The liberal view of globalization is one that is overwhelmingly positive and optimistic about the relationships between nations, while the critical view is very harsh and describes globalization as the result of persistent inequality and exploitation of weaker powers. While I personally am in most agreement with the realist view and its opinions on polarity and power dynamics, between the liberal and critical view I would more so agree with the liberal view of globalization.
I personally agree with the fact that more openness and the trading of a nation’s abundant resources is a better way of looking at globalization as a whole. This lets a nation focus their efforts on a task that they will have the most success in to better help export those resources to nations who have a difficult time attaining them, while also letting other nations help them by trading them back resources that the initial country has trouble acquiring. As we discussed in class there are many ways that globalization has promoted positive interactions and relationships between nations. One example being that both the Free Trade and Market Institutions and the Bretton Woods Institutions knocked down a ton of barriers that made international trade and exchange more difficult. By having the thought process that the world will be more successful by having nations work together, nations have effectively made it much easier to quickly engage in trades.
I wouldn’t blame somebody for seeing the liberal perspective as overly naive or simply just looking at the most positive parts of globalization without going deeper into international power dynamics, but I just can’t get behind the overly pessimistic or negative view that critical international relations theorists seem to have. I do not agree that globalization depends on the marginalization of communities such as women or indigenous people or furthers itself based on persistent inequalities as seen in our class slideshow. While I can absolutely believe it possible that there are some nations that would take advantage of marginalized groups to do things like use them as cheap labor for manufacturing trade products or imposing on their groups land to harvest resources, I don’t think it is completely fair to all the progress that humans have made in order to attempt to provide free and open interactions between nations. The openness and accessibility of trade, communication, and information is what I believe to be the core of globalization. If a nation is taking advantage of nations or people in its own boarders to maximize their own trade benefits, then that’s a failing on the nation itself and not a failure on the fact that the world has allowed said nation the opportunity to trade with other nations.
There is always going to be injustice and inequality in the international community/system to some degree because there will always be those that are willing to further their own agenda by using an institution and taking it to the extreme in some way shape or form. But just because a system has the ability to be manipulated by those with less than pure intentions doesn’t mean that the system is completely wrong or evil. The liberal view points out that globalization has allowed nations to obtain necessary resources from other nations and allow an easy to access trade that ensures goods can almost always be obtained. This fosters a better interdependency between nations and promotes more positive international relationships, which will always be extremely valuable and important despite any mishaps that might arise from those who will abuse the international system.
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