Essay Example on West vs Rest: Exploring the Growing Economic Divide

Introduction

In the 18th century, both China, India and industrialized West were strictly comparable in terms of their economic advancement, life expectancy and living standards (Marks, 2019). By the 19th century, a large and growing gap started to exist between the West and the rest of the world, China and India being included. The gap was simply attributed by the rationalized market economy that was oversimplified by the west policies. In this discussion, we will how social and environmental factors attributed to this gap. Also, how human-caused changes to the environment created the rebound effects and the imperial policies that created the gap between China and India, and the industrialized West.

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Social and environmental factors

Late Victoria Holocausts focus on three areas of drought and consistent famine; India, China and Brazil all of which were affected by the same climatic factors that caused massive crop failures, and all faced hash famine which decimated the populations (Davis, 2002). The effects of drought in each case were magnified as a result of destructive policies implemented by different ruling elites. Mike Davis, on the other side, argues that the seeds of underdevelopment which are known as The Third World was planted in the era of imperialism, which was as a price for Capitalist in modernization that was paid in the currency of millions of lives of peasants. During imperialism, income growth was negligible, and life expectancy becomes declined, and by the middle of the 19th century, per capita income of India fell by 50%. This was the direct result of the colonial policy that was imposed to monoculture cultivation of opium and indigo for export to China, and raw cotton, tea, and wheat for export to Britain.

The land tax was increased to high levels making small peasants abandon subsistence agriculture on rice for the cultivation of opium and indigo (Marks, 2019). Market forces of wheat determined prices and India continued exporting wheat to Europe even during the famine, later, the opening of Suez Canal reduced transport cost, which boosted wheat export to China. The cultivation of export crops was designed to benefit the colonial regime only but not the peasants. The consistent need for tribute and the increasing cost of colonial wars demanded a steady increase in land revenue, which resulted in consistent famines and deaths. Mike Davis calls the period 1870 to 1900 as the making of the third world, when a combination of the word conversion to a global standard, incorporation of the universal peasantry into global economies, trade deficit, over-taxation, export drivers, foreign control of crucial revenues and predatory merchant capital to consolidate Anglophone dominance. The stated state for agricultural liberation was to stabilize commodity markets by making supply more resilient minus reverse costs of perishable grain. Poor harvests in one region could be compensated by plenty harvest from other areas, but global climate models like El Nino Southern Oscillation violated global-scale yields of crops that put the global-scale in risks of producing modern-day food.

How human-caused changes to the environment created rebound effects

The rebound effect in India and China as a result of human progress in technology in reaction with the economic release that was facilitated energy efficient which induced income increase and decreased the prices of energy-related products to meet their increased demand. The energy-saving which was brought by technological progress could have consequently influenced by the rebound effect that could have increased emission of carbon dioxide. The technological advancement that was brought in by the rebound effect created the gap between India and China. The enormous technological progress was primarily attributed to China's enormous and rigid energy demand in heavy industry as compared to India that mostly demand energy for cottage industry. Despite the increased tension over energy supply in China, in the form of energy supply bottlenecks, China still went through a tremendous increase in energy consumption. Therefore, the advanced technology in China induced energy savings in the intensive-energy of heavy industries which was counteracted mainly by its overwhelming and unsatisfied demand. In the case of lighting, China rebound effect is smaller than India, because of the economics of benefit from efficiency improvement. Households consistently change their consumption behaviour, and thus consuming more of the electricity in the extending use of the time of alternating current, using alternating current to lower temperature, and also choosing large refrigerator to replace the old one.

As much as the maximum possible resource-saving through increased efficiency ii not attained, the direct rebound effect reduces or even my result to reduced benefits of improved technological efficiency. A country like China is likely to achieve its increased energy efficiency because it uses most of its energy in heavy industry as compared to India, which handles most of its energy in household consumption. Hence, practices for energy consumption between China and India is what creates the gap of rebound effects between them. The rebound effect is higher in India because high-quality energy is still being used in small households, and the energy demand is very elastic, and also there is the uncertainty of the precise energy efficiency scale. Once energy efficiency improves such as in the case of China, the energy bottlenecks also get relaxed throughout the energy efficiency improvement, but the demand for energy might not decrease because energy efficiency improvements are aimed at meeting the procedures of unsatisfied demand for energy. In some cases, technological advances may offset the rebound effect of energy-saving, and in some cases, it results in an increase in emission of carbon dioxide.

Imperial policies that created the gap

The industrialized West induced trading patterns that were entitled to change the long-run policy as practices over China and India, which created a gap between them (Nowell, & Magdoff, 2018). The policies were; occupying areas that supplied precious metals, tropical products and slaves in significant demand, establishing white settlers, and setting up trading posts and forts in addition of applying military strength to achieve the transfer to European merchants. The industrialized West also found policies of adopting the non-industrialized parts by overhauling the existing land and property arrangements which included the introduction of private property in land policy. The policy of creating labor supply for commercial agriculture and mining through forced labor and indirect measures. Another policy was the spread of use of money and exchanging of products through imposing money payment system of taxes and land rent. Lastly, the policy of production and exports by the native producers only. These are the essential policies which created the gap between India and Chine, and the industrialized West. The policies were exact moral equivalent to bombs because the homeland occupiers were not given a chance to proclaim their land. They had to pay rent by living in their own land, forced to work and pay for taxes, and much also they were not allowed to carry out export activities.

The policy of restricting exports led India much behind. For several centuries India was known as the exporter of cotton, but Britain came in and imposed stiff tariffs aimed at protecting its domestic manufactures from the Indian competition. Yet, in half on the 19th century, India was receiving cotton imports from the British, and it had lost its markets (Davis, 2002). It's clear that such vital transformations cannot get very far without political changes like effective administrative techniques, development of sufficient cooperative to local elite, social stability and environment conducive to the radical changes imposed by a foreign power. Naturally, the imposition of the policies to China and India by the industrialized West for the decades influenced special conditions in each era. It should be emphasized that the expansion of the policies and practices were rarely long-range and integrated planning. The desire for development was consistent because it was the pressure of gaining the most significant advantage possible from the resulting opportunities. But the expansions arose in the middle of intense rival among major powers the distribution of power to the Europe continent. Hence the issues of national power, military strength and national wealth finally shifted to the world stage as commerce and territorial acquisition started to spread across the segments of the globe.

Conclusion

The existing gap between China and India and the industrialized West is ideally supported by a number of factors. The social and environmental factors such as drought, famine and the El Nino that affected most of the regions of the globe made India and China to get staggered behind in their economic advancement. The human-caused changes to environment in terms of technological progress highlights another factor that create a gap between China and India. China's energy-saving efficiency is directed in heavy industry which makes it produce technologically related products at low prices to meet the rising demand while India, its energy savings is much dwelled in household consumption, making it less advanced as compared to China. Lastly, the West introduced imperial policies to the rest of the world, including India and China, restricting their exports, making them stack behind in economic advancement.

References

Davis, M. (2002). Late Victorian holocausts: El Nino famines and the making of the third world. Verso Books.

Marks, R. B. (2019). The origins of the modern world: A global and environmental narrative from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Rowman & Littlefield.

Nowell, C. E., & Magdoff, H. (2018, November 5). European expansion since 1763. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Western-colonialism/European-expansion-since-1763