Expanding Education

As I read the selection titled Strong States, Strong Teachers?, by Bruce Fuller, I am again reminded of the time I have spent in Trinidad, W.I., a small developing country of the Caribbean. Fuller observed differences in classrooms in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, located in southeastern Africa.

I believe what Fuller is describing based on his observations is how the country's attempt to become modern involves a formal education. However, these teachers, with their limited educational resources, struggle to instruct the students in a useful and interesting manner.

As countries become more developed, and the state's recognize the importance of a formal education in our integrated world economy, the quality of education slowly improves. I was able to observe some of these changes that globalization is bringing to developing countries when I traveled to Trinidad this past summer. Much like the schools that Fuller describes in Malawi, the classrooms in Trinidad were terribly small yet seated a large number of students. Teachers were also on short demand, therefore several grade levels were combined.

In a school with approximated 70 students in 7 different grade levels there were a total of 2 teachers and 1 principal. Between the 3 teachers the 7 grades were divided up. The classrooms were all located in a single room in the school, without any dividing walls.

The government is finally helping the village to build a new school that contains multiple classrooms. We were also able to contribute to the school's educational resources by donating microscopes and other instruments used in science labs (Story here). It becomes clear that without standardization and globalization, these small schools in developing countries would never be able to provide any kind of opportunity (relating to education) to their children.

A call for specialization

In Frieden's text, Global Capitalism, he explains that:

People, companies, regions, and countries cut back on economic activities they were less good at to concentrate on those at which they were particularly good. In earlier eras countries had tried to be self-sufficient, but now they focused on producing and exporting what they did best and trading for the rest.

When you really think about "what a region does best" it is synonymous to "what creates the most revenue" for that region. Therefore, people tend to focus on what brings the most profit to their country. The rise in one industry in a certain area draws away from previously successful industries; the introduction of a new and successful industry to a country usually leads a decline in other areas.

A change in culture becomes particularly clear when observing specialization in a developing country. Trinidad, a developing country located in the Caribbean, was a large exporter of cocoa until they struck oil off the coast of the small island. Today, one can hike through the pristine rainforest of Trinidad only to stumble across the many abandoned cocoa estates.

Because oil was a larger industry and generated more revenue, oil became "what the country did best". Oil was in, cocoa was out. The small island of Trinidad, consisting of less than 2,000 sq mi, is now in the top 5 countries to export oil.

The culture is sometimes adversely affected by this specialization of a country. It seems to me that part of the culture was left behind when the cocoa estates were abandoned. However, some Trinis still use their homes for drying cocoa mostly for small profits from selling the products locally rather than exporting it. It is good to see that the locals continue to carry on this process even at a small scale. If nothing else, it shows that even though the focus of industry may change in major cities, the uniqueness of the culture may remain in the small villages and towns.

Barber vs Sen

I think that whereas Amartya Sen draws a rather moderate picture of globalization, Benjamin Barber wants to call the reader's attention to one central result of globalization and its opponents...

As Julie has already summarized, Artya Sen's biggest concern is not to judge globalization as something bad, it is rather about the reformation and the fair redistribution of all benefits, something that I would identify as probably one concept of "Fairtrade".
- I think that the reason for his concern is basically justifiable, but I have a big problem with how he wants to archieve his goals? For example how does he want to change the "...overall balance of institutional arrangements" (LB, 20)? I do not think that a completely fair distribution is possible.

Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs McWorld" confronts the reader with a very dark and bitter perspective. For him extreme nationalism or specific national values (represented by the image of "Jihad") and globalization (represented by the image of "McWorld") are connected by influencing each other permanently (eg. Technology). Both concepts act beyond democracy and are even probably against it. "Jihad" needs "McWorld" to revolt against its philosophy and "McWorld" re-creates and reinforces "Jihad" only by its existance.
- I might be wrong with this assumption too, but what I found quite striking is that Barber, when he wrote that book in 1996, foreshadowed the world's current massive conflict between the origin of the "Mc World" /its supporters (USA, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, just to name a few) and those who oppose it ("Jihad-supporters").

Keeping up with modernization

In our constantly changing world of the 21st century we are always looking for ways to make transportation of goods more efficient. Ships are continually being built larger in order to meet demands of consumers while minimizing the costs of transportation. As the transport vessels continue to grow, demands are placed on the ports that house the ships as well as the routes by which the vessels move.

Recently, there has been a push to add a third lock to the Panama Canal in order to meet demands of the daily transits that move through the canal. The decision lies in the hands of the Panamanians, since the control of the canal was handed over by the U.S. to Panama on December 31, 1999. If the third lock is added to the canal it will not only increase the amount of traffic that can move through the canal, but it will allow even the largest vessels to navigate the canal. (Full article)

I find that this article relates back to the selection from Hobsbawm's The World Unified. The world is constantly growing more integrated. The unification is achieved by standardizing networks simultaneously. The 92-year-old Panama Canal was not built for the large superships of today, therefore Panama is being pressured to modernize the canal. If Panama votes against the expansion of the canal they are at risk of losing much of the revenue that is generated by the canal because as more ships outgrow the canal shippers will seek alternate trade routes.

There goes Wal-Mart...

"The vulnerability of Wal-Mart is in fact an object lesson for other retailers. Business schools should write case studies about Wal-Mart's German debacle, for it is an example of locals bucking globalising uniformity..." (Summary)

What I found extremely interesting is that one of the world's biggest discounter stores and also a figurehead of American globalization, Wal-Mart, is withdrawing from the German market by selling its 85 hypermarkets to the Metro AG . Wal-Mart's officials explained it with an unexpected loss due to German consumer buying habits, who prefered other discount stores.

I believe that Wal-Mart's statement needs to be understood as an attempt to use German consumer buying habits as an excuse for its inability of competing with other German discount stores and its anti-union philosophy, facing a strong German union.

Do you also identify Wal-Mart as a symbol of globalization? Does Wal-Mart have the same problems in the US?