Robert Bates explores the connection between politics and economic ways of transformation in his book “Prosperity and Violence: The Political Economy of Development”. According to Bates political structure and economics of transformation is equal to the study of prosperity and violence, hence the name. Bates claims that for states to advance from a poor agrarian state to a wealthy industrialized society, they must go through what is called the “great transformation”. While all wealthy states had to go through the great transformation in the past to achieve the success they currently obtain today, many states still struggle to break out of an agrarian state in today’s society despite various attempts to do so. The great transformation process
…show more content…
Bates uses Ghana under the control of Kwame Nkrumah as an example of how overreaches of domesticized violence can be detrimental to economic development in regard to capital investments. Nkrumah wanted to expand industrial development in Ghana so he placed a monopoly on cocoa exports and high taxes onto cocoa farmers. Whenever opposition kingdoms formed against his efforts, Nkrumah used the government’s power to brand those kingdoms as a threat to the states future. As a result, those kingdoms crumbled from Nkrumah’s slander and the capital dwindled in Ghana which ultimately led to the impoverishment found in their society today. The other issue that plagues states today is when various communities form together and take up arms against one another, which ravishes the state with violence and hinders the national governments efforts in promoting economic development. This then goes on to effect capital, since capital investments are extremely difficult to accomplish whenever the political structure in a state is unstable, because investors see the risks as greater than the possible benefits. Therefore, when the capital or economic development is blocked by domestic political issues, economic prosperity is almost impossible to
Bates uses Ghana under the control of Kwame Nkrumah as an example of how overreaches of domesticized violence can be detrimental to economic development in regard to capital investments. Nkrumah wanted to expand industrial development in Ghana so he placed a monopoly on cocoa exports and high taxes onto cocoa farmers. Whenever opposition kingdoms formed against his efforts, Nkrumah used the government’s power to brand those kingdoms as a threat to the states future. As a result, those kingdoms crumbled from Nkrumah’s slander and the capital dwindled in Ghana which ultimately led to the impoverishment found in their society today. The other issue that plagues states today is when various communities form together and take up arms against one another, which ravishes the state with violence and hinders the national governments efforts in promoting economic development. This then goes on to effect capital, since capital investments are extremely difficult to accomplish whenever the political structure in a state is unstable, because investors see the risks as greater than the possible benefits. Therefore, when the capital or economic development is blocked by domestic political issues, economic prosperity is almost impossible to