Summary of Walter Rodney & Vincent Harding's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The Walter Rodney Foundation works to contribute to a more equitable society by promoting literacy and education, health and development initiatives, civic involvement and leadership skills, and resources for the marginalized.
#2 The book addresses the contemporary African situation. It delves into the past to understand how the present came into being, and what the trends are for the near future. Development strategy is briefly addressed in the final section by A. M. Babu, former Minister of Economic Affairs and Development Planning in Tanzania.

Sujets

• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 09 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669351832
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Walter Rodney & Vincent Harding's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Walter Rodney Foundation works to contribute to a more equitable society by promoting literacy and education, health and development initiatives, civic involvement and leadership skills, and resources for the marginalized.

#2

The book addresses the contemporary African situation. It delves into the past to understand how the present came into being, and what the trends are for the near future. Development strategy is briefly addressed in the final section by A. M. Babu, former Minister of Economic Affairs and Development Planning in Tanzania.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The author states that the question of who is responsible for African underdevelopment can be answered at two levels. First, the answer is that the operation of the imperialist system is responsible for draining African wealth and making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resources of the continent. Second, you must deal with those who manipulate the system and those who are either agents or unwitting accomplices of the system.

#2

Rodney envisioned and worked on the assumption that the new development of Africans and other dependent peoples of the periphery would require a radical break with the international capitalist system. He knew that any such break or serious contestation would precipitate profound changes at the center itself.

#3

The death of Walter Rodney shocked everyone who knew him, and he had a consistent and integrity that could not be ignored or denied. He was a political activist from a young age, and by the time he graduated from the University of London in 1966, he was prepared to write history from a revolutionary, socialist perspective.

#4

In 1968, Walter returned to Jamaica to take a post in History at his alma mater and develop a major program in African and Caribbean studies. He was expelled from Jamaica in October, 1968, for political activity.

#5

Walter Rodney was a brother, teacher, and comrade. He was the author of the book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, which was published in 1972. It was a call for Africa to break free from the colonizing forces of Europe and create a new order.

#6

Walter Rodney’s work also addressed the role of education in the African American struggle, and how it can be used to destroy social solidarity and promote individualism.

#7

The author, Walter Rodney, was a black intellectual who was committed to the liberation and development of his people. He had two goals: to write a history of the working people of his country, and to immerse himself in the contemporary life of those same people and find a way to resist the power of a government that had betrayed their hopes and trust.

#8

Walter’s friends and family urged him to leave Guyana, as the government’s oppression increased. But Walter felt responsible to his comrades and people, and he could not leave them. On Feb. 27, 1980, the government formally announced that the WPA had transformed itself into a political party.

#9

The death of Walter Rodney reminded me of Fanon. He too was a committed and courageous man who died before he was forty. He too called the children of Africa to seize the initiative and change Europe’s ways.

#10

The WPA was one part of the job that needed to be done, and Walter Rodney’s research and writing was another. He saw no contradiction between them. All elements of the task were held firmly together by the righteous integrity of his life, the disciplined power of his visions, and his undying love for the people and their possibilities.

#11

Only by taking on the challenge of re-developing ourselves can we prepare to take on the challenge of re-developing the world.

#12

We must open ourselves to all those who recognize the brutal dialectics of underdevelopment, and reach out to each other, facing the harsh but beautiful reality that we must either redevelop ourselves and our world or be forced together into a terrible, explosive closing of the light.

#13

The dissertation was published by Clarendon Press in 1970, and recently reprinted in paperback by Monthly Review Press. It was named after Paul Bogle, the leader of the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and Toussaint L’Ouverture, the Haitian leader.

#14

The so-called underdeveloped countries are in total stagnation, and some of them are even experiencing slower economic growth than their population increase. These characteristics are not a coincidence, they are the result of the capitalist system in full expansion transferring its most blatant forms of exploitation to the dependent countries.

#15

Human development is a many-sided process. At the level of the individual, it entails increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility, and material well-being. Development at the social level implies an increase in the capacity to regulate both internal and external relationships.

#16

Economic development is the increase in the capacity of a society to deal with the environment. This capacity is dependent on the extent to which people understand the laws of nature, on the extent to which they implement that understanding by developing tools, and on the manner in which work is organized.

#17

The rise of the state and the division of labor led to more production, but also to more inequality in distribution. A small section of Chinese society came to take a disproportionate share of the proceeds of human labor, and that was the section which did least to generate wealth by working in agriculture or industry.

#18

In the natural sciences, it is well known that in many instances quantitative change becomes qualitative after a certain period. In human society, this has always been the case. The expansion of the economy leads to a change in the form of social relations.

#19

The history of those societies that have passed through several modes of production demonstrates that the opportunity to see how quantitative changes lead to a completely different society is available. The key feature is that at given junctures, the social relations in the society were no longer effective in promoting advance.

#20

The development of human societies has always been uneven. While all societies have experienced development, it is equally true that the rate of development differed from continent to continent, and within each continent different parts increased their command over nature at different rates.

#21

The capitalist mode of production, which is based on the pursuit of profit, is responsible for many of the features today referred to as Western democracy. However, these social relations are now outmoded, just like slave and feudal relations.

#22

The capitalist system has done little to help the well-being of the majority of people, as it has always been concerned with profits rather than people’s needs. It has created its own irrationalities such as white racism and the waste associated with advertising.

#23

When two different types of societies come into contact with each other, the weaker of the two is usually affected negatively. And the bigger the gap between the two societies, the worse the consequences.

#24

Socialism has brought about economic equality, and this is why the principle of egalitarian distribution is consistent with the satisfaction of the wants of all members of society. The most crucial factor in this regard has been the implementation of planned development.

#25

Underdevelopment is the process of comparing levels of development. It is very much tied to the fact that human social development has been uneven and from a strictly economic viewpoint, some groups have advanced further by producing more and becoming more wealthy.

#26

When discussing the topic of development, it is important to realize that such a process requires the removal of the gross inequalities of land distribution, property holding, and income, which are masked by national income figures.

#27

The gap between the rich and the poor is not only growing, but it is also increasing. The developed countries are getting richer, while the underdeveloped countries are showing stagnation or slow rates of growth.

#28

The developed countries are all industrialized. They have a higher output of labor per man in industry because of their advanced technology and skills. The underdeveloped countries are those that rely on agriculture and have little or no industry.

#29

The social services provided by a country are as important as its material production in achieving human well-being and happiness. The extent to which basic goods and social services are available in a country can be measured indirectly by looking at the life expectancy, the frequency of deaths among children, the amount of malnutrition, and the proportion of illiterates.

#30

The typical underdeveloped economy is characterized by a lack of heavy industry, unscientific agriculture, and a disproportionate distribution of locally generated wealth that goes to a privileged few.

#31

The argument that African governments should pay taxes to keep their countries running is completely absurd. African governments do not develop their countries; the people who do develop their countries are the peasants and workers.

#32

Underdevelopment is a paradox. Many parts of the world that are rich in resources are poor, while parts that are not well off in wealth of soil and subsoil are enjoying the highest standards of living.