The world we see is divided among high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Roughly a billion people live in the high-income world, while another billion live in the low-income world. The other five billion members of humanity are in between, known as the middle-income countries. If we look back to the period just before the Industrial Revolution that started in 1760, the world was fairly equal in poverty. Poverty was pervasive in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Since then, the economic output per person as well as the population of the world increased sharply. Consequently, economic growth took off and shot up very swiftly. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, several countries, mainly the UK and the countries adjacent to it, experienced a sustained economic growth. These countries largely transformed themselves from rural to urban, from an agriculture-based economy to modern industry, and later to a high-tech knowledge and ICT-intensive service economy. During the Industrial Revolution, manual production changed to machine production, new manufacturing processes were set up, improved efficiency of water power and steam power were achieved, and a shift from bio-fuels to coal took place. The textile industry was the first to absorb modern production methods. Later, the rest of the world replicated the technological advancement that took place in England. With the blessings of the Industrial Revolution, England transformed its economy from an agriculture base to an industry base. The modification or invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1776 brought about the major breakthrough. The Industrial Revolution had brought forth a unique form that created the modern era of economic growth. The world had been divided by the growth stemming out of the Industrial Revolution. The first kind of growth took place in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England in the middle of the 19th century as well as in Germany and the USA by the end of that century. These technological leaders gifted humanity with a series of new products by discoveries and innovations that later spread to other countries. For example, James Watt’s modified steam engine was widely utilised in factories, mines, locomotives, and ships. The second kind of economic growth, mostly resource based, took place in the countries that stayed back from the technology leaders. For instance, China did not industrialise in the 19th century and looked to the examples of the leading countries. These countries tried to narrow the technological gap with the leaders by absorbing the leaders’ innovations. The diffusion of technological advancements from its origin, England, had first struck its neighbouring countries, Germany, Netherland, Belgium, and France. Then it spread to the Scandinavian countries, Central Europe, and subsequently to the countries of Eastern Europe. There are some other countries whose economic growth took place within the same time as Europe; these are also called land of new settlements, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The next group of countries that received the ripple of technological advancements were those who share a favourable natural environment. Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are examples of countries who escaped from poverty by the end of the 19th century. In Asia, there was only one case of industrial take-off by the end of 19th century, and that was Japan. The rest of the world did not experience significant economic growth until the second half of the 20th century. The European countries became so powerful in the 17th and the 18th centuries that they conquered the rest of the world. The entire Africa continent and Indian subcontinent were colonised; the ripple of the economic growth did not reach them. They did not experience decolonisation and modern economic growth until WWII. By 1945, at the end of WWII, the world was divided in three groups. The first group, led by the USA, Western Europe, and Japan, is called the First World. The second group, the Second World, was the world of Soviet communism with its 15 republics, Central and Eastern Europe, and other communist countries including China. The third group, known as the Third World, was the former colonies that became independent after WWII. There is another group, a subset of the Third World, known as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The First World recovered from the damage of WWII remarkably quickly by the 1950s. The Second World, after several economic crises, began to reform in the late 70s in China and the early 90s in the Soviet Union. Besides, they opened their economy to the rest of the world. The Third World and the LDCs invited many foreign-owned companies to start industries in their countries. The countries first to invite foreign countries are Asian Tigers, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. As a result, these countries grew very rapidly in 70s and 80s by integrating their new industrial base with high tech industries of the First World. Thus Globalisation came to the countries that opened their trade and borders to foreign investment.
BANGLADESH’S PERSPECTIVE: The countries that are still waiting to take off are today’s least developed countries. Bangladesh, an LDC since its independence, has recently graduated to the lower middle-income group. According to the World Bank’s 2015 classification, countries with per capita annual income from $1,046 to $4,125 are recognised as lower middle income countries. Bangladesh’s average per capita income in the last three consecutive years crossed the World Bank’s criteria. In the past, the leading economies moved from agriculture to textiles, from textiles to electronics, from electronics to automobiles, and then from automobiles to advanced information technologies as they grew. For example, China has shifted from agriculture to textile or apparel, and now they are also shifting from apparel to the next step. Bangladesh’s agriculture value addition to its GDP (gross domestic product) was 15.9 per cent in 2014, whereas this was only 1.6 per cent for the high-income countries, and 9.8 per cent for the middle-income countries. The industry value addition to GDP was 27.9 per cent for Bangladesh in 2014, compared to 24.6 per cent for the high income countries and 34.7 per cent for the middle income countries. The service value addition was 56.2 per cent for Bangladesh in 2014, whereas it was 73.8 per cent for high-income countries and 55.5 per cent for middle-income countries. It is clear that Bangladesh is evenly poised to become an industry and service-oriented economy, largely leaving behind its relationship with agriculture. This is a matter of research on how long it will take for Bangladesh to step to the next echelon, how long it will take for Bangladesh to catch up the growth leaders, but this is subject to its future growth and political stability.
