Modernization theory holds that increase in technology will increase wealth throughout the globe, and that low income nations hence societies develop through a series of evolutionary stages and this stages are based on different degrees and patterns of social differentiation and reintegration of structural  and cultural components.

Dependency theory holds that some nations gained wealth at the expense of other nations especially through colonization thus dependency theory is the nation that resources flow from a periphery of poor and underdeveloped states to a core of wealthy states enriching the latter at the expense of the former.