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International Trade and the Developing Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

J. F. Rweyemamu
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Extract

This article is concerned with an analysis of the causes of the poverty of the developing countries. The decade of the 1960s opened with a new wave of optimistic expectations for the periphery.1 There were, first of all, the massive decolonisation efforts, which to many implied the eclipse of imperialism and the possibility of meaningful economic reconstruction by the former colonial people, now that political power was in our own hands. ‘Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you’, succinctly if unaptly captured the prevailing mood of the time.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1969 , pp. 203 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

Page 203 note 1 In this article the term ‘periphery’ will be used to refer to the ‘under-developed’ or ‘developing’ capitalist countries in the world. It originates from Prebisch, R., ‘The Role of Commercial Policies in Underdeveloped Countries’, in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings (Menasha, Wisconsin), 05 1959.Google Scholar

Page 203 note 2 U. N. General Assembly Resolutions 1710 and 1707 (XVI), passed on 19 December 1961.

Page 203 note 3 Group of 77, ‘Charter of Algiers’ (Algiers, 1967, mimeo).

Page 204 note 1 U.N.C.T.A.D., ‘Review of International Trade and Development, 1967’ (Geneva, 1967, mimeo.), TD/15, part I.

Page 204 note 2 Sources: ibid. and G.A.T.T., Trends in International Trade (Geneva, 1958).Google Scholar

Page 204 note 3 The word ‘centres’ will be used to denote developed market economy countries. Frank, Cf. A. G., Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 205 note 1 Brown, M. B., After Imperialism (London, 1963), p. 4.Google Scholar

Page 206 note 1 Johnson, H. G., Money, Trade and Economic Growth (London, 1964), p. 29.Google Scholar

Page 206 note 2 Chenery, H., ‘Patterns of Industrial Growth’, in American Economic Review (Menasha, Wisconsin), 09 1958.Google Scholar

Page 206 note 3 R. Prebisch, ‘Commercial Policy in Underdeveloped Countries’, ibid. September 1960.

Page 206 note 4 This term, now accepted in economic literature, was introduced by Robertson, D. H. in ‘The Future of International Trade’, in Ellis, H. S. and Metzler, L. S. (eds.), Readings in the Theory of International Trade (London, 1957), pp. 497–513.Google Scholar

Page 207 note 1 Sachs, Cf. I., Foreign Trade and Economic Development of Underdeveloped Countries (Bombay, 1965), pp. 25–6;Google Scholar and Myint, H., ‘The Classical Theory of International Trade and the Underdeveloped Countries’, in The Economic Journal (London), 06 1958, pp. 317–37.Google Scholar

Page 207 note 2 Bye, M., ‘Self-financed Multi-territorial Units and Their Time Horizon’, in International Economic Papers (London), VIII, 1957, pp. 147–78.Google Scholar

Page 207 note 3 See Arrighi, G., ‘International Corporations, Labour Aristocracies and Economic Development in Tropical Africa’, in Horowitz, D. (ed.), The Corporations and the Cold War (London, 1968).Google Scholar For a contrary view see Myint, H., ‘International Trade and the Developing Countries’ a paper read at the International Congress on the Future of International Economic Relations, Montreal, Canada, 2–7 09 1968.Google Scholar

Page 207 note 4 Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations (New York, 1937 edition), p. 164;Google Scholar see also Houthakker, H., ‘An International Comparison of Household Expenditure Patterns: commemorating the centenary of Engel's Law’, in Econometrica (Amsterdam), XXV, 1957.Google Scholar

Page 208 note 1 Pan-American Coffee Bureau, Annual Coffee Statistics, 1964 (New York, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 208 note 2 However, even in these cases, developing countries' exports are limited greatly by the developed countries' import restrictions. For example, Kenya's butter and Ghee is of good quality but is not exported to any developed country.

Page 208 note 3 U.N.C.T.A.D., ‘Commodity Survey, 1967’ (Geneva, 1967, mimeo.), TD/C.I/46/add.I; F.A.O., Commodity Review, 1967 (Rome, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 208 note 4 The extent of substitution may be grasped from one example: whereas in 1950 synthetic rubber was only 24 per cent of total world rubber consumption, by 1968 it had risen to 6 per cent. F.A.O., Commodity Review, 1967; and Rubber Statistical Bulletins (London), 1960–1968.Google Scholar

Page 209 note 1 Maizels, A., ‘Recent Trends in World Trade’, in Harrod, R. (ed.), International Trade Theory in a Developing World (London, 1963).Google Scholar

Page 209 note 2 Statement by Maalim, A. M., Minister of Commerce and Industry, leader of the Tanzania delegation to U.N.C.T.A.D. II, New Delhi, 13 02 1968.Google Scholar

Page 209 note 3 Onitiri, H. M. A., ‘Capital Movements, the Volume of Trade and the Terms of Trade’, in Adler, J. H. and Kuznets, P. W. (eds.), Capital Movements and Economic Development (London, 1967).Google Scholar

Page 210 note 1 At U.N.C.T.A.D. II, only the small donor countries expressed their desire to reach the aid target of I per cent of national income.

Page 211 note 1 Reported by Magdoff, Harry, Economic Aspects of U.S. Imperialism, Monthly Review Pamphlet no. 24 (New York, 1966), p. 5.Google Scholar

Page 211 note 2 Nurkse, Cf. R., ‘International Trade Theory and Development Policy’, in Ellis, H. S. (ed.), Economic Development of Latin America (London, 1962), especially p. 236.Google Scholar

Page 211 note 3 This latter-day newcomer to the dismal scientists' lexicon has been generously given to us by Professor Hirschman, A. O., The Strate of Economic Development (New Haven, 1958), especially ch. 6.Google Scholar

Page 211 note 4 Arrighi, loc.cit., and Frank, op. cit. See also Green, R. H. and Seidman, A. W., Unity or Poverty? the economics of pan-Africanism (London;, 1968);Google ScholarSachs, I., Patterns of Public Sector in Underdeveloped Economies (Bombay, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 211 note 5 Nurkse, R., Patterns of Trade and Development (London, 1961), p. 50.Google Scholar

Page 212 note 1 The metropolitan–satellite relationship is explored fully by A. G. Frank, op. cit.

Page 213 note 1 Sachs, , Foreign Trade and Economic Development, pp. 28–9Google Scholar

Page 213 note 2 Jalee, P., The Pillage of the Third World (New York, 1968), table v.Google Scholar

Page 214 note 1 Ibid. p. 78.

Page 214 note 2 Baran, Paul, Political Economy of Growth (New York, 1957), p. 144.Google Scholar

Page 215 note 1 Dobb, Cf. M., Economic Growth and Underdeveloped Countries (London, 1963).Google Scholar

Page 215 note 2 A fourth option—to follow the traditional capitalist road as a satellite, which normally implies relying on foreign capital and subordinating development to the sectoral interests of monopoly capital—is excluded here because it conflicts with the aims of the periphery.

Page 216 note 1 Maizels, A., Industrial Growth and World Trade (Cambridge, 1963), p. 10,Google Scholar my italics. See also Chenery, loc. cit.

Page 217 note 1 For a clear elaboration of this point, see Dobb, op. cit. ch. 5.

Page 217 note 2 Rutkowski, Cf. Jerzy, ‘Some Problems of Socialist Industrialisation’, in Lange, O. (ed.), Problems of Political Economy of Socialism (Warsaw, 1962), p. 58.Google Scholar

Page 217 note 3 Marx, Karl, The Poverty of Philosophy (New York, 1955 edn.), p. 207.Google Scholar

Page 218 note 1 Contrary to the views of Stoutjesdijk, E. J., Uganda's Manufacturing Sector (Nairobi, 1967), p. 6, among others.Google Scholar

Page 218 note 2 See Ewing, A. F., Industry in Africa (Oxford, 1968),Google Scholar and Dumont, René, False Start in Africa (London, 1966), esp. p. 104,Google Scholar for further elucidation of this point.

Page 218 note 3 In this connection, the implications of the balkanisation of Africa, so well described by Nkrumah, Kwame in his Neo-colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism (London, 1965), should be taken very seriously.Google Scholar

Page 219 note 1 O. Lange (ed.), Problems of Political Economy of Socialism. See also Boorstein, E., Economic Transformation of Cuba (New York, 1968).Google Scholar