Alternatives to Globalization - Essay Example

Mark Weisbrot suggests that the answer to this question is “no” because globalization, as it is now occurring, tends to provide the greatest benefits to the already advanced countries and, within those countries, to elites and not to the great masses of working or poor people. It is the purpose of this report to consider whether globalization is accompanied by more benefits than deficits and to offer a critical analysis of the neoliberal globalization process.  It will be argued herein that globalization is more likely to place the countries of the developing world at risk for further exploitation than it is to benefit these countries.

This was a point that was affirmed by Joan Veon who defined globalization as “the blending together of economies, people, laws, politics, movies, and social ethics into one”. Like others, Veon sees globalization as being driven by the major world banks and as reducing the autonomy and integrity of many cultures. It is her opinion that economic globalization is likely to have the effect of causing poorer countries to lose their sovereignty.

This process, if it plays out as it is currently functioning, has the potential to further increase the dependency of poorer countries on wealthier ones and to ensure that the developed world will exercise enormous influence over the entire planet and all the many diverse peoples of the world. Galeota Julia sees this as a form of cultural imperialism which is matched by U.S. imperialist ambitions. If, as will be argued herein, this conclusion is valid, then it becomes necessary to determine whether or not Westernization or Americanization will be beneficial or detrimental to the Third World or the South. Were it beneficial, then one would expect that globalization would improve the quality of life for the poor of the world. The literature does not suggest that this is truly occurring. Consequently, this report will conclude with a detailed description of strategies that are alternatives to globalization and which have the potential to empower the Third World to become more independent and to provide its people with greater equality and higher standards of living.

In this section, the problems associated with globalization will be addressed. Resistance to globalization will be discussed along with the relationship between globalization and imperialism as well as environmental degradation. The faulty promises of financial institutions serving Northern interests will be explored along with the neo-liberal agenda as a mask for imperialism and the association of globalization with cultural universalism.

James Petras and Henry Velmeyer go directly to the heart of the matter by stating that globalization is little more than a mask for the advancement of capitalism and the imperialist ambitions of the dominant Western or Northern capitalist ideology. Specifically, these researchers state that: “like the projects of capitalist development that preceded it – modernization, industrialization, colonialism, and development, the new imperialism is fraught with contradictions that generate forces of opposition and resistance and that can, under certain conditions, will undermine the capital accumulation process as well as the system on which it depends”.

To illustrate this point, these authors point out that the recent crisis of the Asian economies in Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia was rooted in their integration into the world’s financial markets and in the highly volatile movement of international capital. In other words, they are making the case that capitalism itself does not ensure that a country, which becomes part of the neo-liberal globalization project, will be safe from financial crises. Additionally, they argue that the market reforms that are associated with neo-liberalism did not put an end to the class struggle and in some cases have made it worse.

It is the position taken by Petras and Velmeyer that “advocates of globalization have not been especially concerned about the identified increase in global social inequalities”. For example, while it is correct to argue that transnational corporations (TNCs) that are locating their manufacturing centers in the countries of the Third World are offering the people of this world new economic work opportunities, the fact of the matter is that these TNCs are benefiting more than the cheap laborers that they hire.