Globalization has become the great leveler
There is no "Third World" model of political or economic development any
more -- if ever there was a credible one.
Indeed, the very term "Third World" is no longer en vogue -- it's as
though there was a race and "we" of the "Third World" (meaning, of course,
denizens and citizens of the world's 135 developing countries) came in
third.
Third to whom? The East Europeans and Soviets, notionally the "Second
World"? Third to the "First World," the 30 members of the OECD, the
Paris-based so-called rich countries' club?
It's not just "all developing countries regardless of their past history,
internal socio-political structure and political culture, are subject to
the same overwhelming pressures to integrate into the world economy" -- as
Gareth Porter puts it. The rich, industrialized countries face the same
pressures. They need markets that the developing countries provide, they
need natural resources to fuel their manufacturing, and they need goods
and services from the ol' "Third World" to sustain their domestic economic
growth.
There's also no "anti-globalist, Third World liberation model" out there.
Of course there are critics of globalization, some of them vehement. After
all, globalization -- the freer flow of capital, goods, services and ideas
across borders -- hasn't been universally beneficial. And since
globalization has become synonymous with the expansion of capitalism, the
hoary debate over the motives and means of money men is likely to continue
for some time to come.
If anything, Lebanon was always an example of capitalist enterprise. If it
no longer serves as the banking and finance capital of the Middle East,
that's at least partly because of the catastrophic politics of the region.
And while Vietnam may have been a Communist state, the bazaar mentality of
the Vietnamese always reflected that of fellow Asians. It's just that the
exigences of the times have now enabled the Vietnamese to embrace a more
formal form of capitalism. But the currency of the realm -- in Vietnam,
Lebanon and everywhere else in the "Third World" -- has always been the
coin.
To put it another way, politicians may come and go, ideologies may rise
and fall, but the bazaar never shuts down. If there's a model at all out
there in the "Third World" it's that everyone wants to deal like a
merchant and live like a prince.