Favorite Guest Lecturers
My two favorite guest lecturers this semester were Peter Mueser and Jung Ha-Brookshire. These two were actually part of the inspiration to begin looking at economics and international development as a possible career path. I entered this semester with a new major, unsure of what direction I was headed in, but excited to learn about subjects that I had previously not been exposed to. Dr. Mueser’s lecture on labor economics, and his explanation of the textile industry in developing nations awakened in me an interest in economics and global trade that I had previously not been aware of. Before that lecture, I had only ever considered these issues to be black and white. In my mind, sweatshops were the cause of massive amounts of human suffering, so they could only be a bad thing. To an extent, this is true; corporations absolutely take advantage of laborers who have no other prospects. Working conditions are dangerous, hours are long, and wages are low. On the surface level, these factories seem to be a blight. A symptom of the avarice driven society that we have created for ourselves. The issue is not as simple as it seems, however. Dr. Mueser provided the primer for my revaltion, but it wasn’t until Dr. Ha-Brookshire’s lecture that I truly understood what industry can do for a developing nations. In some countries, often those that have been left destitute by warfare or colonization, unfavorable factory conditions are seen as a fantastic opportunity. Dr. Ha-Brookshire was able to obtain an education, as well as a long-term career in the international textile industry, all due to the textile factory that she had worked in as a girl. This gave me a first-hand perspective of the phenomenon Dr. Mueser had descibed, and it was fascinating to me. These lectures helped shape the majority of my academic interest and research over the course of the semester, and have had a lasting effect on my academic career moving forward.
What I learned about Vietnam
Vietnam has an interesting history. I am currently taking a course on Korean Politics, and it was interesting for me to draw comparisons between the two. Both of these nations share a border with China, and have a complicated history with the superpower. Both were also separated during the Cold War, during the Vietnam and Korean wars. Since the end of the Cold War, however, their paths have diverged. South Korea was able to pull itself from the brink of economic despair, and transformed into the 11th largest economy in the world in only about 20 years. Unfortunately, however, the peninsula has never been able to reunify, and an autocratic regime still exists in the north. Vietnam on the other was reunified at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, but was unable to achieve the economic growth seen in South Korea. Many factors contribute to this, but it is due in part to the fact that business in Vietnam was seen as in insecure investment for a long time. Unfavorable legislation and the lack of a government guarantee made the nation an unattractive choice for investors. New legislation meant to attract foreign business, as well as the recent US-China trade wars, have now caused an unprecedented economic boom in Vietnam. The nation has now nearly reached the requirements to be called a developed nation, but rapid industrialization has caused a number of social and environmental problems to crop up. Food and water insecurity are a large concern, air pollution is on the rise, and deforestation in the country is reaching dangerous levels. Economic inequality is still a large problem, and rural communities have little access to the amenities of modern life. Much of this inequality is ethnically based, and these problems are especially prominent in the mountainous regions, which are close to the Vietnamese-Chinese border.
Globalization: Asia 