John Williamson, An English Economist

That this was also the decade in which globalization came into full swing is more than a minor inconvenience for its advocates” (Rodrick). If globalization is supposed to present an advantage to developing countries, why have there been so many setbacks? Indeed, both sides will have its winners and losers regardless of which side of the development coin they live on, but for the most part globalization has lifted millions out of poverty, improved the standard of living, and increased life expectancy rates all while keeping developed nations relatively competitive to their developing counterparts. Globalization’s value is that it seeks to create an economic equilibrium in the world, where parties are free from barriers and can benefit from one another through a more efficient allocation of resources. This allows all participating nations to contribute to an integrated economy and where all nations willing to embrace globalization have the potential to benefit. Regardless, the path to successful integration to the global economy has not always been easy. There is contention towards globalization as some argue that it is detrimental to developed nations, while many developing countries that were forced to hastily open up their markets and integrate failed. However, if implemented properly, globalization has proven that it can benefit all parties involved and that the potential gains outweigh the losses.

Washington Consensus (WC) was first discovered post World War II in 1989 by John Williamson (Williamson, A Short History of the Washington Consensus, 2004). WC believes in promoting free trade, floating exchange rate, free markets and macroeconomic stability to help economies grow and recover after the world war. This non-liberal view of globalization has saw supporters from World-known economist and organizations such as IMF, World Bank, EU & US.

Within the Global Political economic, there have been a number of considerations about whether or not the Washington consensus and the “Post-Washington Consensus” (Stiglitz, 1998; 2004) approach to development are fundamentally different. Critics within the International Monitory Fund (IMF) and World Bank suggest that both approaches are one in the same it is thus variously labelled as the

The argument can be made that economic freedom is a necessary precondition to political freedom, yet the unilateral focus of these reforms begs the question whether during the writing of the Washington Consensus, economic liberalization was solely a means to international development, or an end in itself. The historical support is for the latter, as John Williamson later reflects that there was, “a widespread attempt to tighten fiscal policy, extensive financial and trade liberalization, virtually universal elimination of restrictions on inward foreign direct investment, a lot of privatization, and quite a bit of deregulation. [But] the things that got most widely neglected were reforming public expenditure priorities, maintaining a competitive exchange rate, and extending property rights to the informal sector”

After WWII the United States had replaced Europe as the ideal model for Progress. The media glorified what living in the US would be like; having a refrigerator, and a car. This became increasingly unrealistic especially when Latin Americans could barely afford to dream of having a refrigerator, let alone a car. To Latin America being next to a newly developed superpower has starting to have its downsides, especially after the US announced the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan spent a large amount of funds to Europe to help rebuild after the devastating war, although Latin America was allied with the US, they had only received two percent between 1946 and 1959.

Colombia’s economy is one of the largest among the Latin American countries. Presently, it is classified as the 34th freest economy ( heritage.org: 2015); improvements have resulted in trade, monetary growth, labor, decrease in corruption, and investment. In Caruthers and Babb’s Economy and Society, Globalization is defined as “the intensification of world wide social relations that has resulted in the linking of distant localities” (2013). The Economic Complementation Agreement, the Latin American Integration Association, and most of all, Plan Colombia with the U.S, represent this. In 1994, Colombia attempted to make agreements with various countries to better there trade and increase their globalization. The geographic location of Colombia and its involvement with drugs lead Colombia into isolationism (Reina and Zuluaga: 2012). Therefore, the Latin American Integration Association allowed and The

The analysis of Latin America is a compelling argument for the exploitation of peripheries in the WST. There are numerous examples of cases where a core or core countries have benefited from situations where a Latin American state has been unfairly treated within the international economic community. It is natural that some countries in South America were more greatly affected by the inequalities of the modern economic system because there are differences in their their economic structures; some countries interacted more closely, more frequently, or under different agreements with core powers compared to other countries. However, a significant proportion of Latin American experienced some form of exploitation under the conditions of the capitalist

Latin America is home to an extremely diverse population, this is predominantley down to the fact that the majority of Latin America was colonized by the European superpowers of colonial times such as, Spain, Portugal, Britain, France and the Netherlands. As a result of this colonialism there has been significant political and social unrest in Latin America which has hindered the development of both social and economic processes. The “Blancos” dominated social, politcal and economic systems for over a century and when the time came for colonoial powers to relinquish their power over their colonies it was not as simple as just packing their bags and leaving.

This trend was popular in colonial times and has survived due to help from international organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank. One such way this that has been encouraged is through the Washington Consensus. The IMF and World Bank implemented the Washington Consensus, a set of fixed ideas about international trade and economic development, through structural adjustment programs which were mandatory for countries if they wished to borrow money from either of the organizations (Nederveen, 2004, p. 11). In conjunction with structural adjustments to continue the dependency theory, the United States uses both the IMF and the World Bank as tools to further their foreign policy and to support US aims and polices (Finnegan, 2003, p. 43). These programs were supposed to reduce poverty and facilitate growth but really just ended up screwing over many countries. Additionally, they were really just ways for America to assert their control under the guise of an international organization providing support to developing countries’ economies (Finnegan, 2003, p. 42). Ultimately structural adjustments were used to implement policies that the United States thinks is best for the world and promote American values (Manzo, 1999, p. 112). The World Bank and the IMF listen to the rich countries and implement policies that they believe are best for those countries that are in development while creating a situation that contributes to the continuation of a cycle of dependency (Manzo, 1999, p. 110). Ultimately neoliberalism has created a global regime that promotes dependency on the United States and allows them to decide what is best for countries that are still developing (Nederveen, 2004, p. 7). In the end, the fact that neoliberalism has many of the same contradictions that

Having an economy dependent on the world market is highly susceptible to the success and failure of international markets. For example, during the Frei administration the prices for copper began to decline. The price drop was detrimental to Chile because the economy “depended on copper exports for 80% of its foreign exchange earnings” (Hellinger 2011, 186). Many modernization theorists suggest that traditions, inherited status and natural inequalities are to blame for Chile’s lack of development (Hellinger 2011, 122). By focusing on “social structures that resemble feudalism in Europe”, modernization theorist overlooks the deeper problem of the effects of colonialism (Hellinger 2011, 120). During the Spanish colonization, Chile was charged with producing cheap primary goods such as “agricultural products, minerals, and other raw materials” to be exported to the Spain (Hellinger 2011, 136). Once Spain transformed the raw materials to finished goods, these products are then sold back to Chile at a higher cost. The cycle has remained intact until this day. “This arrangement bled Latin America of wealth that could have been the basis for

We can related this article to our class because it shows the hegemony and global relationship between the United States and Latin America. The involvement of United States throughout Latin America was to prove its power over the Soviet Union during the cold war. It was also a way of ensuring the protection of its economically and political power in Latin America. Therefore when communism started gaining massive support in El Salvador, the United States called for its US train salvadoran army to eliminate the supporters. As the author of our reading, “The Hegemony of U.S Economic Doctrines in Latin America” states “ When Latin America strayed from the path of virtue, they have been reminded to get back on the straight and narrow by the United

The 21st century in Latin America will be filled with a number of multifaceted challenges. As we sift through Latin America's rich history, we can find potential clues to how modern problems should or should not be handled. It's incredibly difficult to predicate with a high degree of certainty whether a solution from the past will be successful today. Likewise certain choices from the past shouldn’t be ignored just because they didn't work in the past. Therefore we shouldn't treat the past as a rulebook, but rather as a source of inspiration to guide us towards a more prosperous future. From the economy to the environment, Latin America's diversity will be both its greatest asset and burden in solving their 21st century

Not unlike the political transformations that pepper Latin American history, Latin America experienced several changes in economic systems. Each country possesses its own unique history, however there are several structural similarities that create a likeness across national borders. When examining Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela one major commonality is the shift from Import Substitute Industrialization to Neoliberal reforms in times of economic downturn. Nevertheless, each country experienced distinctive outcomes placing their economies on different scales of development and stability. To understand how inequality, economic growth and structural independence influence these countries, an examination of each country's major economic

To begin with let us consider the opinion of much that in the 1960s, Latin America was a country in which political stability was very difficult because "political institutions were weak, political society was increasingly based on a mass of people And legitimacy was, for the most part, absent. "(Philip, 2006) However, in the following years some countries in the Southern Cone emerged

Since the 1990’s and the rise of globalization in the 1970’s, neoliberal economic change have transformed transnational markets and contributed to many social implications. This paper will explore the impacts as well as the factors that contributed and shaped the global economic changes in the post-Cold War era. This paper will also explore globalization and neoliberal economic shift through India, China, Russia, and Morocco’s economies. This paper argues Thomas Friedman’s view that while economic shifts are decisions made by individual economies, at the same time were inevitable, as to compete in the global market it is necessary to partake in neoliberal economies. This paper also discusses the idea that globalization is merely an extension of colonialism and imperialism and that impact on developing nations and economies through their interactions with the Washington Consensus.