The Brandt Line: A visual depiction of a North-South development divide by GDP per capita (1980s)

• Inconsistent: Australia is included, even though it is in the South

Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth:

• Stage 1: Traditional Society

  • Subsistence agriculture based economy

  • bartering

• Stage 2: Preconditions to take off

  • more commercial agriculture

  • starts to build infrastructure

• Stage 3: Take Off

  • Industrialized

  • Secondary Sector grows

  • Technology advances

• Stage 4: Drive to Maturity

  • Development of commercial base

  • tertiary sector grows

  • global trade

• Stage 5: High Mass Consumption

  • Highest level of development & infrastructure

  • USA & West EU

• Issues:

  • Does not account for globalization or interdependence

  • Does not account for imperialism or colonialism

• Argued all countries will progress through the 5 stages of development to become mass consumption societies (1960)

Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory:

• World is an interdependent economic system based on the unequal division of labor & resources exchanged between the core, periphery, and semi-periphery

• Core countries:

  • Industrialized first

  • MDCs

  • Imperialists, Exploiters

• Periphery:

  • LDC: many primary sector jobs

  • exploited for cheaper labor & resources

• Semi-Periphery:

  • Acts as core in their region but periphery to core states

  • BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa

• Issues:

  • Little opportunity for periphery countries to advance into core

  • Does not account for self-sufficiency/economic growth

Dependency Theory:

• Highly connected to World Systems Theory

• Argues poverty in periphery is due to colonialism & imperialism

  • colonized countries become economically dependent on core

  • Neocolonialism

• MDCs take natural resources and use lower labor costs in periphery to profit

• Commodity Dependence: when more than 60% of a state’s exports are commodities

  • raw materials, agricultural products, energy, natural resources

  • More common in periphery & semi-periphery states

  • reliant on unstable global market prices