JOHAN GALTUNG gnidad) is needed - a faith in own values and own culture and civilization; the traditional one and the ability to create new culture. To withstand remunerative power absolute self-sufficiency or autarchy is not needed. On closer analysis it is clearly seen that the point is to be able to produce for basic needs, particularly food, so that in a crisis food cannot be used as a weapon. Another aspect would combine the fights against cultural ideological and economic/remunerative penetration in the struggle for independent taste-formation, being less susceptible to "tastes" generated from the center and satisfiable with center goods only. And finally: to withstand coercive power a certain fearlessness is needed, both as an attitude and as a structure of defense, as an attitude and practice of invulnerability. Thus, with the focus on such expressions as self-confidence, ability to be self-sufficient and fearlessness/invulnerability it is clear that self-reliance as a doctrine is located more ln the field of psychopolitics than in the field of economics. lt would be a gross misunderstanding to reduce it to a formula for economic relations atone although that would be in line with the economism of our times and with the assumption that the root of center-periphery relations is in the economic infrastructure atone. More particularly, self-reliance is not a new way of "bridging the gap", "catching up" in the sense of equalizlng GNP/capita or some similar measure. There are at least two good reasons why this would not be compatible with the idea of self-reliance: it means taking over the goal-structure of other societies which then become models to lmltate; and it probably also means taking over the means used by the rlch lndustriallzed Western countries, including center-periphery formation wlthln and between countries. The Third World does not become selfreliant by imitating the First and Second worlds, nor by exploiting some kind of Fourth World, the Fourth World by exploiting the Fifth world (whatever that might be) etc.6 Self- • Extrema care should be taken ln uslng concepts 'llke the "fourth world" usually lntroduced to lndicate divlslveness lnslde the Thlrd Wo~ld. On the other hand there 1s no reason to conceal that dominance relations ·also develop inslde the Thlrd World. If one should talk meanlngfully about •the "fourth world", •however, lt would probably make much more sense to see lt as located withln ail Thlrd World countries - the vast periphery of the Perlpher.y- than to see lt as a group of countries, e.g. the 25 deslgnated as least de'l(eloped countries. 52
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