Neo-colonialism designates the dominant characteristics of the relation of dependence of the less-developed countries on the more developed world, following their national independence. Post-independence dependence results in drain of income and manpower, in a lack of economic and social integration, in the persistence of a dual and distorted socio-economic structure, and in a spontaneous reproduction of under-development, allowing the less-developed countries only a lop-sided development process.
Dependence takes various forms: (a) National security dependence: most of the less-developed countries are dependent for their military hardware on one great power or a combination of great powers. Without supplies of arms and spare parts, their national security could be in jeopardy; thus, they tend to become the client of one or other of the great power blocs. As a consequence, their sphere of autonomous action is severely limited. (b) Direct economic dependence: this is the control of a sizeable or critical sector of the economy by dominant foreign monopoly capital. Direct economic dependence is a legacy of the colonial days that is being gradually modified into indirect forms. (c) Trade dependence: a sizeable portion of trade and consequently foreign exchange earnings are tied to the economy of the dollar qqea, sterling area, franc area, rouble area, etc. (d) Financial dependence: this type of dependence is exerted primarily through banks and is therefore strongest in those countries where the banking system and, through it, the internal money circulation and the credit system, are under foreign control. Tied loans and grants, and various forms of foreign exchange control, constitute other kinds of financial dependence. (e) Technical dependence: this consists of a whole variety of intellectual forms of dependence, some direct and others indirect. The direct forms consist of the acceptance of imported technology and foreign technical advisers. The indirect forms are even more pervasive - the adoption of a particular foreign educational system with its biases, the influence of foreign-educated natives with their intellectual and emotional ties, etc. (f) Cultural dependence: the most pervasive and enduring kind of dependence lies basically in the increasing dominance in the modern world of a Western secular and scientific culture. In its more pedestrian forms, this kind of dependence consists of a whole variety of cultural imports (films, television programmes, books, periodicals, records, clothing styles, forms of consumption).
The colonial age has ended. But the wish to dominate persists. Neo-colonialism comes wrapped in all types of packages -in technology and communications, commerce and culture.
If neo-colonialism exists, it is the inevitable product of an inherent imbalance between the advanced and the developing economies, irrespective of the political factors involved. This one-sided relationship will disappear only when the new states reach the position already achieved by Japan and become as powerful economically as the ex-colonial powers on whom they at present depend.