“England has got successful competitors in America, Japan, France, Germany. It has competitors in the handful of mills in India, and as there has been an awakening in India, even so there will be an awakening in South Africa with its vastly richer resources — natural, mineral, and human. The mighty English look quite pigmies before the mighty races of Africa. They are noble savages, after all, you will say. They are certainly noble, but no savages and in the course of a few years the Western nations may cease to find in Africa a dumping ground for their wares.”
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People written off as backward have a way of rising once they wake to their own strength, and the arrangement that treated them as a dumping ground quietly ends. The idea rests on dignity: those long underestimated are neither inferior nor helpless, and self-development is what stops the exploitation.
When to use it
- A small local supplier long treated as an afterthought builds its own quality and stops being squeezed by the big buyer.
- Workers dismissed as unskilled train up and negotiate as equals once they can do the specialized work themselves.
- A region tired of exporting only raw materials invests in its own factories and captures the value it used to give away.