In the cotton fields of Burkina Faso, there are dozens of workers diligently laboring under the pressing heat of the West African sun. They pick the cotton plants and collect the balls of white fluff. Then they take these cotton balls and place them together in several patches (VIDEO). There is a long day ahead, but the workers try to be efficient with their time. At the end of the day, these patches are loaded onto trucks and prepared to be exported to other countries such as China, Russia and the United States.

Although the video shows cotton being processed in Burkina Faso, much of the raw cotton is actually processed by the buyer countries that have greater technological capacities. As author Valérie Hauchart observed , “this insufficiency in terms of the technical ability to process the cotton fiber forces the farmers of Burkina Faso … to sell the cotton in its crudest form, neither woven nor as thread.” So paradoxically, after the raw cotton has been turned into cloth, Burkina Faso would have to buy this processed cotton back from the same countries to whom it was sold, since the technology needed to fix, enrich and transform cotton into salable goods does not exist in Burkina Faso.

This inefficient process has entered recent dialogues concerning globalization. Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky, a long time scholar and activist, commented on the topic:

“What is called ‘globalization’ is a specific form of international integration, designed and instituted for particular purposes. There are many possible alternatives. This particular form happens to be geared to the interests of private power, manufacturing corporations and financial institutions, closely linked to powerful states. Effects on others are incidental. Sometimes they happen to be beneficial, often not.”

Globalization links Burkina Faso to an international market whose rules are set by more powerful competitors. The effects have not benefited the workers participating in the industry. Even though over the last two decades Burkina Faso has become one of the primary cotton producers in West Africa and the world, the United Nations currently ranks Burkina Faso as the third poorest country in the world.

For the cotton workers in Burkina Faso’s fields, it might as well be the year 1912 instead of 2012. Even though they are participating in an international market worth billions of dollars, they are living and working as if they were still in the last century. The potential benefits of an interconnected global economy have largely passed them by. They live in poor, rural areas without clean drinking water or adequate medical facilities. They labor without the benefit of technology, or the means to process their crops. Their situation is not an unintended consequence of globalization – it is the natural product of a system that has rules set and enforced by the most powerful countries in the world.

Thus, participation in the global cotton trade has clearly not benefited Burkina Faso. Some may argue that the cause of Burkina Faso’s problem is not globalization per se but rather the way globalization manifests itself within current rules of the game. New rules, they argue, could help level the playing field and allow all trading partners to benefit from globalization. Reducing trade distortions, removing all subsidies and reforming trade practices would increase incomes of developing countries such as Burkina Faso.

The fundamental problem with this argument, however, is that it overlooks the dynamics at play, as identified by Chomsky, and pretends that the rules of the game might be made to benefit the least powerful players.

If there is hope for Burkina Faso, it is up to the powerful to give up substantial power, which, in consequence, would highly increase competition. Unfortunately, this is a very unlikely scenario, since, by nature, those in positions of power won’t sacrifice their own self-interests. They simply want to expand their pre-existing control.

Edward Radzivilovskiy is a staff columnist. Email him at [email protected].