Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: The Economic Ideas behind the New International Economic Order

Much globalization scholarship assumes that the United States and other advanced industrialized capitalist countries are the primary agents of globalization. However, when we examine economic globalization more closely and from the perspective of Second- and Third-World institutions, we can see that the Non-Aligned Movement, the Second World, and the Third World more broadly worked hard to create a global economy in the face of active resistance by the United States and other current and former colonial powers, which sought to maintain the economic status quo of the colonial system. This article explores one of the centers of global economic thought and policy for the New International Economic Order (NIEO): the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).