Justin Podur — Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

Summary:
The structures of the global economy present challenges to any country or political party that wants to try to break out of U.S. hegemony. Even for countries as big and with as much potential as Brazil or Egypt, countries that have experienced waves of relative independence, the inertia of these economic structures helps send them back into old patterns of extraction and debt. In this moment of right-wing resurgence it is hard to imagine political movements arising with plans to push off the weight of the economic past. But that weight cannot be ignored. Colonialism and path dependence. I would say that this is one of a number of factors. Whether they can be reduced to a single factor or even a few factors remains to be seen. However, this seems to be one of the key factors. The post

Topics:
Mike Norman considers the following as important: colonialism, development economics, liberal world order, neo-imperialism, neocolonialism, Rise of the West, US hegemony

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