Bad Effects of Globalization on Developing Countries

Last few years, I heard this words a lot of times, it seemed to me like everybody was talking about globalization. Some politicians were saying that it is inevitable and that it will change world to a better place, where people will live like in a small village in peace and harmony, economists argued that economy of both developing and developed countries will benefit a lot of it. I have never ever expressed a doubt about globalization. I was thinking that will be a great opportunity to decrease poverty and exclusion, but after the events that happened in Seattle summit, a strong movement against globalization raised up and conceptions of many people about this inevitable fact changed completely, and I was one of them. So an important question came to my mind can globalization really helps to economical development for developing countries? And could it be a solution to eradicate economical exclusion of poor countries?

Before beginning my paper, I will ask an elementary but important question, what is a good definition of globalization. Globalization is a word that holds plenty of meanings, depending on the field your specialized, your cultural implicit biases and economical and social status.

Globalization in my point of you, as it appears these days, is the invasion of the western culture of the other cultures and the kill of the others entities for a unique dominance of the single and surely the powerful culture. This is maybe a rude definition but let’s just call things by their names. This could reveal my point of view about the subject, but my paper is about bad effects of globalization on poor countries. The evolution to a world always more globalize uniform is not a new idea, colonialism and imperialism had tried by their conception to force colonized countries to adopt their lifestyle and culture, affirming that the western culture is the best. In the 19th century, theoreticians and experts didn’t affirm that openly, but social promotion in these times was governed by the ability to behave culturally and socially, similarly to western people.

I interviewed Professor Daizal Rafeek Samad, who is a Caribbean-Canadian, teaching English composition and literature at Alakhawayn University, He obtained his first degree from the University of Guyana in the Caribbean, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of New Brunswick, Canada. Professor Samad’s writing is about Post-Colonial Literature, especially articles on writers from the Caribbean, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Professor Samad defines globalization as follow ” Globalization is the faculty of using technologies that caused globalization to create global equality”(INTERVIEW).

Defining globalization in an economical point of view, gives a very different scope

“In defining globalization, academic economists have tended to begin by stressing that is a micro-economic process – in contrasts to regionalisation, which links countries, and is therefore described as macroeconomic, Globalization is thus defined as the process by which enterprises (related or unrelated) become interdependent and interlinked globally through strategies alliances and international networks.”(O’NEILL 20)

I think that our century is the century of globalization in all faces it can take. Globalization is enveloping in it the change of many important features in the modern life. Culturally new technologies are bombarding us by ideas and toughs from the western world spreading the western conception of the world, and also media are playing an important role, by monopolizing information. Economically the worldwide market has been overcome by the multinationals companies, that are selling products all over the world and having manufactories all around the glob.

The problematic of the culture inside a global village is inevitable, and thus if globalization means uniformity of cultures it will lead to the predominance of a unique powerful one. I think that it will kill the diversity of the world, which provides it with creation and inspiration. We will live consequently in a boring atmosphere, nature is providing us a good example about how diversity procures vitality and life. Zuhair Dibaja a research fellow in the institute of development studies, University of Helsinki is putting an important fact into consideration, which is the use of all cultural resources in the process of globalization to promote a more equilibrate form of Globalization ” Globalization as a Western liberal project derives its strength from the philosophy of liberal thought and success of rationalisation. However in order to advance a cultural world which embraces all national constituents, the adherent must not rest heavily or solely on Western conceptions of the world”(Dibaja 113)

The effects of globalization on poor economies, is not an easy matter to determine, because it is controlled by a lot of factors and the consequences that appears to be out of control. Adam Przeworski in this point say ” When reading the articles published on this topic, I am inclined to think that globalization is very far from being as limiting as we are being told frequently, and that this due to the fact that national policies and national institutions intervene in the effects of globalization.”(Przeworski 3) This point is very important and shows us the unknown perspectives in the near future for the concept drown by the adopters of this idea. If we are not sure about the future if this phenomenon, why economists are struggling defend their point of views.

Professor Samad clarify in this context that the world economy is any economy based on social and economical disparities, he says that 200 companies owns 20% of the world wealth while we have some people live with less than two dollars a month. This inconsistence remind me of the thinking of Karl Marx about the capitalist growth cited by M. Hanink dean of the university of Connecticut in his book The International Economy A Geographical Perspective ” Marx found reason to believe that such systems were not just cyclical, but doomed by internal inconsistencies” (Hanink 66)

In this new world which have began to be overtaken by the globalization, media took a crucial importance. Last events showed us that information is a great and influent power in the new century. This new power expressed itself, in big firms that creates sensational actuality, following studied strategies to produce impressions and biased thoughts about events. Professor Samad gave me the example of the last events of 11 September and its direct consequences, especially the credibility of the news transmitted by the international network channel CNN, but on the other hand this same TV channel was criticizing the credibility of the Arab TV channel Al Jazira.

Samad says why people trust CNN and answers that is because CNN gain its credibility because it owns the power of the information. Media has a lot suffered from the American propaganda, and now with the events of 11 September it has reached a new dimension. Certain facts and events have been treated with prejudices and bias. This compromises a lot the objectivity of the information and us to the problem of necessity of a world organization that will control of the Media. I know this is dreaming and even if we have an international organization it will be controlled by rich countries and especially united states.

Economically and here we are touching the heart of the globalization. poor countries in point of view will risk the invasion of industrialized products with cheap costs, will kill national economies. I think that when the last borders will drop, nothing will stop what I can name the “conquerors”. The products will flood national markets causing the destruction of national economies, I qualify this as a new form of colonization. Certainly economists said that fears are shared between rich and poor countries. Arguing that rich countries will suffer also form the products of poor countries, which have cheap paid workers so they will buy cheaper products. Przeworski says “The less developed countries fear that the entry of inexpensive basic goods coming from the developed countries, where production is using state-of-the-art technologies, will destroy employment in their country.

On the other hand, in the more developed countries there is fear of being invaded with products manufactured in countries where manpower is cheap, and often exploited.”(Przeworski 1) but he continues “But these two things are incompatible. Not everybody can lose.”(Przeworski 1), this confirm us that globalization in its economical side will profit only for one side, and this will be certainly developed countries that are doing their best to take advantage of it. In fact culture will help industrialized countries to win this battle against their invention globalization. Przeworski add when talking about the fears of globalization ” But globalization bears the risk of leaving some people behind, of creating financial instability, because we have to confront some quid pro quos in matters relative to social cost, distribution of income and financial stability, amongst others. .”(Przeworski 3)

In the social side of the question concerning globalization, the social consequences will be very heavy for poor countries. Professor Samad give a strong example that shows the growing gap, between strong and weak economies ” For example in Singapore at the kinder garden we have on laptop per child, while in Africa people still have to walk miles to gather water to survive.” (INTERVIEW). This shows us again what could be the effect of globalization: rich countries becoming richer and stronger economically. In the other side of the world some people will still starve to survive, and will continue to fight for surviving, “is this what we expect from globalization?”(INTERVIEW) says Samad. I don’t think that promises of rich countries about the goodness of globalization will hold, because I think that economies will suffer a lot from it which is causing heavy problems in societies, certainly the increase of crime will be a big consequence of unemployment, less security in these countries but also in all the world. The events of September the 11th had proofed of this fact.

Politically, this globalization will help the development of the relationship between countries, this development will be a direct consequence of the increasing of the trade between these countries. Defining consequences on Morocco and developing countries is another complicated story. Political instability can also be a direct product of decrease of security in poor countries it is true, that it exists right now, but globalization will accentuate this bad effects.

As we can see globalization is promising great possibilities for countries in the world, but also it is holding with it multiple types of risks and fears that are improbable. Developed countries have calculated and predicted short and long term consequences for globalization in all its aspects and then are well prepared for this challenge, and will take advantage of all its benefits. On the other side, poor countries and Morocco are not well prepared for the invasion of all kind of goods, inside their market, with all consequences and chain reactions that will occur as product of this adventure. We can really call it adventure, especially for undeveloped countries, because risking national economies is a quiet risky job.

An equal solution to all this problems and uncertainties, will be trying to share incomes equally between all countries. This will be a nice use for globalization to promote human progress, Because what the world needs truly is a human globalization, with regards to social equality.