Development is a zero-sum game; this means that when some nations develop while causing underdevelopment in other nations. And I believe this statement is true and relevant.
Andre Gunder Frank said that many American corporations have an influence over Brazilian public utilities in trading. The corporations own certain parts of the public sector in Brazil and come into trade agreements under unfavourable terms of agreement. This means that the Brazilian partners receive far fewer benefits than America, which initiates the agreement, hence causing disproportionate benefits to advanced countries rather than the developing countries.
Frank also says that there is an extraction of capitalist surplus from developing countries when advanced countries come into agreement with developing countries. He calls the developed countries ‘metropolis’ and underdeveloped nations ‘satellites’. This is on the basis of the requirements of the international capitalist economy irrespective of whether the country has advanced features of capitalism or not. This sort of extraction will exist mostly through these trade agreements.
Another theorist named Walter Rodney also explains how Europe colonised Africa and caused systematic impoverishment of Africa by exploitation on the agricultural front and the implementation of slavery.
Immanuel Wallerstein divides the world into three regions: core, periphery and semi-periphery. Periphery is the less advanced region while core areas are mainly located in developed Western countries that have military-political and economic access for exploitation and the power to impose rates of exchange between the core and periphery. They exploit the periphery for their cheap labour, raw materials and agricultural goods and resources. Semi-periphery, on the other hand, is the intermediate region that exploits the periphery but also gets exploited by the core. As a result of the exploitation, there is a creation of surplus and extraction of the surplus by the elites.
We can also take the example of Bangladesh and the US. Most American corporations, especially clothing lines, set up factories in Bangladesh as their labour is cheaper. This leads to the exploitation of the Bangladeshi as well as their resources by the United States. The labourers aren’t even given their wages — which is very less, to begin with — on time. This leads to the development of the US at the cost of Bangladesh because of the extraction of resources and exploitation of labour.
In the same way, the British played a huge role in the underdevelopment of India as they had colonised India and taken most local goods to sell them in England at a higher price but did not pay even half of the earnings to the artisans here. They had also taken and exploited most of our resources such as Kohinoor and a variety of spices, and had taken them to England.