Globalization

(First of two parts). Globalism is one of those notions much kicked around and little understood, shrouded in hysteria and knee-jerk cant. People with a host of grievances against technology, multinational corporations and capitalist democracies have made globalism a dirty word, at the same time that many social scientists and economists argue that the equitable spread of technology and a free-market economy is the planet's best hope. Either way, September 11 makes it clear that globalization - pitting fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance - is one of the most important issues in our lifetimes.

In fact, as British political scientist Anthony Giddens writes in his eerily prescient book Runaway World: How Globalism is Reshaping Our Lives, the conflict now underway between the United States and some extremist fundamentalists was inevitable. Cosmopolitans welcome technology and cultural diversity, while fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous.

In a globalizing world -- one of its cornerstones being the Net -- technology, information, culture, money, business and imagery are routinely transmitted across the world. Boundaries mean different things now, including the inescapable fact that they are highly porous. This enrages political, social and religious fundamentalists, as we are hurriedly learning. They turn to religion, ethnic identity and nationalism to build "purer" traditions -- and a few turn to violence.

So despite the fact that there's no consensus on exactly what globalism is (my dictionary defines it as the process by which social institutions become adopted on a worldwide scale), the questions torment us: is globalism a force to ease poverty and inequality, by bringing higher standards of living and new technologies to poor and distant regions? Or merely an unprecedented vehicle for promoting the greed, conformity, environmental destruction and profit-at-all-cost ethos of multinational corporations? Perhaps it's both.

Giddens' predictions are coming true before our eyes. The conflict is here, and we seem to be unwilling and unknowing combatants. We, along with our leaders, are astonished at just how much we seem to be hated out there. We see our popular and technological culture despised in much of the world. Fundamentalist extremists have declared a holy war against it, one that may continue for years with bloody and uncertain consequences.

It's not an oversimplification to say that technology is the prime battleground. Technologies from movie cameras to TV sets to the Net are the means by which culture and wealth travel from one part of the world to the other. Fundamentalists have declared war on technology as much as on anything. And from anthrax to passenger jets as missiles, they've shown a sophisticated grasp of how technology can be used to devastating effect against its creators, who revel in making it but not thinking much about it.

In this conflict what Giddens calls "the cosmopolitan approach" is the choice of the people who are reading this column and working in the tech universe. We value free speech, religious freedom, scientific exploration, open communications, cultural choice and diversity. Such tolerance is closely conected to democracy.

Yet democracy and fundamentalism are both spreading world-wide, two seemingly irreconcilable ideologies colliding head-on. As Giddens points out, globalism creates a paradox: democratic cultures are its most enthusiastic proponents, yet globalism doesn't seem to promote democracy so much as corporate profits and practices. In fact, you could argue that globalism seems to expose the limits of democratic structures: Can governments preserve the environment, keep work secure and equitable, ensure fair wages, control capitalism, distribute new technologies equitably, respect diverse cultural values, contain greed and restrict the imagery that Americans love but that frightens and offends large segments of the world population?

In Part Two: Have multinationals hijacked globalism? (Yes.)

Comments

The Lexus and the Olive Tree

[Paradox !-)]

This thesis has also been bandied about by Thomas Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

[Warning, liberal rant below]
I believe that the forces of integration are long-term stronger and more stable than the forces of disintegration. I believe that the reason that the fringes of cultures are radicalizing is because the centers of cultures are drawing together.

I am a giant proponent of the theory that ideas clash in a marketplace of public discourse and I believe that globalization is merely expanding that marketplace, and that the discourse that results will be beneficial. We're bound to have some bumps along the road. Heck, we're probably bound to go down some blind alleys, but in the end, increased communications and integration will help us all respect each other individually and discover what makes us all human.
[End of Liberal Rant]

Of course, I also believe that the free market is best in 90% of circumstances because it forces individuals to evolve and have goals. My biggest worry is that the concept of individual freedom will be found wanting in the global discussion.

IMHO. HAND.

Re:Actually...

[imrdkl]

Everyone makes mistakes. And everyone has their own interests, which leads to different definitions of what actually was a mistake.

But make no mistake.. it's our love and support of Israel and the Jews which is the cornerstone of the hatred against us in the Muslim world (and other places). Not technology, not globalism, not some past aggression which we were percieved to be a part of.

Hell, Bin Laden said it himself.

Drop Israel, and everything will be fine. Or will it?

You miss the point

[BeBoxer]

You miss the point that even if we 'kill all the terrorists', more of them are created every day. You say they hate us because we're powerful, wealthy, intelligent etc. If that is the case, then there are only a few future paths for the U.S. 1) Continue business as usual, and be prepared to deal with the fact that we will always be hated, and will always be the target of violence. 2) Give up our power, wealth, education, etc and turn ourselves into a third world country. 3) Try to spread our wealth and success to the rest of the world.

Most of the brainwashed American masses think that option (1) is the patriotic option, despite the fact that it puts us in the losing situation of trying to fight the whole world and will probably end up in option (2) in the long run. A true patriot would realize that the only long-term path with any semblance of national security is (3). Note that (3) is not what most corporations think about when they are going overseas. They are most certainly not interested in exporting any of the things which make America a very livable place, such as environmental protections, labor laws, etc. Rather they are looking to avoid all of the pesky government 'intrusions' that try to make them act the least bit responsible or decent. They want the 'right' to pollute as much as they want, pay the lowest possible wages, and run like hell taking all of their capitol as soon as the next country looks like it will accept more pollution and even lower wages. Or as soon as they have extracted all the natural resources. Then people like you wonder why the masses in these countries aren't grateful that we gave them our pollution and paid them slave labor wages and strip mined their country.

That's why 'globalization' is such a hot topic. Corporations talk about a level playing field, but what they are really looking for is a way out of the basic regulations that keep America from being a 3rd world country. The Blame America First Club, as you like to call it, wants globalization to mean exporting our labor and environmental laws, our democratic government, as well as capital investment. Corporations are interested in maximizing profits by avoiding labor and environmental regulations. Usually this means avoiding any true democracy as well, since most people actually like things like being paid a decent wage and having clean water to drink and vote accordingly.

When

Re:anthrax--careful, John

[Elvis Maximus]

I actually strongly suspect the anthrax attacks are not originating with al-Qaeda.

For one thing, the letters strike me as funny:

The date at the top is in the format "9/11/01". Only Americans write dates this way (everyone else writes "11/9/01"). Someone who lived here for a while would know we do that, but wouldn't they be more inclined to write "September 11, 2001" or some variation to avoid confusion? Why would they bother to do it our way?
The letters clearly imply they are from Islamic fundamentalists, but do not begin "bismillah al-rahman al-rahim (in the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful)". Pious Muslims, fundamentalists and otherwise, begin every document, from class notes to business correspondence, this way.
How come the writer can keep his lines nice and straight on the letter but not on the envelopes?
The language seems kind of stilted, like what an American would suppose a foreign terrorist would say. "We have this anthrax. You die now." An Arabic-speaker would be likely to say, "we have the anthrax" as that is how you would say it in Arabic. "You will die now" is a construction that exists in Arabic, so it is an error an Arabic speaker is less likely to make.
"Allah is great" is kind of an awkward construct. A Muslim might write "Allahu akbar" without translation, or "Allah is greatest," which is a better translation. The point of the phrase "Allahu akbar" is that God is greater than anything else, and this is not a distinction that would be lost on a dedicated Muslim whose English is good enough to write these letters.
al-Qaeda never warned anyone about the embassies, the Cole, the WTC, or any of the failed attacks on other targets. So why do the letters announce they have anthrax in them and advise the recipients to "take penacilin now?"
Not only does the author know what a 4th grade is (i.e., that we call it 4th grade and not 4th form, 4th year, etc.), but he/she realizes that it is a usual practice for a 4th grade class to write a Senator's office. A recent immigrant from an Arab country might come to know these things, but they would not come naturally to him/her. I would think the author would pick something he/she could feel more sure of.

Also, some of the targets seem strange to me. A tabloid newspaper? That appeared to be, if not the first target, an early target, and is not exactly a symbol of America to people around the world. If I were an investigator, this is the one I would be looking at most closely. If I were a terrorist wanted to sow fear and confusion, I would send anthrax to random people's homes, or I would steal a load of Publishers' Clearinghouse sweepstakes applications and load them with the bacteria before returning them to the mails.

It's all circumstantial, of course, but the al-Qaeda angle doesn't seem right to me. I'm betting it's some American guy or guys with a B.Sc. in microbiology.

Globalism is not a political movement

[Zeinfeld]

As usual we have a buzz word laden piece by Katz that shows zero insight (and another part to come, God help us).

Globalism is not and has never been a political movement. It is no more than a social and political trend that began with the Industrial Revolution. Geography is less of a constraint than it was in past. Airline travel, the telephone, satelite TV and the Internet mean that you can live in one country and have the same communications access as if you lived in another country on a different continent.

Anti-globalism is a political movement of sorts. There is no real cohesion between the aims of the various factions however. In many cases the aims are completely opposed.

Bin Laden is not an anti-globalist in any meaningful sense, he is anti-US but his political aims are global. He wants to return the world to the middle ages one country at a time, starting with Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Palestein but continuing on to Andaloucia (Spain), Africa etc.

Some of the anti-globalists are anti-democratic tin pot nationalists who want to declare independence for their little fragment of a nation state so that they have a better chance of getting power themselves.

Other 'anti-globalists' are tin-pot union leaders looking for some form of protectionism that will discriminate against goods produced by foreign workers.

Most of the 'anti-globalists' are not protesting about the process of globalisation however but the limited form in which it is taking place. As they see it the West is busy exporting the working practices and political structures of the nineteenth century while trying to deter democratization that might threaten Western interests.

As a political critique it was far more accurate in the 1970s than today. The list of dictators supported by the West and in particular the US is very long. The US subverted democratic governments in Chile and the Congo and replaced them with mass murderers.

US administration policy since the cold war, and in particular since the Clinton administration has been to end support for most of the worst regimes. Marcos, Pinochet, Suharto and the rest have been consigned to the dustbin of history. It is therefore somewhat strange to start an unfocused 'the US can do no right' movement at this time. There are several areas where the US is standing on the wrong side of history, proping up the gulf dictatorships for example, however US foreign policy is much reformed.

The biggest problem of globalism is ex-patriate meddling in their former home countries, particularly in the second and third generations. Sean Connery's calls for an independent Scotland made from a Spanish golf course are ridiculous and harmless enough. The funding of the IRA by Irish Americans or the Sikh separatists in India by Bradford shopkeepers was not. The problem with ex-patriates is that they can believe all the propaganda they like, they can fund all the murder they like and live in perfect safety far from the consequences of their meddling.

The funding of Israeli settlements by US Jews and the funding of extreemist Madrasah schools in Pakistan by Saudis are just another example of a type of meddling from a long distance that is hated by the majority in the countries that are subjected to it.