankfully, a group called American Friend
Service Committee are carrying out projects in regions
with urban violence such as in these two countries by
setting up groups
–
the Local Peace Platforms (PLP)
that work towards conflict transformation especially
in communities & areas with high levels of violence
and social exclusion. The strategic programs in these
projects are Mobile Conflict Resolution and Mediation
Unit, Street interviews (face-to face, community
research), and Youth focus group (Colon & Monzon,
2013).
In spite of all the awareness about the evils of
colonialism, various forms of neocolonialism exist in
modern times. A global order in which an imperial
ideology of maintaining peace among nations through
a world judiciary system is set up in the form of the
United Nations, and the World Trade Organization. In
the same vein, instruments such as Non-
Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are covertly used
to aid foreign agendas (Hardt & Negri, 2015). These
setups are however, created to indirectly usurp the
sovereignty of the nation state and its autonomy.
CONCLUSION
The economic model hiding in plain sight is basically
rooted in violence itself; plundering other people’s
lands and taking advantage of their less sophisticated
defense. Just as the Roman Empire and other rich
empires did in ancient times, Western countries who
used to be subjects of the Roman Empire seized
control of the regions in the world mainly for the
purpose of enriching themselves
–
a capitalist goal
that does not consider the impact of their agendas on
the humans in those colonized regions. This paper
linked up the history of colonialism to its origin, and
the consequences of colonialism on people
–
which
are poverty and inequality that have in turn led to low
access to health services for some groups of people,
migration to rich countries and violence. Also,
theories of growth and development seem to have
turned blind eyes to the horrific history of rich
countries and the issue of neocolonialism. Instead,
these theories simply formulate or suggest paths of
growth that supposedly led rich countries to the post-
industrial stage.
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Wilson International Center for Scholars.
2.
Ahmed, N. (2022). Informe: Las Desigualdades
Matan. OXFAM Internacional, Oxford.
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