Tonight, we had the pleasure of hearing from Mexican (ex-)President Vicente Fox and Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage. They took to the stage to debate the current and controversial debate of globalization versus nationalization. (Click here to view the recording.) While there were some community outcries about banning this event, University of Maryland President Wallace Loh upheld the right to free speech and allowed for this debate to happen. I am thoroughly in support of President Loh’s decision because I believe that we need to learn how to have civilized exchange of ideas instead of constantly working to ban the voices of opinions that we do not share. By refusing to listen to the other side, not only is the world becoming more radicalized, but you miss an opportunity to defend and maybe reevaluate your position. In the end, I didn’t agree with all of the points of either of the speakers, but I did think that they both brought up some interesting points, which I will now discuss.
First, it’s important to point out that these men both had the same goals:
- To promote the safety and security of the country
- To promote fair collaboration and trade between nations
What’s interesting is that those same goals led to different plans of actions. Nigel Farage aims to promote safety and security of its nation and people by closing the borders and to promote fair collaboration by deciding on every collaboration individually. On the other hand, President Fox seeks to promote safety and security by connecting all countries in a system of international relations and thus reducing tensions as well as willingness to start conflicts.
Essentially, this debate boiled down to President Fox advocating for the benefits of working together and using each other’s capabilities to come up with products for a fraction of the costs while Nigel Farage emphasized the importance of being able to choose who comes into the country. More specifically, President Fox reminded the audience of the benefits of NAFTA. For example, if an American car were to be made exclusively in the US, the price of cars would skyrocket. Domestic production would be too expensive because more capital will be needed for low-value added jobs that were previously done abroad. Imported cars would also be prohibitively expensive because tariffs would be placed on those imports in order to protect the domestic industry. This example is especially relevant to Americans as cities typically lack good public transportation systems and as many of the citizens live in the suburbs, where the public transport is minimal, if not nonexistent. There is no question that trade has brought down the cost of consumer products around the world. Globalization encourages international competition, which is great for the consumer but may harm companies who cannot compete in the highly competitive environment. This potential threat to companies leads governments to pursue protectionist policies.
Contrastingly, Nigel Farage has actively campaigned against globalization, to the point of reverting his country’s membership in the European Union. He claimed that the “unelected EU bureaucrats” did not allow the country to control who comes in and who goes out of the country, which meant that the country no longer had control over their culture or their language. I used quotes here to refer to a phrase and main grievance that Nigel Farage brought up many times which is not exactly accurate. Most anti-EU individuals point to the fact that they have no control over the election of the governing body. That is simply not true; the EU Parliament is directly elected by the people, the EU Council consists of the heads of state of the member countries and the EU President is nominated by the Council and elected by the Parliament. In the end, only the EU President isn’t directly elected by the people but it is in fact indirectly elected by them. On the topic of “bureaucrats”, I will be the last to say that I believe that governments are efficient and absent of bureaucracy. Nonetheless, I do see the value in government and do not see how businesses would be able to operate without the structure provided by governments. So, yes, I agree that the EU governance is made up of bureaucrats. Yet, the idea is that the equivalent of those bureaucrats within nations can be reduced and trade talks with other countries can be streamlined because an outside country doesn’t have to negotiate with every individual country in Europe. To conclude, Nigel Farage’s entire premise rested on the idea of “unelected EU bureaucrats” who rule without the consent of the member states. That is not exactly fact, which is why I cannot align myself with his point of view. To me, that’s like a state from the United States saying that the federal government was full of unelected US bureaucrats simply because the candidate that the state wanted to win didn’t or because they don’t agree with the current government’s way of doing things. I believe in majority rule and fixing flawed systems (knowing that there will never be a perfect system) instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
In my view, we will never have a world free of tensions and resentment until all people have the opportunity to reach economic prosperity. This prosperity can only be reached once everyone in the planet has the opportunity to be educated and to work for a better future. Until then, there will always be a country jealous of another and hoping to harm it. In my opinion, the difference between globalization and nationalization is that nationalists view the economy as a zero-sum game while the globalists view the economy as an every expanding pie. I choose to take the optimistic side instead of cowering within my country borders.