Key Features of Successful Globalization: Institutions and Time

In reading the six assigned chapters of Foer’s text, there seemed to be two underlying themes: all of the countries mentioned have failed in their attempts in globalization and that time plays an important role in a country’s instillation of policies or ideas to successfully globalize. All of Foer’s examples of failed globalization have one distinct commonality: none of them had successful institutions set up. Instead, their government often consisted of dictators and or blatant forms of corruption within the government. In addition, in all of Foer’s examples, globalization policies and practices were instilled quickly and shortly thereafter, failed rapidly. One possible reason for these rapid failures of policies and ideas could be pointed at those who instilled them; generally these people had little experience in doing so. A second possible reason is that they were simply not given enough time to evolve and possibly flourish in the long run.

One argument for the reason why the United States is so successful in its globalization efforts is due to the institutions we have set up. Our democratic system of government, while flawed, is set up so that there are constant checks and balances of government power to ensure that one branch of government does not gain more power than the others. In addition to our checks and balance system, the U.S. has a constitution and accompanying amendments that grant rights and freedoms for citizens. One such right is the freedom to express any feelings (good or bad) openly. For example, you can openly yell out your negative feelings regarding the (lack of) efficiency of our government, or you can initiate peaceful protests, argue over controversial policies via twitter, etc. If you have an opinion, you have the freedom to voice it, and not only do you have the freedom, you are encouraged to exercise these freedoms. None of the countries that Foer talks about in the reading have democratic institutions or democratic societies. Thus making a connection that globalization is successful in democratic societies where there is a balance of power and extensive rights for citizens.

 Something that I noticed while reading the examples of failed globalization attempts in Foer’s book is how time is a key factor with regards to a country’s success or failure in globalization. For example, Foer talks about Brazil’s (less than) ten-year period of economic growth and industrial boom (“Brazilian Miracle”) that hit a bump after the 1972 oil shocks. Instead of adjusting Brazil’s economic growth plans due to the oil shocks, the military dictatorship maintained its initial intent and kept the economy aimed at its stellar growth rate; which meant more state spending and more borrowing from foreign banks. This high rate of borrowing and spending put the government into a $40 billion debt, which thus lead to inflation and unemployment. Brazil’s attempt to globalize and become an international power by enacting new policies and creating new public works projects was all done extremely quickly. Just as quickly as the “Brazilian Miracle” began, it crashed and burned.  The lesson I took away from this example is that globalization takes time. For a country to implement an entirely new structure in order to create economic growth, like Brazil did, it may have successful outcomes in the short run, however the Brazilian government had no previous experience or knowledge on how to deal with a bump in the road (the oil shocks) and maintain a steady growth rate. Had Brazil took more time in developing its economic plan or had experts monitoring the plans for economic growth, they may have been more successful. If you look at the U.S. in contrast, which is a country that is known to be a globalized country, it’s important to note that our success did not just come over night. Again, taking a look at our political structure, it took a lot of time, trial and error, patience and innovation to come up with our strong democratic system; and even today, this system that we pride our self on as “the voice of the people” is far from perfect. As the saying goes: slow and steady wins the race and from my observations reading Foer’s book, this applies to globalization as well.