Photo credit: European Commission. (January 1, 2007). Behind the Barrier. Retrieved from: https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/behind-barrier-basarabeasca_en
First of all, before we discussed about the barrier to inclusivity and the importance of inclusive institutions, we need to understand what is inclusive.
For inclusive economic institutions it is basically institutions that support or encourage participation by great mass of people in economic activities that acquire the best use of people’s talents and skills and allow them to choose their own lives or careers. It is where the private property is secured, having unbiased law system and providing public services to citizens. For the inclusive political institutions, it means that the institutions are sufficiently centralized and are pluralistic. Therefore, these inclusive economic and political institutions are importance because they affect how economy work , create incentive to motivate people to work and not violating human rights while allowing people to participate. However, if these institutions are extractive, wealth and income will be concentrated in elites who prefer to stay in power for more exploitation. If both institutions are not inclusive, it would be hard for the country to achieve sustainable development or realize the ultimate development.
In addition, aside from the hardship of being inclusive economic and political institutions, there are barrier to developments such as the influence of the USA through the connection of Washington Consensus and its repressive regime, the use of propaganda by the help of media, the two-tiered justice system or the biased rule of law that attached to the role of patent and investors’ rights agreements and the resource curse. Also, there are other barriers that could impede development that is about to mentioned which are the dollar dominance, the burden of debt, the reserve system and the democratic deficit.
First, the USA sphere of influence is connected to the Washington consensus as it prefers to remain dominance and tries to penalize countries who act against the U.S. In short, it called people, countries or any opposing agents as “communists”, terrorist” or “enemies” in order to interfere in many countries in both economic and political aspects such as Venezuela, Vietnam, etc. The U.S. claimed that it fight for freedom of people or democracy, but actually it was not freedom in political terms but freedom in economics of creating investment climate for their own benefits that actually deprives lives of people. It also creates repressive regime where there is involvement of people through the consumption and investment to the multinational corporations that is linked to the regime itself. This regime loop is built in and secured with the connection with the local elites through the Western National governments that exist in the form of USAID that eventually reach the same goal to pursue the repressive regime. So, there are many tools or institutions that the U.S. used for these involvements in many developing countries.
One of the most important tools is media such as news, entertainment news that are used to spread the propaganda or satisfy the owners, advertisers, or in favor of the sources of news. These owners have the power to control the content published to make sure that it does not conflict with the supporters, so most of these news are luxury, fashion, stock prices as they want to sell and earn a revenue from the publish. Also, it has flaks that are the mainstream content to be watched by people that could be used as a tool to distort people’s attentions. This could be clearly seen in the case of MAGA hat students that was portrayed as discrimination in order to distort people attention from the Venezuela incident that occur in that period. Furthermore, this clip could be used as propaganda as it does not show all the reality or the real situation that those students were not actually the one who started the situation. This short clip or any head line news are made to grasp attention and create a wider and faster spread of propaganda to people. This propaganda can also used as an effective mechanism to put limitation in someone who challenge the power of the U.S. as the enemies in which in reality the enemies are not only the competitors. So the media could be used as a distortion of truth as a sword to fight, blame or create war with people in many countries that actually slow the pace of development.
These actions tie with the rule of law and question of legitimacy and where the power lies or who owns the power. The biased rule of law connect or allow the trade agreements to be weak or contracting forces that create investors’ rights agreements where multinational companies has power in making or writing the laws. This could be seen in the Georgia media that the process of making laws is kept in secret where the ALEC which seemed as an education charity is the place where the three legislators get money filtered. The public are excluded and not allow to participate as they might conflict with the interest of elites and the MNCs that made the institutions being even more extractive. Also, in the case of the GMO corn in Mexico, the “intellectual Property Rights” is applied that limit freedom of people as farmers who plant the GMO corn needed to buy the Monsanto Roundup only in restricted shops without their willingness and create benefits that do not provide the own willingness. This action is spread through others farmers and distort the original plantations. Therefore, trade could actually be a barrier for people to play a role and it is made to secure investors’ rights and profits.
Trade could lower the barrier for the rich and political power in the negotiations that do not provide the benefits to citizens or even these Mexican farmers. The free trade does not mean a fair trade when the laws are created for investors or group of people where the economic and political institutions cannot be inclusive. In addition, the lack of justice of law and trade could make developing countries which are resources-rich countries sees resources as a curse rather than a blessing. People will struggle to get big share of resources as possible that occur in violence, political instability. Bribery could be formed as in the case of the Niger Delta that the oil companies had a relationship with the government and reject the responsibilities of the daily oil spills that negatively affect the sources of income, the ways of lives of people who live in nearby villages as the clean water and food sources are destroyed.
Inequality occurs and the distribution of wealth is concentrated that make it hard for the institutions to be inclusive. For the USA preferences in wanting dollars to remain as a main currency, it deals with the burden of debts in which the U.S. tries to intervene in many developing countries through the IMF or WB or involve in the subsidies that might result in difficulties of people in the countries who need to repay high debts and face democratic deficits where the reserve system should be looked. As we could see in the Heaven and Earth movie that the U.S. interfere in Vietnam that create wars; consequently, people are suffering and end up difficulties in making their own living where the institutions are political and economic institutions are controlled.
However, there are solutions for counties to realize the ultimate sustainable developments. In my opinion, one of the most important ways to lower the barrier to development is to make a change from the smallest unit of the society which is individuals.
The understanding of the network or system of the Washington Consensus and the of the repressive regime is crucial as it could dictate actions of people. The role of education could help in raising awareness by supporting more time for each person to search find information, internalizing values, build historical knowledge in order to understand current situation and make prediction of the future. Once people who are consumers and investors are aware of the situation, they can control consumption and investment that does not encourage extractive institutions.
By doing these actions, it allows citizens to be inclusive, participate in political context and bringing more inclusive economic and political institutions that could redistribute wealth to people not only elites. The power of these actions, needed to be collective powers with interests, sympathy and empathy to take active steps in order to pursue the same goals which is the development of the country.
The media could be a facilitator of the campaign to for people to participate and should be backed by the justice legal system and the freedom in making judgements and discussions such as the independent media should be secured. The media should not be used to adopt propaganda to opposing agents or dictate someone such as “enemies” as it deprives that person freedom even to stand on his or her own believes and positions. Because even some nationalities, races, or individuals in the same nations could be considered as an enemy as we could see in the Platoon movie that in the end, one of the soldiers said that he was not sure who was the enemy, don’t know what is right or wrong in which the conflict start between the strong planned system, so it is human nature to be positive or negative.
I think the most important thing that could make these initiatives work is “transparency” in every institutions, laws, trade, resources, so people will have confidence for their action. Laws should be made not in secret and should allow people to vivid the process not like the situation of Georgia media that said the laws are made in a hotel where the media are not allowed to enter. If trust is not build up, it is hard for the system to work as in the Platoon movie, when there is a conflict between Barns and Elias, people within the army start to fight, and end up in a collapse so this implies that when the machine breaks, the system fails.
In short, if we want to stop the chain of the repressive regime, people in the society need to stop or not participate any actions that encourage the system. The change in the legal framework could add or supported these changes by having the institutional reforms to be effective and equitable through socioeconomic factors, historical and strategic factors where norms and laws are linked.
Furthermore, for the resource, there should be certification of minerals extract to ensure minimization of resource curse and limit the environmental damage by setting better incentives to create “good behavior” and form collective power.
I think stabilization fund should be formed as a protection of variability of prices of resources such as oil and prevent the “Dutch Disease” or help any resources- rich countries that rely much of their exports on resources that lead to an appreciation of currency or devaluation of the currency. Privatization should be ensured with unbiased system of law.
Also, the trade must be made for innovation and social justice that allow access to lifesaving medication and create mindful economy in order for multinational companies to realize the social responsibilities and environmental issues and make it real not only a CSR for marketing.
For the burden of debts issue, I agree that the IMF and WB should take part of the responsibilities or liable for the damage created as it is not total fault of developing countries of over-borrowing. The sharing of risk should be applied. One of the ways is also to lend with no harm and lend to support the countries such as counter cyclical lending. With the change to the new reserve system, I agree with Stiglitz that the “global greenbacks” should be implemented and I think it is a good approach as member countries can use these global greenbacks to exchange for euro, yen in order to stimulate economy, but the U.S. might not agree as it could not get cheap loans from developing countries. What I would add to this idea is to establish an institution that work together with the UN and the newly “special trust funds” in order to provide transparency to people and ensure that the funds will be truly distributed to people or poor countries.
In addition, the basic infrastructure such as the far reaching transit of transportation system should be built not only the education and health that must be improved. For the democratic deficit, I think it should increase accountability and there should be balance of superpower to does not weakening the political foundations and not strengthen the gap between economic and political institutions.
All in all, I believe that there is “no one size fits all” for the solution in decreasing or eliminating the barrier to developments. But these propose solutions could be a guidance or an approaches for countries to follow, create collective action that starts from our own individuals to break the sphere of influence of the U.S. making the economic and political institutions to be inclusive as they are the heart of the development and could move countries to reach the long-run sustainable development and realize the ultimate development that truly provide well-being for people.
