Education and Economic growth in the developing countries (dedikált példány) [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION1. the double aspect of backwardnessOur age is characterized by blatant inequalities as well by great equalities. Now for the first time in history an idea which considers the achievement of genuine social equality its aim has come to prevail. This has happened under socialism. Equality, the idea of the French Revolution is on the way to realization over part of our globe. The developed capitalist societies have been able to terminate mass poverty which is generally regarded as the most striking sign of inequality, and to make accessible the material living standards of the middle-class as it existed a few decades earlier to the vast majority of the population. Nonetheless, inequality, which is an essential attribute of these societies, remains a principle that continues to determine the characteristic features of their social structure.As a matter of fact our age had to grow aware of a new kind of inequality, a greater inequality than any known before: the gap between the advanced and the underdeveloped countries. This gap existed already in earlier centuries, and the only reason why it did not "attract" so much notice probably was that thinkers in Europe and North America paid greater attention to the internal inequalities existing among the social classes. Injustice within national communities entailed irreconcilable conflicts among social forces and jeopardized the very existence of the ruling classes and some of the vital interests of the working classes. As a result, people were much less aware of any other injustice seen in the world.Then came fascism and World War II. Only afterwards and only as a result of the outcome of World War II, became the world able to pay attentionor it would be more appropriate to say it was forced to pay attentionto the great inequalities that have developed and assumed dangerous proportions in the last few centuries largely, owing to colonization. (There were, of course, differences in development between, for instance medieval Europe and the Africa of the times, or medieval Europe and the as yet "undiscovered" peoples of America. These differences were in fact history-making, accounting for the discovery of America by Europe rather than the other way around.)Colonization has made the gap between the continents wider. It has accelerated the economic growth of the mother countries and of the7