How should we integrate into the global economy?
By Mher Ohanian
Yerkir/arm
19 Aug 05
The most recent studies show that globalization results in unequal
distribution of global income between the rich and poor countries. In
other words, the rich countries get richer while the poor ones get
even poorer. In this context, the unequal distribution of income
between transition countries becomes more noticeable.
The rapid increase of the development rate of the progressive counties
that have developed due to appropriation of the largest share of the
global income and the drastic improvement of the welfare of those
countries’ populations constitutes the main contradiction of
globalization.
In the past decade, we have witnessed an ideological revolution within
our society whereby the old value system has stopped playing an
important role while the new values have not been consolidated yet. On
the one hand, this situation is a natural response to a systemic
crisis.
On the other hand, the question is what value systems come to
substitute the collapsed socialist or communist ideology and the
institutional framework anchored on it. This remains an open question.
It is obvious that no political ideology can be static and constant
for a nation. Culture is constant. The stability of the cultural
values of a nation determined the latter’s ability to counter external
challenges, including external pressures and threats.
The stability of cultural values also determined the nation’s ability
to modernize and develop. Just like an individual’s instincts
developed in the course of his life ensure his vitality and ability to
adequately respond to the challenges of the external environment, the
interests of the nation become crystallized and preserved throughout
centuries determining the latterâ=80=99s rational-competitive actions
due to the stability of cultural values in the constantly changing
paradigm of time.
The above mentioned arguments allow us to insist that liberal economic
reforms do not necessarily ensure technological and cultural
modernization of a country (a position often voiced on different
occasions) and a drastic improvement of the population’s welfare.
The developing countries have access to a miserable portion of the
global income. They are most of the time assigned the function of
being a source of raw materials and cheap labor, or consumers of
outdated, or sometimes modern but ecologically unsafe technologies, a
function that is strategically unfavorable.
This function is often presented by the developed countries exporting
not very progressive technologies and the international financial
organizations as a `benevolent mission’ of foreign direct
investments. Meanwhile, such ` investments’ are merely a way of
cutting down the production costsand increasing the absolute profit.
One factor is overlooked in this process – to what extent do these
foreign direct investments contribute to the diversification of the
receiving countries ‘ economies and their technological modernization
to ensure their post industrial leap?
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress