questions

>Can somebody please explain the following quotation to me:

hi, fernando. i think this looks like a confusing passage because of the
way it is written. let me throw some ideas. 

>"When we think of modernization and development, we tend to think of the
>International Style of the Bauhaus, hig steel buildings, quiet running
>engines and so on.

the author seems to suggest that we tend to view modernization at its face
value. the generally accepted view about modernization maintains the
beleif that modernization indicates a certain level of socio-economic
development and cultural modernity. especially in the main-stream
development literature and its different variants such as functionalism,
development refers to a process through which societies become:

*economically, politically and culturally modernized: the more we have
factories, steel buldings and running engines, the more we are developed.
the higher we have per capita income, the more we are modernized. thus,the
more we are economically modernized, the more we are culturally
enlightened (educated) and politically stable. we can find linear
associations of these sorts in Almond and Verba's Civic Culture, Lipset's
Political Man and Rostow's Stages of Capitalist Development:
An Anti-Communist Manifesto. 

note that in the mainstream literature, modernization and development are
used interchangebly, and that there is harldy a conceptual distinction
between the two. as the author implictly suggests, we tend to view these
indicators in a very simplistic and descriptive manner. we hardly ask how
and why these indicators become legitimate tools for measuring
development. if so, what kind of development are we talking about?
whose development are we taking as the norm or the reference point?

>We must recognize this image as self deception if we
>are truly to look at things scientifically and in a world systems
>perspective. 

again, taking the high steel building as an indicator of development is
self-deceiving unless we ask where and how this development is occuring in
the _first_ place.

>If development is a world scale phenomena, then everything
>it
>has produced, and not just those parts that are pleasing to the eye or to
>the moral sense, must equally be called modern and developed. "Modern
>architecture" must be seen as precisely what every major city in the
>third
>world actually has today: steel and glass high rise buildings plus slums
>built by squatters.

in the third world, urban/city development reflects societies'
socio-economic stratification, structural poverty and uneven
development. for example, it is not suprising to see hilton hotel
surrounded by slums in cairo. as societies are incorporated into
capitalist world economy, global capitalism reinforces structural
inequalites, exacarbating the gap already existing  between socio-economic
classes: make the cities financial centers and transport the poor to slums
outside the cities; in other words, avoid the trouble makers. even in new
york city, the pataki government has adapted this stratification policy as
a way of reducing the crime. the ones who are paying the price are poor
african americans forced to leave the city under the racist slogan: new
york for the new yorkers.


>FOr the slums are just as new as the high rises or
>newer...From a world systems perspective we should never fall into the
>sentimental error of talking about "poverty versus modernization" or
>"slums versus development" 

this is very true. we generally describe poverty as _lack of
modernization_, something we tend to associate with _backwardness_.
this is a streotype that we especially use when we try to explain the
socio-economic status of third world societies (see Edward Said's
Orientalism and Samir Amin's Eurocentricism).this streotype is so
deeply embedded in our language that even the critics of modernization
unconsciously use it for sentimental reasons. here are a couple
problems with "poverty versus modernization" rhetoric:

1. it is idealist because it undialectially seperates poverty from
modernization as if poverty is the result of a wrong economic policy or a
bad implementation, which can be solved individually by the efforts of
governments. alternatively,  a world systemic approach suggests that
modernization (development) and poverty (underdevelopnment) are the sides
of the same coin (capitalism). capitalism constantly reproduces
hierarchies to make sure its surplus comes from somewhere. even if assume
that the gap between the core and the periphery slowly closes, then
capitalism promotes new hierarchies within the periphery (taiwan versus
malaysia VS japan). currently, the world capitalism is operating under
multiple hierarchies and power struggles taking place within and among
capitalist states. 

2. deconstructing the language in the "poverty versus modernization"
approach, we automatically see that it is highly eurocentric. it relies on
western notions of development, norms and categories to
identify  what is _modern_ and what is _not modern_. such a view is not
only blind to structural inequalities between the advanced capitalist
nations and developing countries, but it also victimizes and disempowers
the countries in the periphery by labeling them as "backward",
"non-modern", and "uncivilized", as if it is their individual choice or
mistake to remain underdeveloped. 


>because this langage takes our attention away
>from the very things that need to be studied, namely, the modernization
>of
>poverty and the development of slums."  from C. Douglas Lummis Radical
>democracy p.66-67

i guess that "modernization of poverty" and "development of slums" refer
to stratification problem i mentioned above.

>I don't get how the connection between development and poverty is made on
>this local scale. How is it exactly that the rise of modern cities in the
>third world is paralleled with the rise of slums (it can't just be
>through
>poor govt spending by which money is placed in grandiose projects rather
>than improving the living condition of the majority - world systems
>seeks,
>I think, a more systemic explanation).

>How would you explain the idea of the modernization of poverty?

it depends on what we mean by modernization of poverty. the author does
not clarify this. does it mean: 

1.deepining of poverty?
2.moderation of poverty?
3.alteration of poverty?
4.accumulation of poverty?
5.weakening of poverty?

my understanding of the problem is that poverty problem is like a
"dialectical unity"-- the unity of opposing tendencies. the moderation
of poverty in some parts of the world is _always_ and _always_ accompanied
by deepening of poverty in other parts of the world.this is structurally
determined in capitalism. climbing to the top of hierarchy requires
disempowering others through exploiting their resources. it is like an
action-reaction chain. taiwan beats malaysia to struggle against japan and
then malaysia beats indonesia to compansate its loses. for example, many
asian NICs engage in offshore production in less developed asian
countries. their workers are generally women, young and poorly paid who
are rarely unionized. 


this logic also applies to relations among regional blocks. for
example,one of the reasons why the US multinationals engaged in apperal
production in mexico and central america was because their main purpose
was to create a regional block against the rising apparel industry in
honkong and singapore. after 1980s, the US government put restrictions on
asian apparel exports entering the US markets. as a reaction, the asian
tigers are now exploring the caribbean (dominican republic, honduras,
costarica) to incorporate new  virgin lands (sorry for my gendered
language) to their spheres of influence*

you can also see the same line of reasoning in Wallerstein's Modern World
sytem II, chapter 3, "power struggle in the core"--british capitalism
versus the dutch in the 17th century. his narrative is a very good
illustration of the struggles among the core powers over material and
territorial resources.

hope this information helps. 

References:

Edna Bonacich ed.,, Global Production: the Apparel Industry in the Pacific
Rim (The Temple University Press, 1994).