Globalization, Poverty and the Plight of Former Colonies

What both the Inquirer and the UN report in brief were saying is that poverty and corruption don't necessarily have to co-exist, and that at the bottom of poverty is that damn thing called globalization to which [Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Fidel Ramos] committed [the Philippines]. GMA was then the chairman of the Senate committee on economic affairs which hurriedly and recklessly ratified the nation's membership in GATT and the WTO without bothering with the kind of "safety nets" which China and India meticulously took pains to establish before saying Amen to globalization.

How then explain the connection between globalization and poverty? The answer is simple. Globalization is nothing more but the internationalization, or globalization if you will, of the free trading relationship between poor and rich countries which old-fashioned colonialism imposed on its former colonies like China and India. And that relationship is what perpetuated the underdevelopment and consequent poverty of the former colonies. It did that because free trade made colonies the dumping ground of the industrial goods produced by the colonial powers and necessarily prevented the colonies from embarking on their own industrialization program.blockquote>