Contemporary globalisation
VENKATESH ATHREYA
GLOBALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT: Sunanda Sen; National Book Trust, India, 5 Institutional Area, Vasant Kunj, Phase II, New Delhi-110070. Rs. 40.
This book is by a distinguished teacher and researcher of economics who has specialised in international trade and finance. It explains the actual implications of contemporary globalisation (as opposed to the claims made on its behalf by neoliberal theology) for developing countries and for the various sections of the people in these countries. In the process, it also provides a critique of several claims of mainstream economic theory concerning the efficiency properties of liberalised markets and their efficacious implications for economic growth. It argues that globalisation as is currently occurring results in highly inequitable and unsustainable growth.
Features
The book consists of five chapters. The first chapter seeks to identify the key, distinctive features of contemporary globalisation. The second chapter deals with the changes in the world order and assertion of hegemony by the rich countries through globalisation from the 1970s. The end of the Second World War saw the weakening of the imperial powers, the rise of a socialist camp and a wave of decolonisation, and for a brief while, the onward march of capitalist globalisation appeared to slow down. Between 1950 and the early 1970s, several developing countries, especially in Asia and Latin America, sought to pursue a relatively independent path of national development, taking advantage of the changed global situation. From the early 1970s, however, the powerful club of rich countries began to reassert their hegemony. The rise to dominance of finance capital by the end of the 1970s consolidated the forces of globalisation. Hegemonic nations (G7) and multinational institutions (the IMF, World Bank and the WTO) exercise authority over developing countries, dictating economic policies. There is also an emerging cosy relationship between the elite of the developing countries and the rich country elite.
Critique
In the third chapter, the author provides a critique of neoclassical economics in relation to the alleged virtues of the free market, contrasting these claims with the rather different results on the ground. This chapter also brings out the widely varying performance of a number of developing countries pursuing the path of liberalisation and globalisation, with only a very few registering even respectable rates of economic growth. It goes into the various agreements under WTO and how they have hurt the developing countries while helping the advanced ones. It then deals with the process of financial opening up in India and shows how it has led to financial exclusion, hurting agriculture and, small and medium industries. In the fourth chapter, the question of technological change, its impact on different sections of the people, and issues of control over technology and the process of generation of new knowledge and techniques are discussed. The new post-TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) dispensation makes technological catching-up well nigh impossible for the developing countries. In the fifth and final chapter, the author goes into the relationship between globalisation and development. It argues that globalisation may deliver growth (though not always and everywhere) but fails to deliver development. The link between growth and development only works when growth is also “people-centred.” Noting that in an economy open to unregulated flows of capital, the state policy is primarily directed to preventing capital flight, the author draws attention to the resultant “democracy deficit.”
Agents of change
While seeking to identify forces that can change things for the better, this chapter privileges a heterogeneous collection of NGOs, social activists and social movements as agents of social change, but omits to note the crucial role played by the Left both in fighting neoliberal policies, raising people’s consciousness in the process, and its record of impressive land reforms which should be part of any alternative to the neoliberal regime. The book will be useful to students of economics as an introduction to issues of globalisation and development. It will also be of use to the non-specialist reader in providing a critical viewpoint on globalisation. The exposition sometimes gets cluttered by the author’s constant engagement with neoclassical economics as part of her attempt to refute it. This has made the book a little less readable at some points in the text. To provide an exposition of the complex economic and political issues associated with the process of globalisation that is both comprehensive and simple is of course a huge challenge, and the author deserves our warm appreciation for an excellent effort. The publisher is also to be commended.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
