ABSTRACT
Global integration heightens the cyclical crises of capitalism by reducing the funds devoted to wages while increasing the activity of financial networks. This reduces the selfcorrecting mechanisms of free market flows by promoting speculation while reducing human claims on surpluses. Concomitant with this is an increase in unemployment, with redundant selling and trafficking in drugs that undercut the production of less lucrative subsistence crops and reduce the redistributive function of the state. The terms of trade, that is, that which developing countries receive for their goods and services, have fallen across the board from 1985 to 1994, but the drop in developing economies (from an index of 108 to 96) is greater than that for developed economies of the North (106 to 101) (United Nations 1996, Table 5).
