After his announcement the world was covered with under- developed countries in which development and modernization were either taking place or just about to. The ideological power of the concepts of modernization and development comes from their use of retroactive teleology. For example, we call a certain kind of stone iron ore , which means that if we crush it to powder and subject it to intense heat, it will yield iron. It wasn t ore until this technology was discovered. But once we have the technology, we redefine the stone such that extracting iron from it is seen as the actualization of its latent potential, its fated end, its telos.
Underdeveloped society is a word like ore .
It is a redefinition made possible by the fact that the leaders in the industrial capitalist countries believe they have the power and the technology to smash such a society, melt it down and remold it on the industrial capitalist model. At the same time, the word gives the impression that to do this is to fulfill that society s predetermined destiny. This conceals the violently antidemocratic nature of development. But at the very time the ideologues were popularizing this myth, they knew well that it wasn t really happening. Instead of having to cope with an agitated population carried away with exaggerated expectations, most governments in transitional societies are confronted with the problem of a disturbingly apathetic public which is inured to all appeals for action.