LESSON 3: Theories of

Global Stratification
Modernization Theory
Modernization theory posits that societies evolve along a
predetermined path of development. This progression
typically involves the shift from agriculture to industry,
urbanization, technological advancement, and increased
levels of education and literacy.
 Columbian Exchange
This refers to the spread of goods, technology, education, and diseases between the
Americas and Europe after Christopher Columbus’s so-called “discovery of the
Americas.”

The Columbian Exchange worked out so much less well, however, for Native
Americans whose populations were ravaged by diseases brought from Europe. It is
estimated that in the 150 years following Columbus’s first trip, over 80% of the
Native American population died due to diseases such as smallpox and measles.
Industrial Revolution
This is when new technologies, like steam power and mechanization,
allowed countries to replace human labor with machines and
increase productivity.

Industrial technology was very productive that it gradually began to

improve standards of living for everyone.
Modernization Theory Modernization theory rests on the idea that
affluence could be attained by anyone.

Modernization theory argues that the

tension between tradition and
technological change is the biggest
barrier to growth. A society that is
more steeped in family systems and
traditions may be less willing to adopt
new technologies and the new social
systems that often accompany them.
Walt Rostow’s Four Stages of
Modernization
Traditional Stage This refers to societies that are structured
around small, local communities with
production typically being done in
family settings.

limited resources and technology

most of their time is spent on laboring
Take-off Stage This innovation creates new markets for
trade.

greater individualism takes hold and

social status is more closely linked
with material wealth.
Drive to Technological Maturity
Stage
Technological growth of the earlier
periods begins to bear fruit in the form
of population growth, reductions in
absolute poverty levels, and more
diverse job opportunities.

implementing basic schooling for

everyone
developing more democratic political
systems.
High Mass Consumption Stage When your country is big enough that
production becomes more about wants
and needs.

social support systems – to ensure that all

citizens have access to basic
necessities.
● Modernization theory, in general, argues that if you invest capital in
better technologies, they will eventually raise production enough that
there will be more wealth to go around and overall well-being will go up.

● Rich countries can help other countries that are still growing by
exporting their technologies and things, like agriculture machinery,
information technology, as well as providing foreign aid.
Dependency Theory and the
Latin American Experience
● With colonialism came the exploitation of both natural and human
resources. The transatlantic slave trade followed a triangular route
between Africa, the American and Caribbean colonies, and Europe.

● Guns and factory made goods were sent to Africa in exchange for slaves,
who were sent to the colonies to produce goods like cotton and tobacco,
which were then sent back to Europe.
● As the slave trade died down in the mid-19 th century, the point of
colonialism came to be less about human resources and more about
natural resources.

● Under colonial regimes, European countries took control of land and raw
materials to funnel wealth back to the West. Most colonies lasted until the
1960s and the last British colony, Hong Kong, was finally granted
independence in 1997.
 “Why are many countries in the world not
developing?”

- Because these countries are not pursuing the right economic

policies or their governments are authoritarian or corrupt.
● Dependency is the condition in which the development of the nation-states
of the South contributed to a decline in their independence and to an
increase in economic development of the countries in the North.

In addition, it argues that liberal trade causes greater impoverishment, not

economic development, to less developed countries.
● Trade protectionism through import substitution is the key to self-sustaining
path to development, not liberal trade or export. In other words, rather than
focusing on what poor countries are doing wrong, dependency theory
focuses on how poor countries have been wronged by richer nations.

It further argues that the prospects of both wealthy and poor countries are
inextricably linked. In addition, it argues that in a world of finite resources,
we cannot understand why rich nations are rich without realizing that those
riches came at the expense of another country being poor. In this view,
global stratification starts with colonialism.
● Dependency theory was initially developed by Hans Singer and Raul
Prebisch in the 1950s and has been improved since then. The two main
sub-theories are the North American Neo-Marxist approach and the
Latin American structuralist approach.
● The terms “core nations” and “peripheral nations” are at the heart of
dependency theory.

Peripheral nations are countries that are less developed and receive an
unequal distribution of the world’s wealth.

Core countries are more industrialized nations who receive the majority
of the world’s wealth.
● Dependency theorist saw that the development of peripheral nations is
stagnant because of the exploitative nature of the core nations. Less
developed periphery countries are said to primarily serve the interests of
the wealthier countries and end up having little to no resources to put
toward their own development.

The theory points out that the economies of periphery countries rely on
manual labor and to the export of raw materials to core nations.

● Developed countries were undeveloped in the beginning but not

underdeveloped. This means that the path taken by the developed
countries does not guarantee the same fate for the underdeveloped
countries.
● As a result of the influence of structuralist thought, most Latin American
countries adopted strategies nominally conducive to autonomous, self-
sustaining development. In essence, they sought to diversify exports and
accelerate industrialization through import substitution. High tariff walls
were to be erected that would reduce the region’s dependence on foreign
manufactories, and thus on the developed North.
● In fact, this is one of the concepts that most distinguishes the historical
structural version of dependency from previous ones: “the identification of
interest networks—business, technocrats, the military, the middle class—that
bind the dynamics of local political and economic processes to material and
political interests in the industrialized world.”

This version saw development as historically open-ended and allowed for the
possibility that the nature of dependent relations could change over time.
The Modern World System
This history of colonialism inspired
Americal sociologist Immanuel
Wallerstein model of what he called
the capitalist world economy.
Wallerstein described high-income
nations as the “core” of the world
economy.

This core is the manufacturing base of

the planet where resources funnel in to
become the technology and wealth
enjoyed by the Western world today.
● Low-income countries, meanwhile, are Wallerstein called the
“periphery,” whose natural resources and labor support the wealthier
countries, first as colonies and now by working for multinational
corporations under neocolonialism.

Middle-income countries, such as India and Brazil, are considered the

semi-periphery due to their closer ties to the global economic core.
● In Wallerstein’s model, the periphery remains economically dependent
on the core in a number of ways, which tend to reinforce each other.
First, poor nations tend to have few resources to export to rich countries.
However, corporations can buy these raw materials cheaply and then
process and sell them in richer nations.

As a result, the profits tend to bypass the poor countries. Poor countries
are also more likely to lack industrial capacity, so they have to import
expensive manufactured goods from richer nations. All of these unequal
trade patterns lead to poor nations owing lots of money to richer nations
and creating debt that makes it hard to invest in their own development.
● Innovation and technological growth can spill over to other countries,
improving all nations’ well-being and not just the rich. Also,
colonialism certainly left scars, but it is not enough, on its own, to
explain today’s economic disparities.

In direct contrast to what dependency theory predicts, most evidence

suggests that, nowadays, foreign investment by richer nations helps and
do not hurt poorer countries.
● Dependency theory is also very narrowly focused. It points to the finger
at the capitalist market system as the sole cause of stratification, ignoring
the role of things like how culture and political regimes play in
impoverishing countries.

There is no solution to global poverty that comes out of dependency

theory—most dependency theorists just urge poor nations to cease all
contact with the rich nations or argue for a kind of global socialism.