were expected to first mobilize their own domestic savings. Yet they
could also rely on foreign investment, the impact of transnational cor-
porations on development being “on the whole...a favorable one.”^72
In sum, for the right, the formula for economic growth and devel-
opment was invariable across time and space. The argument was pro-
posed as a response to those on the left for whom colonialism explained
both the development of the North and the underdevelopment of
the South. For conservatives, the experiences of the United States,
Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian countries proved in fact that
the lack of a colonial empire was not an obstacle to development.
Noting that a number of former colonies had undertaken their eco-
nomic take-off (Argentina, Brazil, and South Korea for instance), while
territories that had never been colonized had remained underdeveloped
(Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Thailand), the right also argued that col-
onization was evidently not the chief determinant explaining poverty.
History seemed to bear out the idea that what hampered development
stemmed a good deal more from domestic than from external factors.
At the other end of the political spectrum, as progressives distanced
themselves from communism, they strengthened their commitment to
the Third World. According to a view that gradually gained ascend-
ancy among socialists and social-democrats, widespread poverty
posed a greater threat to global security than the arms race. Somewhat
surprisingly, Pope Paul VI supplied the left with one of its most
effective slogans when he declared in 1967 that development was “the
new name for peace.”^73
The left often stressed the virtues of North–South interdependence.
The 1980 report of the International Commission chaired by former
social-democratic German Chancellor Willy Brandt, for instance,
highlighted the degree to which the North and South shared mutual
interests. The report’s central thesis was that a global redistribution of
resources would enhance political stability and economic growth for
all.^74 Beyond this line of reasoning, the Brandt report also affirmed the
(^72) Robert Gilpin,The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton
73 University Press, 1987, p. 248.
Paul VI,Populorum Progressio: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Paul
VI, March 26, 1967, p. 51 (www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/p6develo.htm).
(^74) Independent Commission on International Development Issues (chaired by
Willy Brandt),North–South: A Program for Survival, Cambridge, MA, MIT
Press, 1980.
The age of universality (1945–1980) 131