Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
was able to export its physical resources. The outstanding growth of the us
Pacific Northwest, for example, was a function of the export of, first, fur, then
timber products, then wheat, and finally the enormous electrical energy potential
from its rivers, in the form of aluminium and the aeroplanes made from it. Each
export staple brought new money into the region and enabled service industries
to grow and feed off the staple. It was never fully possible to justify the theory,
only to indicate particular regions where it seemed most to apply. At the
theoretical level, it was found that exports from a region depended heavily on the
size of that region; the smaller it was, the greater was the importance of exports.
For the same reason today at national level, it is impossible to compare the exports
of, say, Singapore, with those of the USA. The latter trades its goods and
services mostly within the boundaries of the state, whereas the former must
always depend on exports to the rest of the world.
There are few regions where such a theory is applicable today, where
undiscovered or undeveloped resources are to be tapped. Chisholm (1980, 1982)
did show that resources might at times have critical value, but that the value
changed with the economic cycles, so that periods of stagnation in
manufacturing, and low value for manufactured goods, were accompanied by
high values for resources, and vice versa. High resource prices might put regions
rich in resources, notably today oil, gas and some metal mineral resources, at an
advantage, but they might then lose that advantage with the change of cycle to
revalue manufacture.
For the countries of East Asia, and for their comparison with those of Latin
America, it will in fact be necessary in later chapters to stand the resources
argument on its head. Those countries of Latin America with large resources of
minerals and open land, such as Argentina and Venezuela, have had a poor
record, while countries in the Far East with very limited resources, like
Singapore and Korea, have achieved rapid economic growth. To some extent this
has to do with the pressure that resource poverty imposes on human effort and
ingenuity. Development comes from need, historically, as is argued by
Wilkinson (1973), and it probably still does today. Resource abundance also
provides too much of a temptation for politicians and governments, who are
liable to be corrupted by the power and wealth given them through sale of the
resources. This argument is particularly valid for Latin America.
Anti-development
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, there has been a crisis in
development thinking, particularly for the left-wing view. Shuurman
(1993) writes of an “impasse in development theories”, following the powerful
criticisms of Marxist as well as modernization theories through the 1970s and
1980s. The 1990s crisis has come about not solely because of the failure of
communism in one country, but also because of deep concerns over the nature of
development itself, the strong challenge and apparent success of liberal policies,
