Third world industrialization and economic development

Industrialization Gwynne

Industrialization of the Third World According to Gwynne

The process of globalization, spurred by the inception of 'free trade' and a strategy of closer economic inter-dependency between nations, has produced a framework for global re-organization which, as captured in Gwynne's text, New Horizons? Third World Industrialization in an International Framework, is indicative of a deeply divided world perspective on how best to merge the shared interests present and pertinent to parties large and small in the global community. Gwynne's text is somewhat prescient, composed in 1990 and yet approaching many of the issues which are pertinent to us today. Particularly, Gwynne promotes the theoretical perspective that has been used to endorse so many of the provisions of an internationalizing economy.

Gwynne predicts such patterns as the increasingly externalized American economy, which was at the time of his writing driven by the assumption that opening international borders would help to improve the conditions of the developing world while simultaneously meeting American labor and production demands.

As Gwynne appropriately predicts, in no small way accelerated by the dissemination of communication technologies such as improving communication and computing technologies, globalization primarily concerns the breakdown of barriers to free trade between sovereign states and the elimination of restrictions to the multinationalization of corporations. Its advocates such as Gwynne argue that this is contributory to a system which is collectively beneficial to all parties involved.

In this way, the text finds that industrialization of the third world is to be seen as an evolution of market behaviors, with our technological capabilities and a degree of cultural relativism breaking barriers to inter-state commerce. The controversy in definition, however, is drawn from the divergence between that which third world industrialization aspires to accomplish and those occurrences which are the actual repercussions thereof. This is a paradox that Gwynne discusses, with our course literature reinforcing the suggestion that at present, the form taken by globalization does greater and more durable damage than good. Here is the biggest flaw in the text by Gwynne, which argues to the contrary that this approach to industrialization will ultimately drive forward the development of the third world.

Our assessment of the text will offer a position based upon the general tenor of our course study, which helps to reveal the true impact of trade liberalization on those in the developing sphere, as well as for the United States itself. Given the circumstances which have since arise, Gwynne's foresight may be called seriously into question. We know today that internationalization of industrial behaviors reduces the extent to which members of the international community are agriculturally, environmentally or socially oriented toward food production, causing a fundamental imbalance which directly impacts the poorest demographics. A pattern of industrialization and the entrance of global corporations into resource-sharing with already deprived nations produces a balance of resources which tilts toward far less food produced even as more is traded on the global market. This is a trade that benefits those -- in terms of nations and individuals -- already with the means to acquire food while increasing the misery index for the poor. Our research has tended to suggest that, contrary to Gwynne's findings, globalization has served to instigate world poverty further while failing to keep its promise of accelerate the progress of all nations.

Concerning the human rights crises which have expanded dramatically since the popular inception of free trade practices in recent years, it is reasonable that we as a critical society respond with sharp critical scrutiny to such political ideologies as that taken on by Gwynne.

The estimation that we arrive at therefore is that, in spite of the argument posed by the Gwynne that the eventual benefits to developing states will be monumental, economic factors produce a different likelihood. It is here suggested that the reduction in shipping costs produces a circumstance which inevitably sees resources flowing out of such nations. The beneficiaries of free trade are most often those large industrialized nations who are likewise its most ardent sponsors. This discussion provides a sound argument to be offered in retort to the strictly speculative presumptions of Gwynne's text, pointing us to the resolution that the states of crises which are now persisting in 'so-called' third world nations will be sustained and worsening trends under our current framework.