Development
Pratik Nanda/ WS2 P3
It has been a huge mystery about how some societies developed more than some others where as all of them started off as hunter gatherers only. Many theories and ideas have been presented about how this happened and I decided to focus upon the 3 most important theories put forward by Walt Rostow, Immanuel Wallerstein and Jared Diamond, some of the most important sociologists of the modern days. Though the 3 different people base their theories upon different matter- the evidence provided is convincing enough to satisfy the reader’s demand.
Walt Rostow has described in his much acclaimed theory of economic development that all countries go through 5 stages of development before they are fully developed. Much of his theory is based upon the development of England, which is a developed country. According to Rostow savings and capital formation (accumulation) are central to the process of growth and the key to development is to mobilize savings to generate the investment to set in train self generating economic growth. According to Rostow this sort of development started in England in 1750s and thus he created 5 stages through which England passed and they are-
• Stage1 (The Traditional Society)- England before 1750s like all the other traditional societies was an agricultural society .A large part of the population of England were farmers. Crops were rotated according to a standard plan and life style of people hadn’t changed much since the Middle Ages. So, according to Rostow all the countries at this stage were mainly dependent on agriculture.
• Stage2 (Pre-conditions for Takeoff) - This period started in England at the beginning of Industrial Revolution. During this period the ideology of the people had changed a lot. It was believed that the country which has more industrial output will rule the world. Mercantilism was on a rise. The textile industry got a huge boost with the invention of the Spinning...