Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, an American sociologist, born September 28, 1930, is best known for developing a macro-historical approach to World System Theory and analysis, and capitalism. His active interest in world affairs, especially in the anti-colonial movement in India, as a teenager living in New York City, made him famous.
The World Systems Theory, however, is a way of interpreting world history that shows that some nations benefit from the world economic system, others do not. Most importantly, dependent countries on external economies exploit their people and future by following a core or capitalist nation's political agenda.
Under World System Theory there are three separate categories: the leading countries, which are the industrialised capitalist countries of the world, the semi-peripheral countries, which are mostly capitalist and industrialised, and finally, the peripheral countries which are less developed than the original and semi-peripheral nations. In this article, I will focus on peripheral countries.
Peripheral countries have a small share of the world's resources. These countries are not only dependent on other nations but are often exploited by more developed countries. Some of the characteristics of peripheral countries include unstable government, weak education system and poor health system.Now the question is if Bangladesh is currently facing all these events; then, of course, it is a peripheral country?
Thomas McPhail defines world system theory as it "... provides ideas, concepts, and language for the structure of international communication structures... Describes two regions, they are in the semi-periphery and peripheral regions".
Notably, the nation-states of the world are divided into three subdivisions that all interact in different ways at all cultural, political, technological, economic, media, capital, labour, and social levels. These three subdivisions are classified as Core, Semi-periphery, and Periphery.
Again, Wallerstein, the developer of this theory, compared the world system theory to an organism, saying, "it has a lifespan over which its properties change in some cases and remain stable in others. One can define its structures as strong or weak at different times according to the internal logic of its effectiveness".
As such, we may correctly show the example of his statement is Bangladesh in the peripheral zone. According to Yale Global, Bangladesh's economy grew exponentially in the 1990s, because "the country has liberalised its market and integrated into the growing global economy", making Bangladesh the third-largest country in terms of human development.
Although its history has seen positive changes, it is only within the perspective of its own peripheral country. Seeing the massive development of the country in the media world, it seemed that they have had, however, an inadequate economic and political policy that taken two steps forward and one step back. Despite being a somewhat globalised country, Bangladesh is still considered a stable periphery country.
According to scholars, "development in the conventional sense is the process by which other people dominate, and their destinies are transformed according to a western way of understanding and perceiving the world". The development of a country is determined through a standard process where the more developed countries control the countries of the Third World or peripherally, economically, politically, socially, and culturally. Undoubtedly, Bangladesh is associated with the concept of the West, which has been detrimental in many ways.
Within a few years of independence from Pakistan, Bangladesh repeated the same system as India did after its autonomy through the policy of protectionism. Post-independent Bangladesh was soon caught up in the World Bank/US hegemonic model, where economic reform took place not to develop its potential but to create a cycle of dependence. Wholesale privatisation and the opening up of the Bangladeshi economy in multinational capitals and the enrichment of a bunch of lumpen have become the main agenda of economic reform.
It is noteworthy that India's protectionist policy helped to build an influential trading business culture in the country, with secure business success with local and international partners. Until the 90s, this policy not only helped the Indian bourgeoisie to grow but also established a strong industrial base. By the time India decided to take the neo-liberal path, the country had a large group of its businesspeople. So, when it adjusted with the neoliberal trade dogma, the prominent Indian entrepreneurs became the biggest beneficiaries, and all the foreign investments had to come in joint ventures, they had to negotiate with the big corporate groups, and Indian groups also started investing elsewhere.
In contrast, when Bangladesh opened its doors for foreign investments in the early 1980s, the government and proto-capitalists, in most cases, failed to assess the whole situation more carefully. As such, they have not been able to adopt proper business and economic policies that have hampered the overall development of the nation over the past few decades or more.
Surprisingly, Bangladesh's most prominent NGOs have also been part of the process of expansion of capitalism since the 1980s. Most NGOs were initially interested in education, health and other necessary public services as non-profit organisations. With the rise of capital through micro-credit, later they became a trader of textile, printing, Banks, Fashions and education (including university) business. They have also emerged as multinationals. Indeed, its focus on education and healthcare for the poor has shifted further to commercial activities. Thus, microcredit operations, in its process, have been successfully used as a weapon to increase macro business in line with global capital.Presumably, NGOs had to understand from different perspectives as the world is rapidly changing that they have taken a different approach to their business. In fact, they are now the most prominent capitalists in the country.
Bangladesh, as a developing country, has seen the consequences in both positive and negative ways. The underlying question is how globalisation affects Bangladesh or, more broadly,how it has changed the actual livelihood situation over the past few decades. From the analysis, the theory of national development is in line with the international political plan in which the globalisation has played a significant role in national development in many developing countries. As such, Bangladesh has done many development projects so far, but whether these projects were taken strategically or implemented remains a matter of debate in the academic and public domain.
Bangladesh's most prominent jute industry and other top industrial sectors were destroyed, and my current investigation reveals that it was mainly through the direct intervention of the World Bank and the IMF. So, the country has started looking for more small-scale industries like RMG through the peripheral economic structure.As the idea of globalisation emerged in the world trade system, most of the developing countries started losing their ideological, economic sovereignty and Bangladeshis were no exception as it was mostly dependent on foreign economies. A few industries were initially targeted for investment, and RMG is one of the highlighted and exploited sectors. Importantly, as the country embraced globalisation, the most promising field, RMG, began to face challenges, and the absence of proper OHS practice in the RMG workplace, brutal events were commonplace.
Finally, Bangladesh is now closely associated with global capitalism. Our politicians are occupying a lot of wealth, and they too have had a close business relationship with global capitalists.Bangladesh has been losing the opportunity to become a prominent or fully developed country since independence. As such, Western capitalism is severely exploiting our people, where it is heavily dependent on foreign economies. Thus, now is the time to formulate a stable economic and political policy towards becoming a developed country rather than having the status of a peripheral nation in the world.
The writer is an Australian Academic
