The Scourge of Dependency and Globalization in the Caribbean

The Scourge of Dependency and Globalization in the Caribbean

Saturday, 04 April 2015 00:00
By Nikolaos Karagiannis and C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout | Op-Ed


Historically, the Caribbean countries developed under the tutelage of different European empires, and more recently under North American dominance. As a result, the Caribbean came to be a classic area of plantation society as there is a certain unity to the region's development and in its patterns of historical evolution. Furthermore, the plantation economy models emphasized the historical continuity of Caribbean dependence from the slave plantation to modification following emancipation, to further modification in the post-colonial era. Political independence established national sovereignty (i.e., "flag independence&quot in older and newer nations of the Commonwealth Caribbean, when both groups were integrated into the international system. Consequently, the political process of national independence converted states, societies and nations that had evolved as integral parts of the global system. The effect was to legitimize their autonomy based on concepts of self-determination.

In the case of the newer nations, independence coincided with the beginning of a new era that was defined by the decline of the old great powers and the rise of two superpowers with antagonistic ideologies and strategic interests: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The main features of the post-World War II global capitalist economy (the creation of a post-World War II global socialist economy was also undertaken by the Soviet Union) were the emergence of the monetary regime of Bretton Woods, with global institutions at its core (the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, now known as the World Bank) that were designed to facilitate the incorporation of the so-called developing nations into the global capitalist system via the shaping of the macroeconomic policy of the South; a dramatic increase in the integration of national economies in terms of trade, finance and foreign direct investment; the emergence of the US dollar as the dominant international currency, which reflected the USA's hegemonic role in the global capitalist economy; and the rise of a "cooperative-security" organization (NATO) under the aegis of the US, whose mission was to protect western capitalism from the perceived threat of Soviet communism.

During the last five decades or so, the region has tried different development models, ranging from industrialization based on imported inputs and technology, to models of structural change that prioritized tourism and other services, to open regionalism blending regional integration with efforts to boost the export competitiveness of tradable goods and services. However, the main Caribbean trajectory has relied on metropolitan initiatives in investment, technology and marketing, and on continued metropolitan ownership and control of the region's main means of production and domestic demand. Evidently, the political independence of Caribbean nations has not been accompanied by any significant advancement of their national economies: unbalanced economic structures; international specialization based on unequal exchange; excessive foreign financial and technological penetration; chronic current account deficits and a dependent monetary system, are among the outstanding features of the Caribbean "blocked development" or "underdevelopment." Thus, Caribbean economies have been seriously challenged by a lack of local industrial capacity and export competitiveness, which are among the main factors needed for the achievement of sustained growth and endogenous development. Foreign decisions largely determine the growth prospects of Caribbean economies while most local resources, natural, human and technological, remain basically underdeveloped.

The last phase of Caribbean development efforts, from the 1990s and onward, has been characterized by what might be called the consolidation of the neoliberal revolution, tempered only by the realization that more policy attention had to be paid to human resource development if the new technological imperatives of a globalizing economy were not to pass the region by. Development was seen as a market-driven, private sector-led process. The role of the state should be to meet the demands for "good governance" based on efficiency considerations and imposed by the international financial institutions, thereby fashioned to submissively serve the logic of deregulated competitive markets and integrated global production, led and directed by powerful transnational corporations. ................(more)

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/29951-the-scourge-of-dependency-and-globalization-in-the-caribbean-a-sustainable-alternativecreating-development-strategies-that-help-improve-the-overall-conditions-of-caribbean-societies-requires-national-social-movements-that-believe-in-an-alternative-f