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The North-South Divide

The North-South Divide (or Rich-Poor Divide) is the socio-economic and political division that
exists between the wealthy developed countries, known collectively as “the North,” and the
poorer developing countries (least developed countries), or “the South.” Although most nations
comprising the “North” are in fact located in the Northern Hemisphere, the divide is not
primarily defined by geography. The North is home to four out of five permanent members of
the United Nations Security Council and all members of the G8. “The North” mostly covers the
West and the First World, with much of the Second World. The expression “North-South divide”
is still in common use, but the terms “North” and “South” are already somewhat outdated. As
nations become economically developed, they may become part of the “North,” regardless of
geographical location, while any other nations which do not qualify for “developed” status are
in effect deemed to be part of the “South".

History of the North-South Divide

The origins of north-south divide dates back to the industrial revolution in Britain between 1750
and 1840, in which the discovery of new minerals such as iron and the technological advances
of steam and coal power, led to the mechanisation of agriculture, vast engineering works and
infrastructures such as the transnational railway system.The industrial revolution nevertheless
affected the social, cultural and economic conditions of the country, and while regions such as
the Midlands were the epicentre of mass production and labour during the ‘age of steel’ with
90% of the manufacturing industries situated in the north, the concentration of the country’s
economy was in the south.

Such socio-economic discrepancies can be seen in the commission of “workhouses” under the
Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 that coincided with the erection of squalid tenement blocks
during the 1840s in Gobals, an area surrounding the city of Glasgow, to provide homes for the
city’s growing population of industrial workers.

Problems with defining the dichotomy


Following the fall of the Soviet Bloc, which was commonly referred to as the Second World,
many of its constituent countries were reclassified as developing, despite being geographically
northern. At the same time, geographically southern nations previously considered
“developing,” such as the East Asian Tigers or Turkey, have joined the modern First World, but
are classified inconsistently in maps showing the North-South divide. Similarly, dependencies of
developed nations are also classified as Southern, although they are part of the developed
world. On an ideological level, some development geographers have argued that current
concentration on the North-South divide as the main organizing principle for understanding the
world economy has overlooked the role of inter-imperial conflicts between the United States,
Japan, and Europe.

The global Digital Divide is often characterized as corresponding to the North-South divide,
however it is interesting to note that Internet use, and especially broadband access, is now
soaring in Asia compared with other continents. This phenomenon is partially explained by the
ability of many countries in Asia to bypass older Internet technology and infrastructure, coupled
with booming economies which allow vastly more people to get online. The North-South divide
has more recently been named the development gap. This places greater emphasis on closing
the evident gap between rich (more economically developed) countries and poor (less
economically developed countries) countries. A good measure of on which side of the gap a
country is located is the Human Development Index. The nearer this is to 1.0, the greater is the
country’s level of development and the further the country is on its development pathway
(closer towards being well developed).The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and
developing Asia, including the Middle East, and is home to the BRIC countries (excluding Russia),
which are Brazil, India, and China, which, along with Indonesia, are the largest Southern states .

The North is mostly correlated with the Western world and the First World, along with much of
the Second World, while the South largely corresponds with the Third World and Eastern world.
The two groups are often defined in terms of their differing levels of wealth, development,
income inequality, democracy, political and economic freedom, as defined by freedom indices.
Nations in the North tend to be wealthier, less unequal and considered more democratic and to
be developed countries; Southern states are generally poorer developing countries with
younger, more fragile democracies and frequently share a history of past colonialism by
Northern states. The Global South "lacks appropriate technology, it has no political stability, the
economies are disarticulated, and their foreign exchange earnings depend on primary product
exports. Nevertheless, the divide between the North and the South increasingly "corresponds
less and less to reality and is increasingly challenged.

In economic terms, as of the early 21st century, the North—with one quarter of the world
population—controls four-fifths of the income earned anywhere in the world. 90% of the
manufacturing industries are owned by and located in the North. Inversely, the South—with
three quarters of the world population—has access to one-fifth of the world income. As nations
become economically developed, they may become part of the "North", regardless of
geographical location; similarly, any nations that do not qualify for "developed" status are in
effect.

The idea of categorizing countries by their economic and developmental status began during
the Cold War with the classifications of East and West. The Soviet Union and China represented
the East, and the United States and their allies represented the West. The term 'Third World'
came into parlance in the second half of the twentieth century. It originated in a 1952 article by
Alfred Sauvy entitled "Trois Mondes, Une Planète. Early definitions of the Third World
emphasized its exclusion from the East-West conflict of the Cold War as well as the ex-colonial
status and poverty of the nations it comprised. Efforts to mobilize the Third World as an
autonomous political entity were undertaken. The 1955 Bandung Conference was an early
meeting of Third World states in which an alternative to alignment with either the Eastern or
Western Blocs was promoted. Following this, the first Non-Aligned Summit was organized in
1961.

Contemporaneously, a mode of economic criticism which separated the world economy into
"core" and "periphery" was developed and given expression in a project for political reform
which "moved the terms 'North' and 'South' into the international political lexicon. In 1973, the
pursuit of a New International Economic Order which was to be negotiated between the North
and South was initiated at the Non-Aligned Summit held in Algiers. Also in 1973, the oil
embargo initiated by Arab OPEC countries as a result of the Yom Kippur War caused an increase
in world oil prices, with prices continuing to rise throughout the decade.This contributed to a
worldwide recession which resulted in industrialized nations increasing economically
protectionist policies and contributing less aid to the less developed countries of the South. The
slack was taken up by Western banks, which provided substantial loans to Third World
countries. However, many of these countries were not able to pay back their debt, which led the
IMF to extend further loans to them on the condition that they undertake certain liberalizing
reforms.This policy, which came to be known as structural adjustment, and was institutionalized
by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and Western governments, represented a break
from the Keynesian approach to foreign aid which had been the norm from the end of the
Second World War. After 1987, reports on the negative social impacts that structural adjustment
policies had had on affected developing nations led IFIs to supplement structural adjustment
policies with targeted anti-poverty projects. Following the end of the Cold War and the break-up
of the Soviet Union, some Second World countries joined the First World, and others joined the
Third World. A new and simpler classification was needed. Use of the terms "North" and
"South" became more widespread.

The American Civil War

The American Civil War (also known by other names) was a civil war fought in the United States
from 1861 to 1865, between the North (the Union) and the South (the Confederacy). The Civil
War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black
people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South
Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United
States. The loyalists of the Union in the North, which also included some geographically western
and southern states, proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the
Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights in order to uphold slavery.
Implication of the North-South Dichotomy on American Civil War

The year 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Civil War. Karl Marx
defined it as a struggle between two historical epochs – the feudal and the capitalist. The
victory of the latter made possible the eventual recognition of the human dignity and the civil
rights of African-Americans. Yet throughout the war, British public sentiment favoured the slave-
holding South. In October 1861 Marx, who was living in Primrose Hill, summed up the view of
the British press: ‘The war between the North and South is a tariff war. The war is, further, not
for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery and in fact turns on Northern lust for
sovereignty.’ That view was shared by Charles Dickens, who wrote: ‘The Northern onslaught
upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for
economic control of the United States. What Marx and the modern reader understands to be a
moral question – the question of whether or not one man could own another – many
contemporaries understood in terms of economics and law.

Prior to fighting, relations between the North and South had been poisoned by disputes over
taxes. The North financed its industrial development through crippling taxes imposed by
Congress on imported goods. The South, which had an agricultural economy and had to buy
machinery from abroad, ended up footing the bill. When recession hit in the 1850s Congress
hiked the import tax from 15 to 37 per cent. The South threatened secession and the North was
outraged. An editorial in the Chicago Daily Times warned that if the South left the Union ‘in one
single blow, our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one half of what it is now. Our
coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One half of our shipping would lie idle at our
wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits’. War was the
only alternative to financial ruin.

The North was broadly opposed to slavery and this cultural difference shaped the rhetoric of
war. Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party was a free labour movement – rabidly so. Northern
popular culture depicted Southerners as decadent, un-Christian sponges. Lincoln’s election in
1860 put government in the hands of the man most identified with anti-Dixie prejudice.
Inevitably Southerners interpreted it as a Northern coup d’état. Economic and cultural fear
propelled the country into war. But slavery was rarely the issue at hand. While the Republican
Party was anti-slavery, it was not abolitionist. In his 1861 inaugural address Lincoln stated: ‘I
have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery where it exists.
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so … If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave I would do it.’ High-minded though its rhetoric was, the
Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 only freed slaves in areas occupied by Union forces. Slave-
holding states fighting for the Union were exempted. Secretary of State William H. Steward
commented: ‘We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot
reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.'

The roots of economic difference between North and South lay in their labour systems. As Marx
observed: ‘The whole movement was and is based, as one sees, on the slave question. Not in
the sense of whether the slaves within the existing slave states should be emancipated outright
or not, but whether the 20 million free men of the North should submit any longer to an
oligarchy of three hundred thousand slaveholders.’ But the record shows that Northern greed
and anti-Southern prejudice played a big role in the Civil War too.

References:

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/contrarian/american-civil-war-north-south-divide.

Green Politics: An A-to-Z Guide. Edited by Dustin Mulvaney and Paul Robinson.

The north of England: the great divide. The Economist, 15–21 September 2012, volume 404,
number 8802.

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