PHA-Exchange> Food for a not fairly treated thought (5)

[Claudio]

From: David Legge 

Dr Navarro is right and he is wrong.  

 

He is right to point out that a simple globalised liberalisation would be disastrous for poor people in poor countries. 

He is right to emphasise that developing countries must be able to protect particular industries at particular times (from competition from rich world product) if they are to have any chance of industrialising.  

 

Samir Amin (1985, Delinking: towards a polycentric world. London, Zed Books) has elaborated very clearly the importance of national protection and cultivating South South trading blocks protected from rich world competition.  The logic of comparative advantage applies where two countries are at comparable levels of development.  Free trade between rich and poor is much more likely to exacerbate the inequality.  

 

I know that Claudio is fully aware of these complexities although the polemic mode can sometimes override the analytical as I believe Vicente would appreciate. 

 

However, Vicente is wrong to dichotomise: national power relations rather than world trade; "It is an illusion to think that the problems of underdevelopment are due to trade barriers" (not quite what Claudio said!).  Both are critically important and their interdependence is one of the core dynamics of imperialism.  



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