Abstract
Globalization offers opportunities, but also imposes new constraints on the countries of the South. In view of the barely discreet violence of the unethical competition it organizes, and the risks and uncertainties to which it exposes civilizations and nations, we defend the following thesis: a hidden face of the exacerbation of competition linked to globalization lies in the inequalities between nations in investing in the war of positioning and quality human resources. The resilience of each nation and civilization, and the reflexivity required by the ever-unstable international environment, depend precisely on their respective capacities to make optimal choices and produce the knowledge and know-how needed to meet the challenges of a changing world.
It is becoming increasingly clear that, in this war of positioning, the differences between civilizations lie more in their ability to acquire the differential value of human capital. This is what justifies, in development economic theory, the shift from the theory of comparative advantage to the theory of competitive advantage, resolutely based on the stock of available resources and skills. In the machine of international competition, investing in women and men by guaranteeing them better health, longer and more fertile life expectancy, and better education, becomes both a common-sense but hidden political issue, and therefore also a geopolitical one.
