It is impossible this week to escape discussions of
ambiguity. It is in our readings. It is in the news. It is in the blogs of my fellow students –
Katherine’s touched particularly on some of the fears associated with its
present implications. And though the
permeability of boundaries as an overarching theme in class might make these
statements appear trite, it is a broader sense that we have just walked “through
the looking glass” that is permeating the conscious thought of so many of us.
It is bound to live in our socio-economic and political world for a while now.
While the concepts we have been studying allude to ambiguities in blurred lines, overlapping
constructs, and intersubjective relationships, we can wrap our heads around
them. The results of our recent election are launching us into economic and political
disorientations we did not have only a week ago. The concern with this could
not relate more distinctly to our readings.
As ambiguity, seems to be in the air, it seemed appropriate to reflect
on Naeem Inyatullah’s examination of the enigmatic nature of statehood in a
globalized economy founded on a colonial model of capitalism.
In “Beyond the sovereignty dilemma: quasi-states as social
construct,” Inyatullah speaks to both real and virtual subjection of weaker
states to those stronger based on economic distribution and historic divisions
in the production chain that favor wealth acquisition by successors to the colonial "home" state. The weaker of those founded on this model are, despite formal recognition, effectively rendered quasi-states. To grant them equal footing as states in the global community, Inyatullah imagines a world in which the system is retooled
to align with a more objective concept of political economy based on the interdependence
of economic players in the international arena. In conceiving wealth as a right based on collective production by a global division of labor, he suggests each state contributor in the chain has a claim on
the acquisition of that wealth. Further
each has a right to this acquisition in a more equitable and humane context than
exists today.
Two weeks ago, I would have been hopeful we could get there,
if incrementally. I love Inyatullah’s vision. But, in the near future, the world does not
appear headed in that direction. The market,
against earlier predictions, is up after the election. This
is based, according to several articles out at the time of this writing, on
faith in traditional capitalism over international social good – even where
it may hurt the economy in the long run (Irwin, Nov 12; Krugman, Nov 14). Sadly, this leaves it to those set up for
failure by those compounding the problem to build the foundations for transformation.
As it relates to Inyatulla’s “sovereignty dilemma” we seem to have resigned
ourselves to exacerbating the disparities and contextual dissonance of our
present model with complete and utter disregard to the historic injustice in global divisions of labor
- or our present ability to realign policy with
a more equitable conception of the nature of state and sovereignty in relation
to production and wealth acquisition.
My issue with this theory is that while it may initially seem fair, it shares similar flaws to socialist models. How do you keep the larger and more productive economies motivated to produce complex goods, etc, if their more valuable outputs are not benefiting them in proportion to their efforts. I would disagree with the notion that the present system naturally benefits former imperial 'home' states. East Asia, India, Australia and Canada were not 'home' states and have done well for themselves. In fact, by comparison, many colonial powers have fallen in relative terms - Britain, France, Germany and Russia are all examples here. I would argue that the problems at hand are not the result of a naturally unbalanced political and economic structure, but instead are the result of the natural development of weak states into more organized, efficient and productive versions of their former selves. It has only been 70 years since the beginning of the end of the colonial period, that after all, is the blink of an eye in the long history of human affairs. It will take time for some weaker African and Latin American states to develop. However long it takes, they need to earn that development for themselves as best they can. Having them rely on artificially redistributed gains will only create inflated economic 'paper tigers'. Just my two (okay, three) cents.
ReplyDelete