Center-Periphery Relationship in Today’s World, Essay Example

An Argentine economist known as Paul Prebisch (1901-1986) is remembered for his pioneering work in structuralist economics. Emphasis of the structural economics is that developing countries structural principles be taken into account when analyzing their development. Paul’s analysis of his center periphery theory elaborates on these economies. In this theory, he states that the world can be divided into two spheres, the global “north” or center and the global “south” or periphery. In today’s world, the US is the center, and other parts of the world are the periphery.

The center composes the developed and industrialized countries while the periphery makes up the developing and unindustrialized countries. He also argued that the periphery states are in a position of dependence compared to the center states whose economic development is almost a nearly impossible task. He further goes and explains that due to the mentioned fact, center countries have economies that centers on the production of industrialized goods whereas periphery countries’ economies focuses on the manufacture of primary goods known to be raw materials. Therefore, the US gets their main goods from the undeveloped nations whose economies are known to be dependent wholly on the exports of these primary goods.

There are several relationships that exist between the US and the periphery countries. The main relationship is that due to the nature of the economies of the periphery countries that are undiversified and very low production yields of the raw goods, their supply of the raw materials to the center nation is extremely inelastic. As a result of this, whenever the center nations experience economic depression, it crosses over into the periphery nations. The reason is that the periphery nations would be supplying and selling the same amount of raw goods for lower prices. This was observed is an aspect of the dependency that the peripheral countries have on the US.

The second relationship is that the terms of trade between these two countries is such that the periphery countries attain massive trade deficits. In the international economic and trade relations, the central countries mainly enjoy the benefits of international trade, while the peripheral countries cannot enjoy such benefits. The main rationale is the developing countries usually import much more than the periphery countries. In order to describe this, Prebisch incorporates the Engels law that states the higher the income the lower the percentage one spends on food. Therefore, as time passes the income of both the central countries and the peripheral increased. This resulted in the central importing less primary goods whereas, the peripheral countries spent more and more on the industrial goods. As it would be expected the trade deficits of the developing countries increased due to this relationship.

The core nations maintain its dominance over the periphery nations in various ways. Since the discussion of the central nations refers to the US, it is pretty clear that it is dominant over every other country in the world. Strategies used to maintain dominance include:

1. Its focus on production bases on higher skills and capital intensive production methods. The rest of the world focuses on low skilled and labour intensive production method. This maintains its dominance over other countries.
2. Though, the structure of the international relations becomes complicated US always keeps and maintains a particularly important central position. (Moon, 1942). The purpose of this is not only of special importance politically but, it combines various factors such as business, technology, culture, population and military. The location of choice that has the features may be a city, a country or a region and by the use the geopolitical terms, it can be respectively described as the core region, district, zone or center of gravity. Since US is the center, it is the point of convergence of various forces in different forms making it a super power.

Communication and transportation technologies play a crucial role in the creation and maintenance of the present world system. It is evident that the twentieth and the twenty first century globalization have left countries of the world to be economically polarized. Central countries have the most advanced communication and transportation technologies as compared to peripheral countries. Inequities have emerged over the years leading to the creation of massive gaps between the richest and the poorest nations on earth.

Peripheral countries have also been experiencing exploitation as another result. Transportation technologies like the airplanes have enabled the US people to travel all over the world, this has exposed them to many places in which the they can venture to for their own interest purposes. Communication technologies have also resulted in them reaching out to the whole world easily. Although the technologies are beneficial to the whole world, they have been taken advantage of by the central countries for their own advantage.

Transportation and communication is the lifeline of a society dominated by other secondary activities. In the past, economic wealth and human partial organizations depended on movement of people and goods. Therefore, future settlement patterns and prosperity will rely on intercommunication systems. USA with its massive internal market, advanced technology and extensive aid programs have led it to become the leader in assisting the less developed countries expand and improve their communication networks (Landstedt, 1990, p. 226). This has made it the core in the modern day society.

In terms of technological developments, USA is an imperial power. According to global communication, it is a centre (Edelstein, Bowen & Harsel, 1978, p. 38). Most countries in the periphery have patterns of global communication, which are monocentric, with few lateral connections. They adopted them from their former imperial colonists. USA as the centre relates to other countries in the periphery through trading activities and sharing of technologies. The west depends on developing countries for raw materials and cheap labor. Whilst the developing countries depend on the west for advanced technologies and processed products.

USA dominates the world in the cinema and television channels of communication technologies. This is because they consider it as purely business with products similar to others. While the countries on the periphery view films as a product, and are more concerned on the cultural effects of these films on their populations. Periphery considers the imports of US films as a cultural invasion. Most of the global communications in the world is disproportionate as it flows from the USA to the other parts of the world. It significantly improved the technologies of information and communication. The introduction of the internet greatly revolutionized the world. It changed all aspect of socio-economic and cultural activities of the world. Advancements in the manufacturing processes, in the transportation industry, have also revolutionized the transportation sector of the world economy. This has made movement of goods and people from one place to another very easy.

Global communications and transportation has led to the development of globalization of the world. This is where people from different cultural and economic backgrounds all over the world are able to interact, share ideas and trade together. This is the amalgamation of all countries economies into one world economy with a homogeneous working relation (Sanhney & Barnet, 1999, p. 71). Many countries have been able to open up to other countries to conduct trade relations due to the ease of movement between people and goods. The innovation of technology has led to the expansion of communication between different nations. The use of the internet has significantly influenced the world into being a globalized nation. This is because communication has been made easier to the extent that all activities, which were not, possible to conduct, are now easier to conduct.

Robust technological advancements by the US have enabled it qualify to be an empire. This is because it can supply to other countries sufficient amounts of products needed for development. The US is an empire because it controls most parts of the world, just like the British Empire. Many developing countries, in this case the periphery, depend on USA for economic development by providing them with essential products for exchange of other essential raw materials. USA’s economic level is rapidly increasing due to the immense contribution of globalization effects to telecommunication, which has promoted interaction between centers and peripheries. US have increased opportunities of promoting division of labor in international trade, which has enhanced telecommunication activities with other states and countries round the globe (Hardt & Negri, 2001, p. 140). Politically, USA is stable with regard to aspects like technology, business, polity and population, military and cultural based views as compared to other poor countries in the world.

An Empire comprises of strong naval and military forces ready to defend their country at any one time. US military personnel deployed in war struck areas are proof enough of how powerful in negotiating with other colonies in maintaining peace and order. Telecommunications in the US has moved to another high level that competes with other powerful countries and colonies including the British Empire. Both transportation and communication networks relate to current global changes that bring about innovative opportunities and challenges (Hardt & Negri, 2001, p. 380). Communications in the US is high-tech because they are able to detect terrorists’ attacks and hence, sabotage their plans of bombing and killing innocent people. High crime rates evident in some parts of America show how leaders need to employ strategic leadership skills to curb the menace. However, being an Empire, they have universal problem-solving techniques and measures fostered to further development of networks.

In conclusion, USA can be seen to be the centre while, other parts of the world the periphery. USA has used polycentric nature of the environment to develop its technology and infrastructure, while the other countries have used monocentric nature of the environment. They have been able to shift to being the centre of the society by developing their own technological advancements without imitating any other country. They dominate the other parts of the periphery through their advancements in technology and infrastructure. The countries in the periphery, mostly composed of the developing countries continue to imitate the Western countries. The center and the periphery have their relations in their trading activities. This is whereby the countries in the periphery exports unfinished products. These are processed in the developed countries and sold back to the developing countries. Global communication and transportation has led to the world’s economic development. USA is an empire as it controls parts of the world with regards to its technological advancements and other issues as compared to other developing countries.

References

Bunce, V. (1985), “The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability”, International Organization.

Edelstein, A., Bowen, J. & Harsel, S. (1978). Information Societies: Comparing the Japanese and the American Experiences. International Communication. University of Washington: Seattle.

Gyorgy, A. (1943). “The Geopolitics of War: Total War and Geo-Strategy”, The Journal of Politics.

Hardt, M & Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Landstedt, S. (1990). Telecommunication, values and the public internet. Norwood, New Zealand: Aelex

Sanhney, H. & Barnet, G. (199). Progress in communication sciences, voixv: Advances in Telecommunication. Stamford, CT: Aelex.

Yahya, K. (2001). Global communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Wallerstein, I. (1980), The Modern World System, Vol. II. New York: Academic Press.