In what ways were the crises of imperialism, war, and economics both the cause and the result of changes in the degree of global community between 1870 and 1945?
Imperialism constitutes the act of using state policies, practice and advocacy of extending power and rule by acquiring extra territories or dominating others politically and economically. From history we can attest to the fact that most of the times, imperialism involved power and domination over others and thus the use of force was a major factor. In many cases, the term imperialism has been used by activists and other parties in denouncing foreign policies, which seeks to control the way the less developed or the less powerful operate in an environment. Some of these policies are either harsh or conditional.
The United States of America has for a long time been accused of imperialism since it intervenes with the affairs of other countries in order to protect their own interests thus in relation to this, many economists have argued that imperialism is the justified result for survival struggle among people. It can also be used as a means of ensuring security, political or economical. Imperialism can also be used as a means of liberating people from dictatorial and tyrannical rule.
The period between 1870 -1945 is often described as the apex of development of free competition in the history of modern capitalism. By the year 1870, those against capitalism observed that the once adored form of pure capitalism was slowly changing to a monopolistic type of capitalism. This form of capitalistic development was not only expressed within the United States of America but also internationally in the form imperialism. This went to the extent of Lenin the then former Russian president to describe capitalism as a monster, which was being transformed into imperialism slowly. Before 1920, the ownership and management of large firms was centralized to a few rich individuals who managed the production, secured the material needed and even did the marketing. Most of the big enterprises were owned by few rich people such as Oil Company but the events of the two World Wars and the successful revolution of the Bolsheviks revolution helped in ending the phase on monopoly capitalism and transformed the existing capitalism into US dominated oligopoly capitalism (Pinkston, 2008).
This wave of imperialism by the United States of America motivated the industrial nations to conquer new territories in the aim of increasing their economic dominance. These territories which expanded from South America, Africa to Asia were used as a source of resources for these industrial nations. As the economies competed and grew, tension grew among these countries as they tried to overdo each other. The expansion and the competition for territories led to the growth and globalization of the world economy but the tension between the economies was still present as was experienced during the scramble and partitioning of Africa and Asia.
At the end of the portioning of the colonies some European powers felt short changed and the uprising of crisis for extra colonies began arising. The crisis started to erupt over colonies beginning with the occupation of Egypt by England, the Spanish American war, the Moroccan crisis and other crisis followed. The desire by rivaling groups to achieve their objectives while preventing others from attaining theirs led to the formation of alliances by the leading powers at that time. For example, Germany allied with Austria and Hungary while England allied with France and Russia. It was as countries tried to dominate each other and the Germans attacked Poland in 1914 bringing out the beginning of the 1st world War thus imperialism caused the world wars both the first and the second (Gorter, 1914).
It was not until after the Second World War that the world powers decided to put an end to any form of war and agreed to seek other reliable methods of solving their crisis. The agreement culminated with the formation of the United Nations previously known as the League of Nations. From the above we can conclude that as a result of the economic, imperialism and war crisis, the global community during this period of 1870 to 1945 was changed by the internalization of production and investment. In consequence, the world became too integrated and the economies became arenas for competition and as a result the above said conflicts resulted.
Interaction between the “Global North” And the “Global South” In One Country
The increased rate of globalization and liberalization of trade over the last several years has resulted in unprecedented growth through out the world across the different economies. While in the “global North” the benefits of globalization continue to be reaped, cases of inequalities, unemployment and poverty have increased significantly in the “global South”. This can be explained by the horrifying cases of famine and disease in Africa despite the amazing economic growth in much of the world.
The North-South divide is a division that is usually economical and political and even sometimes socially in nature between the developed economies and the less developed economies. And although most of the “global North” countries are found in the northern side of the equator or hemisphere, the division is not defined by the geographical location of a country but by the economic development and wealth amassed in these countries. The “global North constitute the first world countries or the developed economies as they are often referred mostly the European and north American countries with Japan and China being examples among the Asian countries in the class of developed economies while the “global South” are the third world countries or the less developed countries where most of the sub-Saharan African countries lies.
Despite the existing differences between these two worlds, the boundaries between these two globes is not constant or static this is due to the fact that as the world economies become integrated with increased globalization, nations are becoming economically developed leaving others behind regardless of the geographical location. As these economies develop, the “global South” becomes part of the “global North” while the others who are not qualified are left behind to remain as part of the “global South”. A good example, of how a country migrates from the “global South” and become a member of “global North” is well explained by the fall of the USSR block in the early 1990s and which initially was classified as a second world. After the union collapsed, some countries were technically classified as developing despite their north location. Since then other countries such as Turkey have developed and they are now part of the so called “global North”.
Other than globalization, which enhances the interaction of the two communities through the interaction of economies, trade liberalization and technology exchange though argued by many economic experts to favor the developed at the expense of the less developed economies due to the facts that it requires slow growing economies to adapt faster to the fast changing economy environment by adapting the ever changing technologies and this will never happen as nations are differently capital endowed thus the developed countries tend to exploit the less developed economies to the extent they becomes dependent on these economies since everything has to originate from these developed economies.
Migration is another factor that has promoted the co-existence of the two communities. To improve their living standards and also have a share of the “global North” power, most of the time those who reside in the “global South” move to the “global North” thus as a result the two communities co-exist since the migration causes the people of these two different communities work together. Example of such cases include the past cases of Africans migrating to the United States of America and European countries in search of better life and economic conditions by engaging themselves in better paying jobs.
Within the same country, case of the two worlds co-existing has been experienced with urbanization. With the elasticity of labor supply being higher in the rural areas of the Least Developed Countries than in the urban areas, many people tend to move to the urban areas in the search for better paying jobs and thus as a result the well up people in the economy lives in the posh sides of the city, the folks from the rural areas live in the slums but during the day the two groups interact during the process of doing their jobs, and thus the interaction between the two groups cannot be overruled (Puga, 1996).
Reference List
Gorter, H. (1914).Imperialism, the World War and Social Democracy. Web/
Pinkston, C. (2008). Advanced Imperialism: A Phase of Capitalism: A Marxist perspective. Web.
Puga, D. (1996).Urbanization Patterns: European Vs. Less Developed Countries. Web.