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.
Concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, why doesn't it show a myriad of global companies instead of today's fewer and fewer multinational companies?
The recent dotcom era went in this direction but soon became suffocated by these few majors.
When the concept of globalism will make abstraction of this centralism we might switch to an era of global equity but this will only occur if the press frees itself from the economical interests that endanger its objectivity and favors the actual monolithic global model.
Greed Theory (Score:2, Interesting)
Globalization is, to me, the process whereby third world countries are modernized (using crushing WTO/World Bank debt) until they are suitable for use as cheap labour.
History has shown, however, that eventually the labourors will demand better conditions, either through gradual reform or revolution. So while the short term goal is exploitation, the changes put in place to facilitate that exploitation will lead to improved living conditions.
Re:It means the US has taken over the world (Score:0, Interesting)
A process or an idea? (Score:1, Interesting)
Promoters and haters just pick the definition that suits them best.
The political left attacks - not without reason - the economical steps that leave out social and environmental improvements (it's cheaper to manufacture if you don't need to care for your workers or any waste you produce).
The fanatics of foreign cultures feel the power of culture diffusion and try to stop the unstoppable.
The promoters either see it idealistically or purely economic.
But the box is open and the thing is out. If nobody is willing to stop communication, media and travel between countries, there is no way to hold it up. We can only try to establish a minimum of rules to make the process smoother.
The dark side of globalization (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of what GATT/WTO/World Bank wants is the same thing in other countries. They want to take the desire of the people, through their democratic governments, out of the globalization process.
Most people around the world aren't against global trade or cultural cross-pollinization, just certain aspects of them. For example, the US had GATT force Thailand to allow tobacco into their country. So we're forcing them to sell a deadly drug in Thailand, and they don't even have warning labels on the packs outside the U.S. We'd be better off forcing marijuana on them, at least marijuana isn't deadly. It's the same junk as a century ago when England and the US fought against China in the Opium Wars because the Chinese said opium and heroin were ruining their country.
That is what globalization is. Pushing deadly drugs without warning labels on kids in Thailand against the will of the Thai people. There are many examples like this but this is just one. Sweatshops in third world countries is another one. Yes, corporations can trade globally, but we also have to allow the democratic process in all countries to have a say. When you don't have that, people get upset, and sometimes react violently because of their resentment against the US.
Re:It means the US has taken over the world (Score:1, Interesting)
No, but we also would not harbor groups who acted violently against France.
Would we allow Russia to arm and finance groups in America that advocate overthrowing the US government?
No, and we don't do this in Russia.
We aren't trying to take over the world. We only have a couple of rules that we ask everyone to follow:
1. Don't make war - Don't attack us and don't attack our allies.
2. Don't get rid of minority groups in your country by killing all of them.
Monotheistic religions (Score:1, Interesting)
My religion is Monotheistic, and yet it accepts new ideas better than some - takes a while, sometimes, but things do change. Or at least unimportant things change. Some things never do, and never should because they are evil. (Murder, etc) Still, people are allowed to change the minor things - for example, IMHO it doesn't matter if a person is drinking water or wine during communion - and bring their own interpretations. One thing is, Monotheistic it might be but Monolithic it is not. I personally believe most of the Bible is open to interpretation - there are just a few sections that are not; the key tenets, as they might be called. Any who follow those (or try their hardest) is a Christian. (That's my opinion, at least; I don't make judgements regarding individual people)
Anyway, my point was that Monotheism is not by definition Monolithic. Sorry to rant so long; I just wanted to clear a few things up at first and then started going off.
Shevaresh
tuall@REMOVE-yahoo.com
P.S. Kudos to those who catch the reference in my name
Re:Post-Colonial (Score:2, Interesting)
Did you ever think that maybe people LIKE what they see in western culture and want to adopt parts of it for themselves?
I mean really, what's more likely, some mysterious "elites" meeting to plot the future culture of backwaters like Rwanda or do people in general just like Levi's and Star Wars?
Globalization is like describing an elephant (Score:2, Interesting)
One problem is that media hacks (like Jon et al) want to describe it as one thing. But it isn't.
The Bush admin and FOBs would describe it as a method for reducing their ability to move capital without boundaries, but keep labor and environment separate, so that capital owners can maximize returns by playing countries and regions against each other.
Bill G and other large corporate owners would describe it as lowering the regulatory constraints and allowing them to sell one product to the whole world, with differential pricing to maximize the return based on the consumer base in each country. And the removal of pesky laws that reduce their capture of IP rights at the expense of other nations.
Pharmaceutical companies would describe it as the extension of the optimal patenting and trademarking systems to their advantage, and the removal of "fair use clone" drugs that compete against them.
al-Queda would describe it as the use of the media and marketing to impose one set of values (Western ones) upon the entire world and using it to trample their values (which are a myth, but they think they are real).
I would describe true globalization as being the ability for capital, labor, environmental constraints, and IP/fair use rights to be increased to the highest level worldwide, instead of lowered.
And we are all right.
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Globalism and other redefinitions... (Score:2, Interesting)
Oppression is when someone else makes me and the rest of the world become like their society, which , we all "know" is evil and deserves to be wiped out.
War is good when I do it to you for my just and righteous cause.
But War is violence and depraved, even terrorism, when you do it to me for your just and righteous cause.
Open mindedness is you seeing my point of view.
Your point of view, being "dogmatic" and "fundamentalist" is intolerable, and must be stamped out. Don't worry though, once we have wiped out your point of view, everyone will be "openminded".
Tolerance is when you learn to tolerate me, no matter how much my idiocy offends you.
Your idiocy on the other hand, can not be tolerated and as such must be wiped out. It's the only way to achieve tolerance you know.
Respect is when you respect me because if you don't, I will rain bombs down from the heavens on your people, and impose sanctions that result in the deaths of a million of your countrymen.
It's terror, on the otherhand, when you make me feel scared that you will make planes fall from the sky and poison 20 people with anthrax.
A democratic nation is not one, contrary to popular misconception, where the people choose their leader. If that were the case, then we would have violated the rights of a free and democratic nation when we removed Milosevich from his term which he was democratcily elected to.
No, democracy is any government which has elections, AND does that which pleases our government.
I hope these new definitions will help some of you out there who are still confused as to the apparent hipocricy. It seems, our leaders found the laws they see fit for us as too restraining for themselves, so they were forced to change definitions to allow them to do that which they please. You and I on the otherhand, will be expected, like good little Nazi's, I mean patriots, to live up to the ideal that they themselves don't even bother trying to achieve anymore. But God damned those pot smokers, throw those sick criminal mastermind bastards in the pen, and let those poor misunderstood rapists and child molesters go to make room for the evil dope smokers.
"But there's worse places on earth to live."
Yeah, but that doesn't make any of these things right. If I stood before a judge for growing marijuana, and pointed to a rapist and as my only defence of my crimes said "well, I'm not as bad as him.", do you expect the judge to let me off? But this is the argument unthinking and emotionally driven "patriots" use to justify the crimes of their country. I love my country, just as I love myself, but just as I am not a blind fool when it comes to my own imperfections, neither am I one when it comes to my nations. Open your eyes, the light hurts only for a brief moment, and then you grow accustomed to it.
Victors write the history books! (Score:2, Interesting)
It is all well and good for Jon Katz to challenge us to find a definition of globalization that isn't primarily about economics. Greater minds than ours have given it their best shot. Anthony Gidden in the 1999 Reich lectures [bbc.co.uk] produced a well-nuanced description of globalization. It took him five lectures to do so. A summary definition of Gidden's globalization might read: The process of global modernization, risk assessment particularly in response to human created problems including nuclear weapons and global warming, and global democratization emerging in an anarchic, haphazard, fashion, carried along by a mixture of economic, technological and cultural imperatives.
But the process is larger than any of us. We are not even major players. Only in retrospect will we be able to write a good definition and we all know that victors write the history books.
If my friends and I were able to write the definition, I'd be all for globalization. With the G8, WTO, Worldbank, USA, EU, et al in charge, the best we can do is provide the occasional dissenting voice.
Re:Globalism is not the problem: Government is (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately it seems that today, the government doesn't work for the little guy any more. However, without government safety regulations, Joe Schmoe factory workers in the Dow Chemical plants would still have their bones dissolving within them, due to intense (50kppm+) concentrations of Vinyl Chloride (the current regulation is 50ppm).
So, in my opinion, the government must be allowed to intervene, but must always intervene for the good of the people, not the good of the business.
Re:It means the US has taken over the world (Score:2, Interesting)
Globalism is Imperialism (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, yes -- someone mentioned Japan's experiences with globalization. We went to war with Japan in World War II to prevent them from consolidating their gains in the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (i.e., the Japanese Empire) and rebuilt Japan specifically so that they could run their area for our benefit.
Re:GLOBALIZATION ON WHOSE TERMS? (Score:3, Interesting)
- The fall of the Soviet Union. Many scholars attribute this, and other political uprisings to the free flow of cultures and information.
- The Internet.
- Consider non-globalized cultures. Besides the standard middle-east ones we've talked about lately (Iran, Iraq, Taliban-controlled-Afghanistan), consider countries in Africa and Asia. Do you see a lot of free flow of ideas there? Fully globalized cultures like the America, Canada, (most of) Europe, some of South America, Japan, etc. -- all these cultures value freedom of speech. Free flow of ideas and information is what globalization is all about.
Just because some developing countries (PC for third world) have one component of globization (say, trade) but not the other (say, free speech), doesn't mean one won't lead to another (again, fall of the Soviet Union).Secondly, you assert that cheap labor is exploitation and the people in third world countries embrace it because they "don't know better?" They embrace it because working, bettering your conditions, and feeding your family is desirable to poverty! A wage of $1/day may seem like exploitation, but if the cost of living is $1/day, it's not so bad. When competition and trade is fully permitted, competition for workers grows and wages go up. A government is also free to set minimum wages -- it's all part of competition, even competition between nations on who has the lower wages!
Consider this analogy. The United States passed a constitutional amendment allowing states to regulate their own inter-state trade. California decided to produce its own goods. Why? Factories in West Virginia were exploitative: they only paid their workers minimum wage, hardly enough to live in in San Fransisco, Los Angeles, or most other Californian cities. Of course, the cost of living in Cali is very different from the cost of living in West Virginia. The same is true internationally.
As for human rights. Because China doesn't give its people freedom, we America won't give its people the freedom to buy Chinese goods? That hardly seems reasonable.