Postwar Economic Shifts and Decolonization: A Global Transformation
The Postwar Economic Landscape
The economic expansion of capitalism, the third industrial revolution, and postwar international cooperation led to the creation of the welfare state in Western democracies. The state ensured the provision of welfare services for the population in areas of health, housing, education, pensions, social services, and unemployment protection in order to correct the socioeconomic inequalities of the capitalist system.
The Crisis in the International Monetary System
In the late 1960s, there were clear signs of the manifest failure of the monetary system. Some causes were:
- Lack of liquidity in the system: The expansion of trade and capital movements was larger than had been anticipated after the war. This caused a lack of liquidity, as the means of payment and financing were insufficient.
- The ineffectiveness of the dollar as a standard of exchange due to the growing contradiction between the role of the dollar as U.S. currency and its role as a standard of international exchange. The U.S. was irresponsible if we take into account its hegemonic role in the international monetary system. The expansionist agenda of Kennedy’s New Frontier and the Vietnam War fired up expenditure and accelerated inflation, so they opted not to issue dollars backed by a gold rating, but as they had the character of currency, inflation spread to other countries.
Destalinization and Decentralization
Stalin’s main problems:
- Exclusion of industrial consumer goods: The primacy of heavy industry led to the exclusion of investments in agriculture and industrial consumer goods. This caused a permanent shortage for the population.
- Little management flexibility: The centralized bureaucracy lacked the necessary flexibility to adapt production to demand, since decision-making was limited to the elites who created the plan.
A new system was implemented, decentralized planning, with the aim of improving the economic structure and the state of citizens. With regard to Eastern Europe, the Sovietization of political life was accompanied by a socialization of economic life, from which we highlight the following aspects:
- Centrally planned economy, through short and medium-term plans.
- Agrarian reform, maintaining collectivization: Distribution of land among farmers, organization of a centralized system with exchanges between cities and the countryside through cooperative storage, and disposal of rich peasants.
- Rapid industrialization and the promotion of heavy industry allowed these countries to abandon their agrarian status. But while the USSR had sought diversified industrial production.
- Creation of the COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) to coordinate financial and technical assistance between states and the socialist planning of the economy.
- Establishment of economic relations in favor of the USSR, as trade agreements or the prices of goods bought or sold were defined taking into account Soviet interests.
The Rise of Nationalism and Decolonization
The outbreak of World War I altered the relationship between the colonies and the metropolis. The nationalist groups that already existed in most countries of Asia and the Arab world took advantage of the dispute to seek concessions of self-government in exchange for their military and economic collaboration in the war. The metropolises encouraged nationalist movements in colonial countries in order to weaken their rivals.
Nationalist movements were strengthened in the interwar period, particularly in Asia, due to growing social and political tension caused by the simultaneous incidence of several factors:
- Economic exploitation: Faced with a serious worldwide crisis, the metropolis tried to get the maximum benefit from its empires. This deteriorated the living conditions of indigenous populations.
- Overcrowding and the breakdown of traditional economic sectors: Sanitary and technical improvements were unbalancing the population and their livelihoods, which led to increased poverty, unemployment, etc.
- Consciousness of political exclusion: The colonial ruling class and a large number of the native population, both bourgeois and bureaucrats, had been educated in the principles of the West and were increasingly aware of their submission. This was emphasized after the failure of promises of self-government that the metropolis had made during the Great War.
After the end of the war, the colonial system fell into a deep crisis. The metropolis had to cope with the disaster of human, economic, and military strife.
Two Paths to Independence
There were two paths to independence: armed and violent or peaceful negotiation.
- The armed or violent path led to the existence of a war of national liberation and was held in the colonies that the metropolis wanted to recover after the Second World War (Asia) or where the number of European settlers was very high (Algeria).
- The path of negotiation led to peaceful negotiation of independence between the metropolis, which thus achieved conditions favorable to its interests, and nationalist movements, which acted as lobbies with large popular mobilizations.
The Asian-African Conference
Starting in 1955, the solutions that were extracted from this conference were a program of demands from the Third World, while it meant the entry of former colonies into the political sphere. Colonialism was also condemned, as was rebellion against European domination, and there was a call for equality among nations and a rejection of racism.