According to __________, poorer nations cannot pursue their own economic and human development because they are trapped in a cycle of reliance on the richer nations for infusions of foreign capital and external markets for their raw materials.â

The dependency theory is a sociological theory that tries to explain why poor nations are not able to fully develop and become wealthy and prosperous. This theory states that resource flows form poor nations to rich nations continuously keeps increasing the wealth of the latter at the expense of the poor nations.

This theory is based on the fact that only one modern nation that was once considered rich and prosperous is currently considered a developing nation, and that country is Argentina. A little more than 100 years ago, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, much richer than most European countries. Its GDP per capita was 84% of the English GDP per capita, currently Argentina's GDP per capita is approximately 25% of English GDP per capita.