The US reframed colonialism as differential development opportunity, a discourse later central to neoliberalism

Evidence

The United States, which was both less invested than the UK and France in the old order of European colonialism and more anxious about allowing the Soviets to monopolise the language of progress, worked to construct a civilisational discourse adequate to a new era of universal rights. Eleanor Roosevelt told the delegates that while there were ‘peoples of different levels of development in various parts of the world’, this did not mean they were naturally inferior, but that they had not had the same opportunities for development. Such arguments would become central to the neoliberal civilising missions of the later twentieth century. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 84

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to reader’s Austerity/Neoliberalism purpose — the ‘development opportunity’ framing is the ancestor of conditional lending, human capital discourse, and austerity policies pitched as catching-up mechanisms. — connects to: Colonialist justifications recur largely unchanged in post-war development discourse — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1590; Neoliberal economists inverted colonial extraction into a source of Third World progress — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 401; Progressive aims are reframed through economic growth discourse — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 36 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly are the historical mechanisms by which ‘development opportunity’ language became ‘neoliberal civilising missions’ — individual capacity-building, microfinance, conditional cash transfers?

Broader Connections

• Colonialist justifications recur largely unchanged in post-war development discourse #corroborates (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1590
• Neoliberal economists inverted colonial extraction into a source of Third World progress #expands (0.80) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 401