The "Planners": a Perpetual Failure of Imperialism

William Easterly’s description of global “Planners” paints an accurate portrayal of “new imperialism,” practiced by Western Europe, the United States and East Asia during the nineteenth century. Although Easterly’s solution of employing “Searcher” heroes to solve modern, global problems is less credible than that of his imperialist “Planners,” Easterly draws distinct connections between the failures of developed countries today to boost underdeveloped economies and the detrimental effects of imperialism 200 years ago. Regardless of moral implications, imperialism of the nineteenth century not only created the Third World country, but it also perpetuated the economic underdevelopment of colonized regions and provoked political and social problems that continue to plague countries today. Economically, the establishment of capitalist economies in colonies, although idealistic wholesome, realistically profited only special interest groups of imperialist powers because as the Western world entered the Industrial Age, colonies maintained the agrarian system to provide raw materials. Even domestic reform movements and European taxpayers suffered from Western Europe’s imperialistic ambitions, and yet many people “then (and now) were sold on the idea that imperialism was economically profitable for the homeland,” according to historian John P. McKay of A History of Western Society since 1300. Because these areas were indeed under European control, European economies had the economic right to exploit the raw materials of the regions, allocate and trade scarce resources within European and the global economies, and utilize the comparative advantages of developed and underdeveloped countries (again, moral arguments aside). However, once the underdeveloped regions gained independence in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they lagged significantly behind industrialized countries and cannot, to this day, support themselves without the constant stimulus of European and American powers. The Western world has spent over $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last 50 years, and yet these developed countries’ “Planner” tactics don’t seems to stimulate most underdeveloped economies that lack infrastructure and a stable economic base. And this doesn’t include other countless expenses, like those of modern warfare and terrorism in Africa and the Middle East, that imperialistic errors of the past created in the nineteenth century and that the West now must pay for in the twenty-first. Perhaps the lessons of the past may teach developed countries how to better aid underdeveloped countries – by employing “Searcher” techniques that better adapt to each regional environment (such as micro-financing, from which underdeveloped countries must establish their own economic structure without relying on the crippling and sporadic aid of the West) and avoiding costly plans to implement idealistically sound but realistically faulty projects. However, although the reliance of underdeveloped countries has not only cost Western powers money, it has also enabled the West’s economic control over the global economy. Perhaps the imperialistic powers of the past had the foresight to predict the power dynamic of today, dominated by the West, and perhaps the existence of the Third World is irreversible and inevitable as long as Western countries remain in power.