Acronyms:
NIS: Nectar in a Sieve
WST: World System Theory
DoL: Division of Labour
WMB: White Man’s Burden
TWCs: Third World Countries
Foreign Investment: Factory in NIS
The British Empire and India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9wO-NoP7h4 4.20 min
WMB
Satyajit Ray's Movie Apur Sansar # The World of Apu Part 5 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viGwK5iAM9c 9.5 min
similar to Rukmani’s wedding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjnEfrop6qE 3.4 min Bengal
Famine 1943 Poverty & hunger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI6qg1ERmGE 6 min Famine
(watch at home)
Essay topic:
Using the World Systems Theory, explain the causes of
Rukmani’s poverty in Nectar in a Sieve. In your analysis
apply all of the following concepts and illustrate each
concept with examples from the book:
1. Power: Colonialism
2. Technology: Factory
3. Labour: Subsistence production
4. Unequal exchange: Export production
5. ‘White Man’s Burden’ (WMB) : Missionary
North-South global Integration into the world system as Coreperiphery: Power; Technology; Labour; WMB.
•Core countries:
• P: Hegemony by military power
• T: Industrial technology of mass production
• U: Appropriate (by unequal exchange) much of the
profits from the global-economy
• DL: Concentrate on higher-skill, capital-intensive
production
• Peripheral countries:
• P: globally powerless & poor economies
•T: Colonial control arrested the local development of
technology
• U: unequal because of low value exports & cheap
labour
• DL: supply low-skill labour, labor-intensive production and
extract raw materials for export
Countries during the Colonial and contemporary periods are
well integrated into the world system through: Power;
Technology; Labour:
Power: Colonial: Core’s imperialism (total political control)
Technology : Factory
• Resource extraction for mother countries’ industrialization
Labour: DL : colonial division of labour
• A single division of labor within one global market: Core
controls capital and Peripheries supply cheap labour and
raw materials
Thesis: (1st example)
• WST explains that from colonial times, using imperial power,
Core countries have globally integrated their colonies as
peripheries.
• The Core’s global market strategies of DL, superior technologies
and unequal exchange have impoverished the colonial peripheries.
• However, Core’s missionary attribute TWC’s poverty and lack of
development to the colonized people’s lack of capitalist selfinterest. Their failure to advance is attributed to their interest in
the wellbeing of the whole community rather than in individual
self-advancement.
• This view reinforces the Core’s cultural domination through the
ideology of ‘the White Man’s Burden’ (WMB).
(WST: PUT-NDL)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbS1VkX3CP0 8.5 min WST explained –Debra
Marshall (review at home)
Thesis: (2nd example)
• WST argues that colonial powers intrude into the TWCs, to
establish the core’s control over the peripheries.
• The core countries integrate the TWCs into the world-system
through the global market using DL, unequal exchange and
superior technology.
• The core countries justify this process espousing the
ideologies of WMB.
Imperialism and British Rule:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFbZ-uss_VE 49 min (view at home)
NIS: Colonial power imposes capitalism on a subsistence
economy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDvnSgJF4SE 9.29 min by brendan
mcooney what is capital
Intrusion of a factory commoditizes the land and
turns unemployed tenant farmers as cheap labour.
• Market for leather imposes the factory, an industrial (i.e.,
superior) technology, on Rukmani’s village
• The factory displaces the leather worker and he loses his
livelihood.
• It symbolizes the superiority of the Western values.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Four arguments that explain the causes of Rukmani’s
poverty:
Power: Impact of the Core’s global market hegemony on
India
Technology: Cr controls the political and economic
power & superior technologies to make decisions on
Peri.’s land and resources. In Peri., control of resources
shifts from the community to the market.
Labour: Through DL, Cr’s capital indebts and exploits
Peri’s cheap labour to enhance its capital accumulation
(profit).
The Ideology of the “Whiteman’s Burden” wrongly
discredits TWC’s local values as reasons for their
poverty.
Core’s
Power
India under Colonial capitalism
(NIS)
Power
Total Colonial
Control
Technology:
Manual &
Machine
Labour:
(ODL &
Debt)
Subsistence
&
Waged
WMB :
Missionary&
Westernization
path
Power:
NIS:
Under colonialism, the Core’s global market
hegemony integrates India as a colony.
NIS – British imperial power extracts the resources of
India for Britain’s own economic development. India’s
villages become sources of raw material and land taxes for
the Britain's advancement.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Capitalist firm- investment in leather
Raw material extraction
Industrializing a feudal subsistence economy
The factory dismantled the existing land system
Tenants who grow crops lose their land
The poor lose access to village common land and
water.
Argument 1
Core’s Hegemony
impact of global market
on India
Tannery
intrudes
Disintegrates
community
First stage of
integration
Control of land &
subterranean
resources
The Core (AICs) dominates the development and
transactions of the global market :
Global Market transactions:
• Commodity & financial instruments traded globally
• International trade based on power bargaining
Core’s (AICs’) power globally expands through its
control of colonies. Colonial economic exploitation
leads to Core’s industrialization. Emergence of global
market advanced the Core’s rapid accumulation of
industrial capital :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFa3YfWBCrg 0.47 sec Toussaint on begin.- colonialism
16th –mid 20th C: As traders, the British established
their colonial control. Indian villages became sources
of land revenue and raw materials for British
industrialization. Colonial revenues are turned into
industrial capital invested for export production
through factory as a mass production technology in
NIS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDIvkTIieHo 8min hulahoop industrial mass production
and profit
Colonialism is the First stage of India’s market
integration into global capitalist control:
• Colonial: (16th C -20th C): Imperial power of the
colonizers profit from selling colonies’ commodities in
the global Market, e.g.:
•Rukmani’s village becomes a target for raw
materials for the global market
Power of Colonial capital & beginning of
market integration: ( “Nectar …”).
• Capitalism & Colonial unequal trade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duxkrv4fSe4 (p1) 6.5min
capitalism –Brendan Mcoony
• Peri.’s Labour moves to Cr’s capital
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash
Course World History #24: 11min (watch at home)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QoXKgo_HDY 3 - A Historical Class Analysis of
Guyanese Society - Dr. Walter Rodney 9.5 min - watch only the first 5 min
• Rise of Industrial capital & factory system
Illustrations of Impact of the Core’s global market
hegemony on colonial India
India: Colonial control
1. British colonial capital: market (factory:
tannery) power intrudes into Rukmani’s
village (26)
2. Disintegrates the community (46-47)
3. First stage of integration into the world
system.
India: colonial core’s power (Britain’s) and
accumulation of colonial capital
1. Colonial trade in raw materials accumulates
capital
2. Industrialization process
• Mechanical production replaces human
energy
• Emergence of the factory system
Argument 2: Technology:
In NIS, the factory, an advanced technology of mass
production enters the village to extract leather for the global
market. Imperial Britain (Core) has the political and
economic power to make decisions on Peri.’s land use; In
Peri., control of land, shifts from the community to the
market.
India:
• Cr’s industrial technology (factory) produces raw
materials on the village land that becomes a market
commodity (47)
• British land tax: Rukmani loses her tenancy ( a
customary right) to cultivate the land (75-76)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSP-crYjeoE law of value: technology 8.5
min socially necessary labour – jobs &wages reduced by technology
brendancooney
Argument 2
Technology : Cr’s control of Peri.’s land
Factory: industrial technology
Loss of customary
right to cultivate her
land
Village land as market
commodity
Technology (colonial economic control of colonies’
resources)
• NIS: Factory technology- changing economic
value of land (p.31;p72)
• Loss of cultivable land p47
• Disintegration of the village community
pp.75-76
NIS: India:
Impact of the technology – the factory - on village
land and subsistence farming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTLcxny7YSg Inside India: Village Life in Southern
India 14 min The film is from the collection of the West Virginia State Archives. See it
yourself – village life as a contrast to NIS village
What happened to Rukmani’s land?
•Colonial factory’s intrusion turns Rukmani’s land
into a commodity for sale (p. 10, 13, 47, 48)
What happened to local food production?
• Famine as a result of loss of arable land & common
land rights, disintegration of village loyalties and
mutual reliance & support (p. 31,72)
What happened to community’s survival?
Rent exacting middle-man, Loss of village networks
& informal supports (p. 73, 75, 76)
NIS: New technology of control through taxation- Poverty
inevitable due to loss of subsistence land to factory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUUGBMFpYQY 8 min EIC- zamin-peasants plight (show 4 min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18Za0mRXe4E 6.5min land rev system-East India Co. (unacademy)
Colonialism changed the ownership of all landed property
in India to private hands and eliminates villages’
communal land .
1. These changes released a mass of landless workers (serfs)
for the global labour market
2. Throughout the 19th C, the poor lost their subsistence due
to loss of land.
3. Millions faced famine every two years.
4. Desperate, starving, land-less Indian peasants - British
rule bankrupted the Indian economy.
NIS: colonial technology of control: Rukmani
views the factory as power that intrudes and
impoverishes the village:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrvmL-RDFtI crops-ploughing-construction of a well.today’s Indian village 7 min 2012 (view it at home
• Overseer ordering villagers (26)
• Leather worker’s plight (26)
• Land was lost to the tannery )(47)
• Increasing officials with power (47)
• New workers brought from outside (47)
• Trouble: strike for better wages (64)
• Firing of workers (65)
• Son killed in factory (88-89)
NIS: Colonial period- Owners’ and investors’ concept of
factory production for the market :
• Land is more valuable as a commodity (31, 72)
• Moneylender: profit from pawn shop ( 73)
• Foreigners: invest capital for extracting raw
material (26-28)
• Zamindar: profits from increase in land value
Ideology of ‘Whiteman’s Burden’ still continues:
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Development/PovertyEnv.asp
Argument 3: Labour:
• Through ODL & NDL, Cr’s capital indebts and
exploits Peri’s cheap labour to increase its capital
accumulation.
• Unequal exchange between Cr’s capital and
Peripheries’ Labour, produces profit for Core’s capital
accumulation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MlZEfRhTo8 (p2) 4 min what is capitalism –labor and
uneq exch of value (wages)
Argument 3
Labour
ODL
Resource
extraction,
Subsistence
& Poverty
Unequal exchange
between capital and
labour
International
serfs/slaves
cheap labour
WST argument on Labour:
Integrated Global Market according to WST:
• A single division of labor within a single world market
• Core states - higher-skill, capital-intensive production and
appropriate much of the economic surplus of the whole worldeconomy.
•Peripheral areas focus on low-skill, labor-intensive production
and extraction of raw materials
•In the colonial period labour moves to capital
•In the Post-colonial (corporate capitalist) period, capital moves
to labour
NIS
India
• Labour on land to produce food for
subsistence could not compete with market
demands for land as a commodity.
• Colonial : India’s colonial labour (wages) is
unequal in value to British capital (factory
as fixed capital & profit).
Labour & Unequal exchange: Subsistence production
NIC: subsistence tenants were expelled - peasants were
drawn into factory as wage workers – their labour
produces more exchange value than the wages they get
– the industry owner’s profit arises from this – India’s
unemployed labour shipped as global colonial labour
NIC:
• Labour gets poor wages (64)
• Colonial : India’s colonial ‘captive’ labour (67)
• Profit from export goes to the capital investor:
British factory owners
• Profit from land goes to the landlord
Rukmani’s subsistence manual labour is a way
of life:
• Grows pumpkin (10, 13)
• She predicts market relations (28)
• Tenancy & land ownership: (31, 132)
• Seed (75)
• Drought & water (76)
• Working the land (48)
• Labour supply to Ceylon (67)
Argument 4: The Ideology of the “Whiteman’s
Burden” (a blend of colonial power & religious
ideology) discredits the local values to promote
westernization
• Superiority of the West and disintegration of
the community
• Commodification of peripheral countries’
land and resources lead to poverty &
destitution.
Argument 4
WMB
Missionary
Conceals
raw power
Westernization of
values
Imperial
superiority of
modernism
What do the missionary or church think of the
poor countries and people?
•Rukmani initially considers the missionary as
helpful
• Church considers the poor people as backward
and therefore responsible for their poverty
Why do the missionary & church not continue to
help the village or the community?
• Colonial or corporate interests
• Belief in Whiteman's burden
• blame the poor for not being ‘modern’ like the
West
Religion conceals the exploitive power of the
West’s self interest:
Colonial extraction:
•Market for raw materials (leather)
•Import of technology (factory)
•Instant urbanization (town)
•Impoverishment of rural people
How does White Man’s burden metaphorically
explain the superiority of the Western values?
Eurocentric view of the world and global economy
Missionary (Nectar …p111)
Colonial powers colonize the mind – the
worst form of control)
What are the solutions?
• Reject the historical White Man’s Burden
• Reject the cultural superiority of the West
• Acknowledge the uniqueness of each
country’s social and political culture
• Foster a development path suitable to each
country.
Conclusion:
Integration of markets, technology, and labour into the
world system through the ideology of the West’s
superiority :
•Core countries: (see, WST: PUT-NDL)
• P: Militarily strong
• U: Appropriate much of the surplus of the whole
world-economy
• T: Technological superiority
• DL: Concentrate on higher-skill, capital-intensive
production
Integration of markets, technology, and labour into the
world system through the ideology of the West’s
superiority : (cont’d)
•Peripheral countries:
• P: powerlessness & poor economies
• U: low trading value & cheap labour
• T: Not allowed to advance their technologies
• DL: focus on low-skill, labor-intensive production
and extraction of raw materials