Globalization

One of the more interesting and controversial topics concerning globalization is that of world systems theory. This is the idea that the world economy is set up in such a way that through neocolonial practices and an interdependent economy, fully initiated at the end of WWII with the development and the world bank and the gold standard, that western nations maintain economic dominance through the abuse of these developing nations and their resources. These neocolonial practices can be said to have been furthered during the cold war where the US and USSR vied for world economic hegemony by gaining economic and political control in developing nations throughout the world using institutions such as the IMF (US) to use the states for their own political desires while gaining economic advantage in benefiting from the developing nations resources. This idea however implies that the western world, intentionally keeps third world countries in their “developing” state in order to benefit financial and/or politically. This is not necessarily the case. With the example of the Congo, we loaned to them irresponsibly allowing a dictator to rise, the consequences of which still ravage the Congo today. However this wasn’t to keep them in their place so that we could benefit, i think it comes more from a lack of foresight of the effects of our actions as well as a placement of our own political agendas over those of developing countries. The justification for these loans in the Congo’s as well as the allowance of the rise of this dictator is was to make sure the USSR did not gain resources, overthrowing a previous “socialist friendly” leader as well as having another strategic point in Africa for deployment etc, yet the effects that last today and our benefit from their resources would imply different intentions.

However at the same time these countries real issues stem from colonialism and the manner and state in which the colonial powers left these nations. Ultimately globalization in economic terms is the only way in which some of these states can be helped at all. Only through increased infrastructure, FDI and a place in the world economy can these developing states really have a chance of maintaining any level of stability. The world economy is just that, when the US has economic crisis so does the rest of the world. This does not seem to be able to be changed. Our economies are so interdependent at this point that instead of blaming the west for keeping the developing world down we need to figure out how to use the world economy to bring investors to these states and give them a stronger role in the economy.