This article was written by upper-sixth former Anish Goel.

Estimated read time: 6 minutes

Since World War Two, countries have reduced trade barriers and have tended to move towards free trade. Should the world follow a similar path with respect to immigration and open all borders?

Most economists tend to agree with both the policies of free trade and free movement of people.^[1] To a free market economist, restricting immigration prevents the free market from allocating labour most efficiently. Free movement of people, in theory, should increase world GDP, with The Economist estimating that it could make the world $78 trillion richer.^[2] However, there are other important factors including the effect on the natives and the large cultural and social effects. The definition of ‘open borders’ also may vary, although it could, it does not necessarily mean we become a nationless world with no borders between country. Countries could maintain their borders and vet everyone who enters their country but would allow everyone in, except in extremely extenuating circumstances e.g. a security risk.

Open border immigration has the potential to lower the wages of native workers. Immigration increases the supply of available labourers so (ceteris paribus) one might expect wages to fall for native workers as they now have more competition in the labour market. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that migrants often take low-skilled work, e.g. in the UK in 2013 of the 13 million low-skilled jobs, 2.1 million were occupied by migrants.^[3] Low-skilled workers earn lower wages and so if their wages are lowered even more by immigration, it could lead to some not being able to afford the necessities e.g. food, utilities, rent etc and so would be an undesirable policy for governments to follow as a government’s job is to protect its own people first.

In reality however, immigrants don’t necessarily reduce native wages, especially in the long run.

Immigrants are also consumers and so will need to buy more products to sustain themselves. Therefore, increasing the demand for goods and services which increases the derived demand for labour to provide these products. This may then help to offset the reduction in native wages. The Mariel Boatlift case study illustrates the reality that the influx of immigrants may have little effect on native wages. In 1980 there was a sudden influx of Cuban immigrants into Miami, the size of the labour force increased by 7%. There seemed to be virtually no effect on the wages of natives, nor on the unemployment rate even for African American minority groups.^[4] Immigrant’s don’t necessarily

compete for the same jobs as natives, often companies rearrange their structure and delay their automation due to the available supply of immigrant workers. This allows native workers to move onto more complex roles with more technical ability and communication required. In the short term a certain minority of low-skilled workers may see wage reduction however overall, in the long term, wages will likely go up.^[5]

Open borders may make it possible for workers to commute from one country to another which could lead to native wages decreasing, especially in regions near the border. Commuting immigrants may spend their wages in their native country rather than the country in which they are working. So, the derived demand for labour will not increase. With the increased supply of labour from the commuting immigrants we could see a reduction in wages for natives. The native country may not feel the benefits of immigration if the ‘demand channel’ is shut down and the wages of the immigrants are repatriated.^[6] A similar effect could be seen if the immigrants send a significant amount of their earnings back home. So, for an open border policy to fully benefit the natives, some regulation would need to be enforced which restricts the ability of individuals to reside in one country and work in another.

Another potential problem associated with open border immigration is the existence of state welfare. As Friedman suggested, in a welfare state, “the supply of immigrants would be infinite”⁷. Taking the UK for example, the NHS is already under immense pressure and all immigrants can make full use of the service. Hitherto Britain’s departure from the EU, EU citizens were able to claim jobseekers allowance.^[7] Open borders could lead to a high number of immigrants immigrating to use these services and therefore reducing its quality for all. However, this problem is not as big as one would expect. Firstly, in the OECD European countries, it was found immigrants contribute more in social and tax contributions than they receive in individual benefits.^[8] Secondly, even if immigrants did take more than they give, if borders were opened, governments could write legislation limiting immigrants’ ability to gain free access to public services until they have worked in the country for some time.

The immigrants themselves have much to gain; that’s why they move. When they move to a new country, they move somewhere they can be more productive by making use of their new countries’ capital, efficient firms, stability, and strong legal system.^[9] They are therefore compensated more with a higher wage. Unskilled Nigerians can increase their earnings by 1000% by moving to the USA.¹¹ Thus, opening borders has the potential to decrease global poverty and inequality more than foreign aid ever could; it would improve the immigrant’s standard of living.

By increasing their productivity, immigrants can also provide more value to their new country and the world. Michael Clemens claims that the complete opening of borders could double global GDP.

Shutting borders traps human talent in low productivity countries.^[10] Countries who receive immigrants increase the number of their factors of production and so increasing their potential output. Immigrants increase the proportion of the country, which is of working-age population, they bring new skills to a country and contribute to human capital development of receiving countries.^[11] Immigrants will provide more than the sum of their labour as they are enterprising and often start  businesses and organise the factors of production. Through creating jobs and increasing GDP, migrants grow a nation’s economy. 

Immigration has the potential to promote more gender equality amongst natives. Immigrants often enter jobs such as childcare, cleaning and catering^[12] and so the increased supply of these types of workers decreases their cost.¹⁵ In the UK 19% of cleaning jobs are taken up by immigrants.^[13] Domestic jobs like cleaning and childcare are often taken up by women as unpaid labour. By decreasing the cost of such services, they become more affordable for families and so they may free women up to join the workforce. The price of childcare may be reduced enough to make it worthwhile for a woman to get a job, and then pay for someone to help with childcare.  This would allow women to have more fulfilling careers and when they join the workforce, they can take up more productive jobs and provide more benefit to society in terms of tangible economic value.

It could be argued that the influx of new culture has a positive effect on a country. Take the UK for example, whose curry houses in 2016, employed 100,000 people and had annual sales of £4.2 billion.^[14] This income and these jobs are a direct result of immigration from South Asia and the culture which followed. The cultural benefits of immigration are not limited to culinary choices. Immigrants are often hard-working, risk-takers and entrepreneurial. Out of the USA’s top 500 companies, 43% were founded or co-founded by immigrants or their children^[15]; immigrants bring a more innovating culture to a country and can make use of their ‘cross-cultural experiences’ to create better products.^[16]

There is also the notion that immigrants bring a culture of crime with them; however, the data does not necessarily support this, e.g. in the USA foreign-born residents are only a fifth as likely to be incarcerated.^[17] Some may also argue that open borders allow terrorists to enter the country, however, there is that risk with our current immigration system. Having open borders does not forfeit a countries right to vet those entering their borders. Additionally, due to the economic

growth that results from immigration, there is evidence to suggest that terrorist activity is reduced by immigration.^[18]

The biggest loser of immigration is probably the nation from which immigrants leave. If the risktaking and resilient citizens leave a country, that country is bound to suffer. A smaller population will cause decreases in GDP, and due to the nature of those leaving, it may see fewer businesses set up. In Haiti 85% of their educated youth leave and thus the average education of the Haitian population decreases.^[19] However, this problem can be limited. Firstly, open borders would allow individuals to make use of richer countries’ universities, if they study there, they may return to their country more educated and therefore more productive. Secondly, immigrants often send money back to their family, this extra money is therefore pumped back into the local economy. Thirdly, many immigrants return to their home country having gained valuable work experience abroad and perhaps a broader cultural outlook, e.g. 45% of Mexicans who immigrated to the US eventually return.²³

Overall, I strongly believe borders should be opened far more than they already are, the potential economic value of immigrants living in low productivity countries is too great for countries to not take advantage of. Given current immigration levels, the sudden opening of borders could see too many people entering and countries could face overpopulation problems e.g. housing shortages. However, in the long run, I believe borders should eventually be opened up. Despite the fears of cultural clash and native culture getting ‘washed away’ and overwhelmed, many of these thoughts lay in racist and colonial attitudes^[20]; natives often vastly overestimate the presence of immigrants in their own country.^[21] Not only would immigration be beneficial economically, but in my opinion, it isn’t ethically right to restrict an individual’s standard of living based on the location of their birth, something of which they have no control over. In order to progress to an economically efficient world, where individuals’ talents are used to their potential, we must move towards opening our borders.

Bibliography

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Bowman, Sam. 2013. Adam Smith Institute. 03 07. Accessed 08 22, 2020.

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/milton-friedman-s-objection-to-immigration.

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Caplan, Bryan. 2019. Foreign Policy. 1 11. Accessed 08 23, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/01/immigration-wall-open-borders-trillion-dollar-idea/.

Collier, Paul. 2013. The New York Times. 29 11. Accessed 08 25, 2020.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/opinion/migration-hurts-the-homeland.html.

Course, Crash. 2016. Youtube. 18 05. Accessed 08 18, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XQXiCLzyAw.

2020. European Cleaning Journal. 21 02. Accessed 08 22, 2020.

http://www.europeancleaningjournal.com/magazine/web-articles/latest-news/britishcleaning-council-worried-by-uk-government-immigration-proposals.

2020. Kellog Insight. 02 03. Accessed 08 19, 2020.

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/immigration-economic-impact-costsbenefits-open-borders.

Matthews-King, Alex. 2018. The Independant. 24 12. Accessed 08 25, 2020.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/migration-refugee-syria-conflicteurope-mexico-conflict-study-a8698451.html.

2014. Migrants in low-skilled work. Government Report, London: Migration Advisory Committee.

2014. “Migration Policy Debates.” OECD. 05. Accessed 08 25, 2020.

https://www.oecd.org/migration/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%2

02.pdf.

Moore, Malcom. 2016. “The great British curry crisis.” Financial Times, 08 01.

Peron, James. 2018. The Radical Centre. 22 04. Accessed 08 23, 2020. https://medium.com/theradical-center/what-milton-friedman-actually-said-about-illegal-immigration-6b19efaf7a5.

Peter Vandor, Nikolaus Franke. 2016. Harvard Business Review. 27 10. Accessed 08 23, 2020.

https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-are-immigrants-more-

entrepreneurial#:~:text=In%20the%20U.S.%2C%20immigrants%20are,as%20native%2Dborn %20U.S.%20citizens.&text=It%20appears%20plausible%20that%20entrepreneurial,highly%2 0motivated%20and%20capable%20individuals.

The Economist. 2017. “The $78 trillion free lunch.” 13 07. Accessed 08 25, 2020.

https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of-free-movement-wouldbe-78-trillion-richer.

2017. United Nations Development. 19 10. Accessed 08 19, 2020.

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/intergovernmental-coordination/newglobalization-

report.html#:~:text=These%20trends%20have%20presented%20a,75%20trillion%20USD%20 in%202016.

Uta Schönberg, Christian Dustmann ,Jan Stuhler. 2016. “Labor Supply Shocks, Native Wages, and the Adjustment of Local Employment.” 08. Accessed 08 23, 2020.

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=240069002121076009081001124116069075 04907305403203309207411211103602304409102406609102810310102300503900802412 7067119093112120105004081081085105088127006024110093109114122017086027&EXT

=pdf.

Vincenzo Bove, Tobias Bohmelt,. 2015. “Does Immigration Induce Terrorism.” 29 10. Accessed 08 23, 2020. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/77011/1/WRAP_Bove%20Bohmelt%20JoP.pdf.

Wearing, David. 2017. The Guardian. 09 05. Accessed 08 25, 2020.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/09/immigration-toxic-britaincolonial-past-emmanuel-macron-france-algeria.

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[1] Kellog Insight, When Do Open Borders Make Economic Sense?,

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/immigration–economic–impact–costs–benefits–open–borders, (Accessed 18 Aug. 2020)

[2] The Economist, A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer, https://www.economist.com/theworld–if/2017/07/13/a–world–of–free–movement–would–be–78–trillion–richer ,(Accessed 19 Aug. 2020)

[3] Migration Advisory Committee, Summary Report,(July 2014) , Migrants in low-skilled, work https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/333084/

MAC–_Migrants_in_low–skilled_work_Summary_2014.pdf , (Accessed 19 Aug. 2020)

[4] David Card, The Impact of The Mariel Boatlift on The Miami Labour Market, NBER Working Paper Series, No.3069, 1989

[5] Crash Course, The Economics of Immigration: Crash Course Econ #33, Youtube Video, May 2016,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XQXiCLzyAw, (Accessed 25 Aug. 2020)

[6] Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times, (London: Allen Lane, 2019) ⁷ Sam Bowman, Adam Smith Institute, https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/milton–friedman–sobjection–to–immigration, (Accessed 22 Aug. 2020)

[7] FullFact, https://fullfact.org/immigration/migration–and–welfare–benefits/ , (Accessed 22 Aug. 2020)

[8] OECD, Is migration good for the economy?, https://www.oecd.org/migration/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf, (Accessed 25 Aug. 2020)

[9] The Economist, A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer ¹¹ Lbid.

[10] Bryan Caplan, Foreign Policy, Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/01/immigration–wall–open–borders–trillion–dollar–idea/, (Accessed 23 Aug.

2020)

[11] OECD, Is migration good for the economy?,

https://www.oecd.org/migration/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf, (Accessed 25 Aug. 2020)

[12] Banerjee, Duflo, Good Economics for hard times ¹⁵ Lbid.

[13] ECJ, British Cleaning Council worried by UK government immigration proposals,

http://www.europeancleaningjournal.com/magazine/web–articles/latest–news/british–cleaning–councilworried–by–uk–government–immigration–proposals (Accessed 22 Aug. 2020)

[14] Malcom Moore, Financial Times, The great British curry crisis, https://www.ft.com/content/2165379e–b4b211e5–8358–9a82b43f6b2f , (Accessed 20 Aug. 2020)

[15] Banerjee, Duflo, Good Economics for hard times

[16] Peter Vandor, Nicholaus Franke. Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2016/10/why–are–immigrantsmore–entrepreneurial , (Accessed 23 Aug. 2020)

[17] The Economist, A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer

[18] Vincenzo Bove, Tobias Bohmelt, Does Immigration Induce Terrorism?, October 2015,

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/77011/1/WRAP_Bove%20Bohmelt%20JoP.pdf, (Accessed 23 Aug. 2020)

[19] Paul Collier, The New York Times, Migration Hurts the Homeland, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/opinion/migration–hurts–the–homeland.html ( Accessed 25 Aug. 2020) ²³ Alex Matthews King, The Independent, Proportion of migrants who return to country of birth significantly higher than first thought, study suggests, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/migrationrefugee–syria–conflict–europe–mexico–conflict–study–a8698451.html (Accessed Aug. 2020)

[20] David Wearing, The Guardian, Immigration will remain a toxic issue until Britain faces up to its colonial past, May 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/09/immigration–toxic–britain–colonialpast–emmanuel–macron–france–algeria, (Accessed 25 Aug. 2020)

[21] Banerjee, Duflo, Good Economics for hard times

Runner up for the Cambridge Society for Economic Pluralism essay competition, written by upper sixth-former Jack Donnelly.

Estimated read time: 11 minutes

The Global North is rich largely due to exploitation and underdevelopment of the Global South, which still goes on to this day, and therefore owes reparations to rectify this rift. Discuss.

Murmurs of discontent spread throughout the former colonies. In July 2020 this went beyond mere whispers as the Democratic Republic of the Congo demanded compensation for the pain inflicted by decades spent under colonial rule. Just a month later, Burundi laid the same demands at the feet of Belgium and Germany – to the tune of $43 billion. There’s no doubt that a massive proportion of Sub-Saharan Africa’s – and indeed the Global South’s – modern troubles come courtesy of their exploitation under the Global North; the question emerges, do the modern nations owe reparations for crimes committed centuries ago?

The Global North is an oft-cited idea which, in reality, lacks clear boundaries or uniting principles. For one, the conceptual Global North ignores the geographical parameters implied by the name – it is not simply a conglomerate of nations existing above the Equator or, indeed, some agreed latitude. Therefore, before discussing the Global North-South divide we must establish what the Global North actually describes. The Brandt Report of 1980 gave economists and politicians an idea of the immense gulf in development between the two hemispheres; more importantly, it gave us the ‘Brandt Line’ which depicts the divide based on GDP per capita as a factor. Notably, it straddles the Earth at 30^o N but drops to include New Zealand and Australia as part of the Global North. Brandt himself was optimistic for the new century and that coordination between the hemispheres could ‘build a world in which sharing, justice, freedom and peace might prevail’. 

In another sense, the geopolitical North-South divide was highlighted in Alfred Sauvy’s Trois Mondes, une planète where he coined the terms First, Second, and Third World. The phrases were originally instituted for the USA and the USSR and their respective allies, along with the unaligned Third World – a term now synonymous with poverty and underdevelopment, rather than a particular political alignment. Today we like to characterise the divide through a number of developmental factors: income inequality, wealth, democracy indices, along with political and economic freedom.

Regardless of how you categorise the divide – it is most certainly there. Examining its extent, the North earns four-fifths of the world’s income while constituting less than a quarter of its population; additionally, at least up until the early 2000s, over 90% of global manufacturing took place in the North. Interpreting the level to which exploitation has brought about the current situation could allow a conclusion to be reached on whether reparations are truly owed. 

The most obvious example of historical Northern exploitation of the South is colonialism – it’s simply inescapable. Initially, it came commercially, through companies such as the British and Dutch East India Companies^[1] which grew to dominate the economies of their respective subjugated nations. At its height, the East India Company accounted for over 50% of global

trade and acted with the sovereignty and jurisdiction of a self-governing nation. The global mechanism of colonialism was analogous to that of a catapult. The colonial powers of Western Europe played a major role in the deindustrialisation of non-Western societies; British intervention in the Indian subcontinent reduced its share of global GDP from almost a quarter to just a couple of measly percentage points as shown in Figure 2. The metaphor completes itself in the way colonialism catapulted Western powers to global superiority through the exploitation of their colonial subjects.  

Nothing is a more egregious act of exploitation than the Atlantic Slave Trade existing between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Briefly ignoring the horrific brutality and the dehumanising nature of the slave trade, we can identify it as the catalyst for so many demographical and economic issues facing Africa today. Some 12 million Africans were captured and shipped out – primarily to America – by the Europeans, destroying their social fabric and depleting the workforce immensely. The poorest parts of modern Africa share a direct correlation with the areas where the most slaves were taken. The scars of colonialism are visible to this day; African nations were created from thin air, ignoring cultural or geographical divides and instead opting for arbitrary borders which have incited enormous amounts of conflict – both national and international – since. 

Even beyond exploitation in its most explicit forms, the colonial powers of Western Europe capitalised on their supremacy by taking further advantage of unfair trade. Through ‘gunboat diplomacy’^[2], they forced many countries which had escaped colonisation to sign unequal treaties, leaving the nations bereft of tariff autonomy. To understand the impact of this, we must examine the strength of protectionist policies in young economies. Alexander Hamilton argued in his 1791 Report on the Subject of Manufactures that the US needed to defend

‘industries in their infancy’ from cheaper imports in the more competitive and developed international market. By stripping young economies of ‘infant industry protection’, the powers of the Global North deprived many Latin American and Asian countries of a fair chance at development. Many of these treaties lasted for decades – even well into the twentieth century in some cases. The affected Southern countries experienced negative per capita income growth during the late Industrial Revolution period; an inability to nurture and promote their youthful industries contributed immensely. 

While the level of ‘exploitation’ today does not even hold a candle to its heights in colonial times, forms of neo-colonialism exist between powerful modern countries and the ‘Third World’. China is exercising its financial might – through FDI^[3] – across the entire continent of Africa, moulding it into essentially a ‘China’s China’; in this case, however, the development is not necessarily one-sided. The truth is that China is richly compensating African nations as they surge forwards with rapid urbanisation in the ‘fourth industrial revolution’^[4]. Daan Roggeveen, the founder of an Architecture firm and an author of books on Chinese and African

Urbanisation, said ‘right now you could say that any big project in African cities that is higher than three floors or roads that are longer than three kilometres are most likely being built and engineered by the Chinese. It is ubiquitous’. Africa is sitting on a massive stockpile of natural resources and China has been quick to take advantage of the power vacuum in the wake of departing colonial powers. China itself is still considered a part of the Global South, but in essence its actions in Africa are reminiscent of historical Northern intervention. Indeed, there have been cries of exploitation and Chinese imperialism, with the former governor of Nigeria’s central bank criticising their removal of natural resources without any provision of economic enrichment in the form of skills and jobs. Regardless, Africa benefits in some sense from the massive amounts of FDI – something one could consider a form of economic reparation. 

Conversely, a significant portion of the North’s success can be attributed to their intrinsic development. Throughout history, a correlation can be identified between the quality of institutions, the strength of government and more advanced economic development. These are elements of a country which can be built up naturally over time; alternatively, they can be instigated by colonisers or conquering foreign powers. School enrolment and greater provision of public goods, for example, contribute a powerful multiplier effect to development. It could be argued that the Global South has not arrived in its disadvantaged position as a result of exploitation, but instead due to unfortunate geography, climate and numerous other factors. 

The Global South has, beyond this, suffered from factors exogenous to the influence of the North. Geography is key to this argument – Africa and South America have been disadvantaged greatly due to their narrow orientation; Eurasia benefits from wide, vast plains of arable land perfect for cultivation and the domestication livestock. A lack of genetic immunity in the ‘New World’ led to the decimation of native populations throughout the continent; immunity that

European settlers had from centuries of close integration with livestock – something native Americans never had. Ultimately, the resulting underdevelopment cannot be pinned on European settlers; they could never have foreseen the devastation they would reap on the relatively immunocompromised natives. The blame here falls upon the poor geographical starting points of Southern societies.

Furthermore, Modernisation Theory attempts to explain the underdevelopment of the Global South as a result of their own policies and socio-economic structures rather than Northern intervention. Feudalism, tribalism and relatively primitive economic structures have led their societies to a point where they lack regulation, democracy and have failed to modernise and develop themselves. The theory considers Third World society largely responsible for its own poverty. The archetypal societal approach tends to grant too much power to individuals; corruption in a country’s elite leadership can obviously be enormously detrimental to development – but it is all too prevalent. 

The Global South now has its own mechanisms in place which, certainly in part, negate the need to have reparations paid by the North. One of the most notable institutions representing the spirit of the developing Global South is the BRICS^[5], a multilateral group of major emerging Southern economies. Between them, they constitute 41% of the global population and approximately 23% of world GDP. The BRICS have two key components to their financial architecture which are dedicated to the development of the Global South, the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The bank, in particular, aims to lend up to $34 billion annually with a focus on massive infrastructure development. When outlining the plan for the organisations, the BRICS found themselves keen to distance Southern investment from the North’s sphere of influence; since they are willing to offer competitive rates to their Southern associates, perhaps they are best left to collaborate without the need for Northern intervention or reparations.

Moreover, we are obligated to question the feasibility of reparations being paid by the North. Multilateral payments of any kind are notoriously difficult to agree upon, as could be witnessed with the days of debate over collective debt^[6] assumption in the EU in response to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Now consider the complexity of any agreement that would require payment by the collective ‘North’ to the collective ‘South’ on the basis of centuries of

exploitation and mistreatment. Even if it were decided that the current Global North needed to be held responsible for the actions of past generations, the practicality of it dispensing payments or other forms of compensation is contentious at best. Perhaps the more effective method of extending the olive branch would be through bilateral – rather than multilateral – action and intervention; individual Northern powers could be responsible for making reparations with the countries specifically impacted by their ventures. 

Ultimately, the statement is true: ‘The Global North is rich largely due to exploitation and underdevelopment of the Global South’ – to a certain extent. While the North has benefited significantly at the detriment of Southern countries, it is unfair to say that their wealth comes largely from exploitation. A significant portion of Northern success came from the strength of their innate development – strong institutions and a focus on societal growth and evolution have built them into successful nations. Regarding reparations, it is apparent that payment from a United North to a United South would be impossibly complicated to arrange; instead, individual acts of bilateral aids between wealthy Northern nations and poorer Southern nations targeting rapid economic and social development could be a far more constructive option.  

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[1] The British East India Company operated in the Indian subcontinent while the Dutch East India Company was in the Dutch East Indies, modern-day Indonesia. 

[2] Pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power 

[3] Foreign Direct Investment – Investment in the form of a controlling ownership in a business in one country by an entity based in another country. 

[4] ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology.

[5] Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS)

[6] The EU agreed in July 2020 to an $869bn recovery package with debt shared between each member state. Despite close links between the EU states it took several days of debate to reach an agreement.