The import of technology had also constituted a net gain to developing
countries. Its assimilation via the industrialization process contributed to
the development of indigenous technical capacity. Capabilities for assimi-
lating technology were improving rapidly year by year and were more
important than monopolistic foreign control for technological transfer and
progress (Warren, 1973, pp. 30–1). The importation of technology had led
to ‘amazing achievements’ and the abandonment of Western technology
would be disastrous. Warren cites the case of DDT in Sri Lanka, where a
ban on its use contributed to a rapid rise in malaria, previously almost elim-
inated in the country (1980, p. 180).
A number of dependent economies had also produced impressive growth
in per capita incomes. The post-war record of the Third World compares
favourably with its pre-war performance and with relevant periods of
growth (for example, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) in the
developed market economies (1980, pp. 191–9). This is not to say that there
have not been the inevitable inequalities associated with fast growth which
had sometimes been politically destabilizing. However, the rapid economic
progress since 1945 had not generallybeen associated with worsening
aggregate inequality. Experience has been mixed. The record also shows
improvements in welfare between 1963 and 1972 according to indicators
for nutrition, health, housing and education (1980, pp. 200–35).
Political independence, far from being a sham, was a significant change
in the internal politics of former colonies because it provided a focus for the
domestic state management of economic processes. The newly independent
state became the focal point of economic development. Formal independ-
ence gave Third World states ‘institutional control’ over their domestic
economies. The power to establish central banks and para-statals, enforce
export and import currency controls, and implement taxation and public
spending ‘stem directly from independence’ and affect far more than indus-
trialization, especially the reinforcement of capitalist social relations of pro-
duction, commodity production in agriculture, and economic restructuring
‘along lines more suitable to a successful indigenous capitalism’ (1973,
p. 13). The state exercised powers to direct investment and channel external
capital whether from aid, multinationals or foreign countries and controlled
the development of capitalist relations and modes of production. This led to
it becoming a significant actor in the national political system and not
totally subject to external political forces.
Domestic state management of the economy had significantly increased
revenues from resource-based industries such as oil, expanded training for
indigenous personnel, increased the demand for local inputs, and spread
96 Understanding Third World Politics