Globalization and Developing Nations: Benetti's Analysis

Introduction: Globalization as a Contested Force

Like the nation-building strategies of the past, globalization is a deeply controversial force. Its potential for collective improvement is a definition roundly rejected by many social welfare activists, who instead see it as a means of furthering conditions of economic inequality. Its advocates view globalization as the inherent effect of technological advance, with natural market tendencies serving as the prime impetus for expansion beyond traditional nation-state parameters. In this way, globalization is seen as an evolution of market behaviors, with technological capabilities and a degree of cultural relativism breaking barriers to inter-state commerce.

The controversy in its definition, however, is drawn from the divergence between that which globalization aspires to accomplish and the actual repercussions that follow. The 2004 text by Raffaelo Benetti makes a case study of a set of contexts in which globalization has been carried out, examining the implications of this divide. In Survival of Weak Countries in the Face of Globalization: Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, Benetti tends to favor globalization insofar as he recognizes its inevitability, but he also pays due attention to the challenges it poses to the developing nations inherently involved.

Trade Liberalization and International Institutions

Central to Benetti's discussion is the recognition that globalization has largely been a process of natural evolution in world affairs. As the text provides, one primary "reason for the incredible development of international business in the past fifty years is undoubtedly the liberalization policies of many governments in cross-border movements of goods, services and capital" (17). Accelerated in no small way by the dissemination of communication technologies such as the internet and mobile cellular devices, globalization primarily concerns the breakdown of barriers to free trade between sovereign states and the elimination of restrictions on the multinationalization of corporations. Its advocates argue that this is contributory to a system collectively beneficial to all parties involved.

This process has precipitated several key international financial institutions that provide a forum for the mediation of national commercial interests. It is through such institutions that trade policies are increasingly liberalizing. Accordingly, Benetti notes that "the reduction of existing barriers to international trade, and in particular the action taken by the countries of GATT-WTO, has facilitated political and economic relations between countries, exponentially multiplying exchange opportunities" (17).

However, these opportunities have not always been entirely positive for all parties involved. As relations with developing nations continue to soften — primarily due to the pressures of corporate interests on both sides of the trade line — weaker partners are increasingly given the short end of trade preferences relative to larger and wealthier nations. This has followed a decade of labor rights and environmental standards in such nations that have not aligned with those held as fundamental in the developed world. As a result, globalization risks not simply failing to serve developing economies but, worse, reinforcing negative trends of civil rights violations and environmental degradation. The early gains of globalization for many of the parties involved are ultimately superseded by the costs to economy and constitutionality.

Colonial Legacies and the Exploitation of Weak Nations

This dynamic is underscored by the historical tendencies of colonialism and, during the Cold War, nation-building — both of which were deeply unequal forces of global organization. Of globalization's trade patterns today, Benetti warns that "the understanding of trade in a mercantilist or colonial key doesn't seem to belong only to the history of the past centuries, but is an ever-present possibility to be aware of even today, in the relations between countries" (18).

There is a core danger that the outcome of globalization will be only the further exploitation of parts of the world already quite well-accustomed to such treatment. The examples provided in the text of Puerto Rico and the islands of the Pacific illustrate a clear pattern within which colonialism has served opportunistically to use the resources, lands, and labor of weak nations as a way of advancing the causes of more powerful ones. In many ways, industrialized nations have used the pressing need for economic growth in such nations to exploit low labor costs and non-existent environmental standards. They do so with the vaunted promise that globalization tends to lead to "growth of the product sales in the country of origin and export to countries not equipped with the same technology" (20).

Conclusion: Benetti's Optimism in Retrospect

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to this process is the inherent tendency of capitalist markets to behave competitively. Until globalization is executed with proper enforcement of international standards in environmental regulations, labor conditions, and corporate restraint, Benetti shows that it will continue to bear the same destructive implications as the incarnations of imperialism that came before it — colonialism and nation-building alike.

Benetti's text is an essentially valuable discussion, but it ultimately comes across as somewhat outdated. Written in 2004, its relative optimism may be seen as naive in light of the challenges that have only intensified in the face of global recession. With economic pitfalls landing most squarely on the shoulders of the developing nations that have proceeded to engage in free trade, it is evident that this system has long been unequal as a result of historically intertwined conditions and cultural inequalities. Progress in this area will be made, Benetti does seem to argue, only when the historical inequalities that have governed these relationships have been addressed and removed.

Works Cited

Benetti, R. (2004). Survival of the Weak Countries in the Face of Globalization: Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.