The understanding of the approach of Baha’i [1] capitalists towards the economy of Pahlavi period of time is impossible without understanding the concept of “comprador capitalism [2]“. So, even if we believe in development in this framework, we must speak about related development. This article speaks about the concept of “related development” in the framework of “Cardoso and Faltu thoughts.
Meantime, development means:
“multidimensional process that usually refers to a change from a less desirable state to a more desirable one. Development is a normative concept and there is no single acceptable definition for it. Some argue that development must be relevant to time, place, and circumstances and cannot be reduced to a formula with universal application.”[1] [3]
Barrington Moore names three main historical ways to pass pre-industrial world towards the new one: Bourgeois revolutions which were happened in England, America and France, Bourgeois revolutions from the top which were happened in Germany and Japan, socialist industrialization in the Soviet Union and China.[2] [4]
The researchers of the dependence school of the second half of 20th century have stressed on another way in renovation arena which of course it is not to be successful and to change a country and a government to a center of capitalism and that is “the related development.”
Development in this sense is “the advancement of productive forces mainly through the import of capital accumulation technology, the entry of foreign economic units into local economies, the increase in the number of wage-earning groups, and the intensification of the social division of labor.”[3] [5]
Cardosa and Faltu exploit the concept of “related development and dependence alongside with each other is indicating a kind of contradiction.[4] [6] ” The concept of related development points out” the accumulation of capital and to some extent of industrialization in peripheral… It should be emphasized that the related development isn’t negating dependence, but it is the dependence mixing with development.[5] [7]
Cardosa and Faltu believe that the dependent development is intrinsically abortive due to lack of technology. Also, it intensifies the weakness of national and native capitals and the needs of third world governments to international financial capitals, so the countries merge themselves in international capitalism.[6] [8]
To explain the pattern of dependent development, those two thinkers distinguish three kinds of political actors who are playing role in this pattern: military government, multi-national companies and local bourgeois.
Cardosa believes that a modern stage has started by entering multi-national companies or entering industrial capital into peripheral countries and the emergence of new international job division.
According to his reasoning, the presence of multi-national companies in peripheral splendor in these countries; because the aim of the foreign companies was producing consumable goods in interior markets of these countries which causes for the interests of these companies to be guaranteed and also causes the economic growth to be happened in dependent countries.
“In this way, development in the periphery implies a definite bond and dependence with technical, financial, market and organizational relations that only multinational corporations are able to provide it.”[7] [9]
However, dependent development is not only the result of relations between authoritarian states and international corporations; the third side of the phenomenon of dependent development must be sought in the internal factors and forces in the Third World countries; that is, local capitalism, which in this study, we have assumed it to be identical with the dependent economic flow of Baha’is due to the limitations of the research
As Cardoso and Faltho say:
“The system of domination is “internalized” through the social practices of local groups and social classes that reinforce foreign interests, and the system emerges as a domestic force. The reinforcement of foreign interests at home is not due to respect for the foreign, but precisely because the interests and values that these groups consider their own coincide with foreign interests.”[8] [10]
This intertwining of internal factors and external forces has led Cardoso and Faltho to view these relations as a complex whole that “the structural relations among them cannot be simply summarized as external exploitation and oppression, because these relations are rooted in the convergence of interests between the ruling classes of a country and the international classes.”[9] [11]
In addition to explaining the concept of dependent development, one should not expect that dependence will occur everywhere in the same way; rather, dependence will take on different forms depending on the conditions of time and place and it will lead to diverse processes and social transformations in different styles.
John Foraine rightly believes that understanding social transformation in a given society requires a careful examination of changes in class structure over time and attention to how external forces affect the distribution of power within.
Therefore, we should not naively assume that everything that happens in the political and economic arena of a peripheral country is the result of Western actions. Rather, we should examine a specific form of dependent development in a specific time and place, with a complex and at the same time variable set of relationships between domestic and foreign factors and structures.[10] [12]
Therefore, the Baha’i faith has been the greatest part of the Iranian capitalists, the internal link with the capitalists of foreign and Western multinational companies during the Pahlavi regime. Because dependent development is not only the result of relations between the authoritarian government and international companies; the third side of the phenomenon of dependent development should be sought in internal factors and forces in countries around the world; that is, the same local capitalism that was the dependent economic flow of Baha’ism in Iran during the Pahlavi regime.
Source: Reza Qaribi, Baha’i wealthy people and Pahlavi regime
Keep in touch with us: bahaismiran85@gmail.com [13]
[۱] [14] Ian McLean, Oxford political dictionary, translated by Hussein Ahmadi, Tehran, Mizan, 1381 S.H., pp.232-233.
[۲] [15] Moore, the social roots of dictatorship and democracy, Tehran, the center for academic publication, 1375 S.H.
[۳] [16] Cardoso and Faltu narrated by Foraine,” the concept of related development, the key of political economy of Iran in Gajar era, No.59&60, p. 34.
[۴] [17] Saee, development in contradictory schools, Tehran: Qos, 1384, pp. 155.
[۵] [18] Evans, narrated by Foraine, pp.34-35
[۶] [19] Saee, p. 156.
[۷] [20] Saee, ibid, p.156.
[۸] [21] Cardoso & Faltho, Dependence and Development in Latin America, translated by F. Hesamiyan and others, Tehran: Tondar, 1359, p.13.
[۹] [22] Ibid, pp.12-13.
[۱۰] [23] Foraine, ibid, p.35, and Cardoso ibid, p.15.