how europe underdeveloped africa deutsch

Colonizers had the power to set product prices, impose forced labor, and even recruit Africans to fight in distant war theaters.ĭespite having lasted less than a century, this was a period of rapid changes, and the production output gap between Europe and Africa increased 15- to 20-fold. The colonial administrations, as Rodney explains, were little more than committees working on behalf of big capitalists.īesides allowing for the extraction of huge profits which bankrolled advances in the Global North, colonialism also transferred the “cost” of wars and crises from the metropoles to the colonies. The colonial ruling of Africa had as its main element the expatriation of African surplus via different mechanisms, from the extraction of natural resources to the exploitation of African labor in sectors such as mining and agriculture.

In this article we try to concisely describe the main elements of Walter Rodney’s most important work, his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.” The Guyanese historian explained African underdevelopment as the flip side of European development, analyzing the relation between the two continents over time, their characteristics and consequences. The quick rise of the party turned Rodney into an enemy of the autocratic government of Forbes Burnham, which orchestrated his assassination. After returning to Guyana he founded the Working Peoples Alliance in an attempt to organize the country’s popular sectors. His political and academic activities allowed him to take part in different struggles, as well as actively participate in the “Black Power” movement in the US and the Caribbean. A Guyanese activist and intellectual, Rodney was one of the most renowned exponents of Panafricanism, looking to build unity among African and Afro-descendant peoples. Walter Rodney was murdered 40 years ago, on June 13, 1980.

How europe underdeveloped africa deutsch