ABSTRACT
Lack of diversity, and lack of ability to change, are two of the main symptoms of underdevelopment. Many poor countries lack the financial and technical capacity, and the market for goods and services, to support a wide range of industries, and particularly of secondary industries capable of exporting. Historically, the first stage of ‘economic development’ for many ldcs was the creation of plantations to export tropical crops to imperial powers, or the exploitation of mineral resources also for export. These plantations or mines tended to form foreign-controlled ‘enclaves’ with little beneficial impact on the development of agriculture or local industries. The cash economy of many ldcs became based almost exclusively on the export of a few commodities, in their raw or virtually unprocessed form, through channels controlled by companies based in the West and heavily influenced by the activities and attitudes of Western governments.
