The End of Metropolitan Protectionism: Trade Liberalisation and Economic Development in Puerto Rico

• Author: Emilio Pantojas-García
• Pages: 146-160

146

- GOVERNANCE IN THE NON-INDEPENDENT CARIBBEAN -

The End of Metropolitan

Protectionism:

Trade Liberalisation and Economic

Development in Puerto Rico

EMILIO PANTOJAS-GARCÍA

The process of politico-economic opening of nation-states taking

place since the 1980s has been dubbed globalisation. Like the concept

of development (economic development) there is not an agreed

definition of the term globalisation and it is used to refer to various

processes at different conceptual levels.

Sociologically, I would argue that globalisation refers to the increased

process of direct cross-border/transnational interconnections and

interactions between peoples and socio-political processes made viable

by new knowledge(s) and innovations in telecommunications

technologies. Technological innovation such as the creation of the

personal computer and the popularisation and commercialisation of

the Internet, have fostered incredible and rapid social and economic

exchanges on an unprecedented scale.

In economic terms, globalisation refers to the process that allows

the unprecedented mobility of three of the four factors of production:

capital, technology, and labour. Land is naturally immobile. Although

labour is politically restricted, new technologies allow for the hiring of

cheap foreign labour without moving people to perform the tasks. There

are cases, for example, of accountants in India doing subcontract work

for accounting firms in the United States (US), or doing the initial

digitalisation of the phonebook of a large North American city in a

data entry establishment many thousands of miles away.

The Internet, global financing and new managerial theories and

methods – such as Just in Time (JIT) supply chains and Total Quality

Management (TQM) – have created a new transnational economy.

Global commodity chains and economies of scope have replaced

assembly lines and economies of scale.

8.