Writing Homework

Julianne Johnson

Paper 4

Professor Phillips

08/04/16

Developing Countries exploiting and riding on the backs of undeveloped nations

As a citizen of the United States, I have heard repeatedly the claims that the US is number one, that we rose their from underdogs on our own. We are a self-made country. Or so is claimed. What I have come to find however, is that the maintaining of power and stance of developed, world leaders such as the US, rests on exploitation of underdeveloped nations in our world. The US can claim that they began as underdogs with the revolutionary war against Great Britain. However, now that the US has claimed itself a world power, it remains as such by stepping on all the underdogs.

World trade is highly in favor of developed countries and exploits the markets of under-developed countries. The placement of tariffs on developing countries is a great detriment to their market and is skewed toward developing countires. For example, Africa’s top exports, coffee and cocoa remain tariff free only if they are unprocessed. As soon as they are processed, developed countries place high tariffs on the products. The value of the product increases exponentially once it is processed; however developing countries are forced to export raw, unprocessed materials because the high tariffs on their products is unviable for their economy. For products such as chocolate which is deemed as fair trade, 90% of the value is gained in Europe, not in the developing nation that produced it (Blastland 2004). While material economy is described in a linear fashion, not everyone in the world feels the effects of this system or has the same voice in this system. The material economy goes from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. However, the system is imbalanced in who is actually paying the cost of production. The initial extraction step of material economy is hazardous to the environment in which it is extracted, as these resources are renewable and these processes often cause pollution. Production in factories causes heavy pollution and releases toxic chemicals that are hazardous to the surrounding community’s health. Because of this toxicity, developed nations have increasingly sent the burden of production to less developed countries, so as to reduce the pollution and health hazard in their own countries. While consumption is driven by developed countries, the undeveloped countries of our world hold the greatest weight in paying the cost for these goods. Furthermore, in the last step of material economy, disposal, undeveloped nations once again are at large risk for exploitation. Disposal of material, especially toxic materials, is dangerous for communities and people do not want the disposal going on in their backyard. Businesses and industries of developed nations frequently ship off their waste and toxins to low income countries, paying them to take their trash. This is another example how wealthier nations such as the US exploit the underdog countries who are more vulnerable in the system of market economy (Symsess 2008).

Blastland, Michael. “Does Trade Exploit the Poor?” 06 Jan. 2004. Web.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3372305.stm

Symsess. “No Other Option: Exploitation of the Third World.” Citizen Orange 28 Sep. 2008. Web.

http://www.citizenorange.com/orange/2008/09/no-other-option-explotation-of.html