Defining Globalism 657
Sometimes things are easier to grasp by defining what they're not. The e-mail and posts last week were about equally divided (apart from the usual flaming yahoos) over whether globalism marks corporate evil or global modernization. Most were agreed that globalization isn't about buying computers and TV set. It's about what sociologists like Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics call living in a "runaway world," a period of enormous transformation, affecting almost every aspect of life from technology to how government functions to employment to personal values. Globalization is spreading all over the world, yet nobody is in charge of it, and there isn't even much consensus about what it is, an economic system or an ideology.
Generally speaking, globalization today is a Western idea (although other, earlier cultures took some shots at it), fueled most recently by technology's forging of a global economy. It's a powerful offshoot of capitalism and popular culture, yet it's being debated in almost every country, and it's become almost impossible to hear a major political speech that doesn't mention it.
The subject arouses strong emotions. Directly or not, globalism is at the root of the terrorist attacks on September 11, and the resulting conflict between the United States and Islamic fundamentalists, who are articulate and open about their hatred of the changes sweeping their cultures. Every business is obsessed with it.
It's getting hard to find academics and other members of the intelligentsia who don't mistrust it, equating it, somewhat justifiably, with corporatism and the rise of the multinationals. Surely, there are more reasons to mistrust the multinational corporations who advance globalization than I could possibly list here.
But globalization is an elusive notion. Skeptics argue that it's a highly exploitive western force and profit center that represents business as usual for corporatists exploiting new worker pools and marketing possibilities, and for despoiling the rest of the environment.
Some economists argue that globalization is an old idea, similar to the way world economies operated centures ago, from the Romans to the Venetians. Those civilizations didn't have an e-economy and the Net, of course, and couldn't transfer cash all over the planet in seconds.
And there are clear differences. Globalization seems to erode the longtime primacy of the nation-state, already undercut by networked computing, which changes the potency of boundaries and enables people, businesses and banks to talk directly to one another rather than through surrogates. It also undermines dogmas, both political and religious, some of which greatly fear environments that permit the free flow of ideas. It's hard to preach a monotheistic view of the world if all sorts of ideas are available to your kids online and via TV, music and film. And the new global electronic economy -- involving fund managers, banks, corporations and millions of individual investors -- can transfer vast sums of capital from one part of the world to another in seconds, quickly stabilizing or de-stabilizing economies, as has happened recently in Asia.
Electronic information has also fueled globalism and its consequences. The World Trade Center attacks were a global, not a local event. When Nelson Mandela was released from a South African jail, he was watched by the entire world. So is the American bombing campaign against the Taliban. This kind of internationally-transmitted imagery doesn't just provide external information, but affects the internal politics and reality of our lives -- our family and religious values, our perceptions about the world. When hundreds of teenagers stormed the Berlin Wall and began to tear it down, the first thing many of them did was run to music stores and buy the videos they'd been secretly -- and illegally -- watching on MTV. And "Baywatch" remains the most popular show in Iran, to the despair of the religious leaders running the country.
Primitive cultures like the one running Afghanistan don't accept the inevitability of globalism. Most other governments do, perhaps the primary reason the Arab world isn't actively resisting the much-resented United States in its new war. Countries that don't want to join in may end up like Afghanistan, beset by tribal conflicts, cut off from capital development and economic opportunity. Would investment from multi-nationals help or harm a country like Afghanistan, where one kid after another says in TV interviews that the only available job opportunities involve shooting people?
Whether it's a good witch or not, globalism is much too big and pervasive an idea to go away. For all the media hysteria about bio-terrorism and other dangers, it seems probable that the United States will ultimately destroy the Taliban government, and the first such conflict of the 21st century will be over. What isn't as clear is whether this will mark the beginning of a war or the end. Or whether anybody will ever come up with a widely-accepted definition of what globalization really is.
It's also... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Third in series? (Score:2, Funny)
Friday's gonna be hell... (Score:5, Funny)
The major Ottawa bus routes (Transitway) come within 100m of the conference center where the G20/IMF summit is held.
Info: Global Democracy Ottawa [flora.org]
Globalism (Score:4, Funny)
It is either a floor cleaner or a dessert topping.
Don't worry, it's both!
Amherest (Score:2, Funny)
- Williams '01
I knew all along... (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, I thought it was one of the following:
a. jocks
b. columbine
c. censorship
d. hollywood
e. republicans
f. religion
g. me
h. democrats
i. microsoft
j. short articles
k. cowboyneal
l. all of the above
m. all of the above and then some
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+1 True
-50 moderator didn't like it)
Excuse me.... (Score:1, Funny)
Can I also have that in Dutch, Hebrew and Outer-Mongolian please?
What globalism is not (Score:3, Funny)
obviously (Score:4, Funny)
Any leader who's country's most popular show is bayatch should be in despair about his people...
I haven't been able to nail it down (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure its much more complicated than that, but whatever their message is it isn't getting out. Protestors in seattle just looked like hooligans.
"Globalism" always includes gun control... (Score:3, Funny)
odds@dragoncon.net gets me.
www.jpfo.org gets my viewpoint on gun control.
Revelation (Score:1, Funny)
— John Katz
Some of us call it... (Score:2, Funny)
CRAP
This world trade is baloney. It just gives multi-national corporations the rights of actual human beings (the purpose of the WTO is to change law in favor of the rich).
Grow up.
You are employee number 14yu39423813y4... shut up, and take it like a pile of dung.
Re:It's also... (Score:2, Funny)