Feasible Globalizations

In the times we are living, there seems to be three main political, social and economic models that affect the idea of achieving a real global economy. These are nation-state systems, democratic political systems and a full economic integration. However, according to Mr. Rodrik the coexistence of these three models results impossible, or better said utopian. He argues that we could have at the most a combination of two of them, but never all three of them together for their coexistence would only create instability and a confrontation of interests. He solidly supports this argument analyzing past and current events that have taken place and expose the failure of promoting a fully integrated global economy. We will shortly summarize these examples and comment on them. Finally we will review the alternative proposed by Mr. Rodrik, the preservation of some limits on integration along with some ruling system that would orderly look for the achievement of an attainable integration, which we have considered to be somehow ambitious.

One of the pillars of this paper’s argument exposes that markets need to be defined by a range of non-market institutions in contradiction to the mainstream idea that markets should be let to run freely wit

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However, immigration is a very hot issue anywhere in the world, basically because it is socially unpopular, therefore politically risky. All other commonly proposed actions such as opening markets in industrialized countries to 3rd world nations, improving health conditions in poor countries, etc.

Another alternative derived from the trilemma would be the foundation of a “global federalism”, which basically consist of extrapolating the American political model to a global scale. Curiosly enough the main reason for the existence of this dilemma originates where he started, on the fact that national borders do exist and their repercussions go beyond institutions, economic models or trade barriers. These transactions costs originate at various sources, and the most obvious of these is the difficulties found in enforcing contracts across borders, where national courts may be unwilling to enforce a contract and international ones are simply not able to. Such measure, he argues, would be the one to generate the biggest gains for all countries, specially for the poorest ones. They do a bad job, if any, at regulating anti-trust, providing transparent information, setting prudential limits or even raising awareness toward health, safety and the environment. There are several reasons for this, but one obvious one is that societies differ in values and norms that inevitably shape their institutions. This problem heavily influences the flow of capital to poorer nations, where it is very hard to obtain the promise to be paid stated on the contracts. One main reason for this market not being liberalized as much as trade and investment, he says, is that the beneficiaries have not organized successfully and become politically effective. Rodrik’s idea is as utopian as global economic integration and his theory lacks a strong and sustainable economic evidence. It is in-between these years that we find the reasons for the breakup of Argentina’s economic model. Besides, cases such as Germany importing labor from Southern Europe and the States from Mexico, where making the immigrants return to their homes after their terms became impossible and the difficulties being faced in ethnic integration, plus the return of right wing movements clearly weakens Mr. Europe, the US and Japan have all diverged in labor markets, corporate governance, regulation, social protection, and banking and finance.

Approximate Word count = 1421
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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