 Hi. Welcome to the second module of the course, Economic Backwardness, Neoliberalism and Radical Development Critique. This is video lecture 3 focusing on questions of economic backwardness in a historical perspective. Now, what is economic backwardness? Now, there are several ways we can think of this. First, Karl Marx says, the industrially more developed country presents to the less developed country a picture of the latter's future, in which you can understand that a poor country like Bangladesh or India would look at present day United States and say, look, this is where we'd like to be 20 years or 30 years from now. And that is the role of that is the role that that a developed country plays for in the economic development of a poor country. On the other hand, you can turn this around and say, look, the differences between Bangladesh and India or Bangladesh and the United States or Dhaka and New York City could give you some idea of what economic backwardness is, whichever way you look at it, the relationship between a rich and a poor country is extremely critical in understanding the elements of economic backwardness. Alexander Gershankhra, another towering figure in economic development author of the famous book, Economic Backwardness in a Historical Perspective, writes, no past experience, however rich and no historical research, however thorough, can save the living generation, the creative task of finding their own answers and shaping their own future. In some sense, contradicting what Marx has said in the earlier quote, and that's precisely why it's here, because this course will tell you that there is absolutely very little consensus on things. What Gershankhra means is that look, it's not the same path that the United States had followed in its journey towards development that present day Bangladesh will follow. Present day Bangladesh is going to have its own challenges, it's going to have its own questions that need to be answered, its own roadblocks and no amount of historical research alone can sort of solve the problem. So, looking at the experience of Great Britain or United States of America can be useful, but not to a great extent to the experience, to the questions that Bangladesh needs answered. So, in that sense, one can think of economic backwardness as a specific problem that every country has to solve or face on its own. Now, some of the major books that I want to draw your attention to on this, first is this book, Economic Backwardness in a Historical Perspective by Gershankhra and that we who we spoke about that the new book on imperialism called the new imperialism by David Harvey and obviously Karl Marx's Dark Capital all deal with the question of development in a very, very interesting and a very, very historical way. Now, what is economic backwardness? So, Gershankhra says it's characterized by a tension between the state of the economy and the promise of change. So, it's a tension between status quo, how things are being done and how a new approach could promise how things will be done. So, it is a tension between say the existing state of technology versus the promise of a new state of technology. So, it's usually characterized the process of development is how that tension plays out, how that tension gets resolved and who, which party or which sort of social group within an economy gains as that tension gets sorted. However, you know, one can think of other ways to characterize a backward economy. For instance, it's an economy with abundant labor. It's an economy with lack of technical skills at both in people and in the state of physical technology. And finally, it's an economy which is heavily reliant on agriculture. Right? Now, some historical points, for instance, England we know was the first country to embark upon the Industrial Revolution was soon followed by France, Germany, United States and the US 12 Soviet Union. Now, what it gives us is what studying their experience tells us is that certain common elements can be sort of traced out and we can see how relevant they are for modern day development, for the modern day practice of development in countries like Ghana or Kenya or Bangladesh, you know. So, some of these major themes are what is the role of the state? What is the role of the market? What is the role of colonialism and what is the role of accumulation by dispossession? Now, this presentation essentially will deal with all of these and give you a historical perspective of how these institutions interacted to produce development in the rich countries and how they have impacted the underdevelopment in the poor countries. Finally, I will end with this quote by Thonstine Weblin who says that borrowed technology was one of the primary factors ensuring high-speed development in a backward country entering the stage of industrialization. So, Weblin, another very famous social scientist, talks about the role of technology and what he is politely calling borrowed technology was actually stolen or plundered technology because remember this was a time when intellectual property rights were very weak, the time when countries like Great Britain, United States, France, Germany and Japan were industrializing, there was mass scale plunder of technology and that Weblin has played a huge role in the development process. The rest of this presentation will go back to analyzing the role of the state, the role of the market, the role of banks and most importantly the role of colonialism and accumulation by dispossession in the historical development process of the rich countries. It will also sort of put an alternative lens and say how these very same processes may be responsible for the underdevelopment of modern day poor countries. So, once again, I end this video presentation here, but I will really urge you to go ahead and carefully read the rest of this PowerPoint as it answers most of the questions that I have raised in this short video.