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How should we integrate into the global economy?

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  • How should we integrate into the global economy?

    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 latterā=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
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