Imperialism Disguised as Economical Help

Source:

Neo-colonialism: The long arm of imperialism by Ed Caffin (Only Economic Control subdivision) http://latitudes.nu/neo-colonialism-the-long-arm-of-imperialism.html.

According to the American Heritage dictionary, neo-colonialism is a policy whereby a major power uses economic and political means to perpetrate or extend its influence over other nations.

 

"The end of World War II sparked a process of decolonisation throughout the World, the days of imperialism were proclaimed over. More than half a century later however, developed countries are still highly involved in developing or third-world countries. According to many critics, this involvement is nothing less than imperialism, often disguised as development aid. In a system often referred to as neo-colonialism, developing countries are still being exploited by developed countries. As we will see, neo-colonial practice has taken many forms. This is the case in Indonesia". (Caffin, Ed)

In a subdivision of this article we can see how developed countries take advantage  their third-world inferiors.  It is subdivided in 4 parts of the article: economic development, other ways of exploitation, mass tourism as Neo-Colonial practice, and the rich and the poor. The part that I consider the most impactant and relevant is the one of economic development. In this segment we are explained how financial aids to poor countries are just disguised ways of imperialism because for the financial aid the countries need to follow the regulations of the developed country who is "helping them". They give us the example of Indonesia, which had massive external debts that then were controlled by the decisions of foreign parties (Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI), later knows as Consultative Group on Indonesia). This consortium conformed mainly by Western leaders had to made decisions such as how mush financial aid they would give to Indonesia and they had to approve Indonesias budget. After all, this resulted in economic growth but the conditions were to strict and one could say that Indonesia was imprisoned.

Another thing besides financial aid was that rich countries got interested in the raw materials of many developing countries. Indonesia which is rich of crude oil, natural gas, tin, copper, and gold, was victim of this form of imperialism. Most of their raw materials were exploited by world powers such as the United States. These developed states which exploited the raw materials of third-world countries like Indonesia often obtained monopolies of these exploitations.