THE CORE PERIPHERY MODEL By: Ralph Kindler

The Central Idea The main point of the model is that there is a grouping of countries that wealth flows from down into lesser developed countries. These lesser developed countries usually hold plantations and factories owned by the more developed states. The key and powerful nations are known as the core and the weaker nations are known as the periphery, this view is used to examine what factors affect a countries development.

The Core The largest members of the core are the powerful and wealthy developed nations. Some of these are Great Britain, The United States, France, Russia, and many others. The common trait through all of these countries is that they are heavily involved in other countries through colonialization or international policies. This enables them to have influence over many peripheral countries, making them the core of the world.

The Periphery Peripheral countries have weaker economies and have less development than core countries. They include South American, African, and Asian States. These countries are being pushed back in development by the plantations and international interference. These make them into a mono- economy that is completely focused on that one industry. They are then at the mercy of the weather and any international changes that may occur to keep growing. They also have no self control on their development because every citizen is growing bananas on a plantation.

Colonial Causes When a strong and powerful country goes to a weaker one to make them work or take their resources, then the weaker country will be heavily influenced by the culture of the colonizing nation. They will become more like the core, this is seen in India, Australia, and the United States in relation to Great Britain. These periphery countries are now actually becoming core countries as they developed.

Outsourcing Outsourcing is a Core country utilizing a Periphery one to find cheap labor. The main offices and managers will remain in the core while the unskilled and semi-skilled labor will occur where it workers can be paid a few dollars a week without benefits. Thus more workers will come in to the factory because it is a stable job and the best available one. This will remove the need to generate new ideas and develop further.

Plantations Plantation farming is a severe countermeasure to development. They provide almost the entire cities population with a job on a farm. The whole population growing one crop, if one bad season occurs, then the whole city is going to starve. They are also going to have no funds to have any chance at growth or development. Plantations are also not run fairly around the world, workers are not compensated for their work, leaving the town even worse off.

The United States The United States originated as a colony of Great Britain and one of Britain's Periphery countries. We later outgrew our mother country after defeating them in a revolution. We grew so strong that we become the leading world power and the central country of the Core. We now have many policies, farms, and factories around the world that control the workings of many developing countries, we were able to break out of colonialism only by a successful war, a feat unavailable to many periphery countries today.