Assess the View That Poor Countries Will Always Stay Poor

Assess the view that poor countries will always stay poor [33 marks]

The view that poor countries will always stay poor is one that is highly debated in the world today, many activists such as fair trade, say that due to exploitation of poor countries by the western world, the poor countries will stay poor, as they are not getting fair prices for the good that they export and sell to the western world.

One way in which the view that poor countries will stay poor is supported is through dependency theory. Dependency theory suggests that poor countries will continue to be poor and in any event made poorer due to exploitation by the richer nations, they offshore business to poor nations in order to gain cheaper products, this culture, instead of helping nations develop, leaves them poorer than ever, as richer nations know that poorer nations depend on the income from their business, so they know that they can keep asking traders for lower prices, thus keeping poor nations dependent on richer nations, keeping them poor and underdeveloped. Dependency theorists claim that we reached this point as the richer nations were never under-developed in terms of being dominated and exploited by other stronger nations, so therefore they really have little understanding on how to treat developing/poor nations, as most of today’s poorer nations were once colonies of the richer nations, so they have little idea of what it means and what is needed in order to be an independent nation. Although dependency theory is criticised as although it says that poor nations will stay poor because of the rich nations, it does not give third world countries any guidance as to how to develop and become richer.

Another theory that counteracts the view that poor nations will stay poor is the modernization theory. Modernization theorist Rostow believes that there are 5 stages to a country becoming a developed and rich nation this involves bringing poor and under developed nations into the modern...