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Defining Globalism
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.
I'm quite German, and I don't call it `Globalisiening', but `Globalisierung' ;-)
There is something that can be said about Globalism... Dont trust anyones definition on that word, specially when their definition is full of generalizations...
Having said that it can be argued either way if Multinationals have hijacked or not globalism. But you see, this is totally relative to the multinational at hand.
Investors from different countries tend to behave in different ways, frequently reflecting the different kinds of capitalist systems they come from. The most striking differences among foreign direct investors in the U.S. economy are found between West European and Japanese entities. Investments by the former are heavily concentrated in manufacturing and R investments by the latter are more evenly split between manufacturing and R&D facilities on the one hand and distribution networks on the other.
The bottom line is that international organizations today are fundamentally political, not legal or judicial, entities and will remain so into the policy-relevant future. Their staffs, moreover, will long be composed of foreign nationals dedicated to pursuing their own countries' interests. These organizations are certainly capable of fostering significant degrees of international cooperation in the technology field and others, but as is the case with issues involving globalization, interdependence, and cooperation, member states will constantly struggle to secure the best possible terms of cooperation. National representatives will continue to battle over questions such as: Who pays? Who benefits? Who benefits the most? Who is in charge?
You can't except organizations that are created for the purpose of making money (and the goverments sponsored by them) to behave otherwise. What you can hope for is that competition created by "globalization" will give consumers better products and that the free flow of technology and information within the "global village" will give people more an more choices.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
Rich Cook.
I work for a magazine called foreign policy. Late last year we did a very interesting set of rankings that rated how "global" different countries are. We worked with AT Kearney to develop a system to measure and compare things like, # of secure interent hosts, amount of foreign direct investment, # of long distance telephone calls. The results of the study were interesting and suprinsing. This year we'll be publsishing the same report in January.
the Germans say Globalisiening
Dear John Katz, /. needs not only a spell checker, but a decent translator? Don't tell my your OCR software mistook "ru" for "ni". It's christmas soon, so let's write up something for your wishlist for Santa Claus.
can't you please look up your stuff a little bit better? It's Globalisierung. Not that difficult, is it? I guess
Excellent point, lousy example.
Globalization is primarily a commercial movement, powered by the world's strongest economy. It makes sense that the country hosting that economy should be leading the charge towards globalization.
Unfortunately, embracing their goal means embracing their ideals. Let's face it: The American culture is very pervasive. Not everyone wants to become Americanized, which is something they would have to do if they lived in a truly "globalized" planet organized by the 'states.
I'm not saying there's anything necessarily wrong with the way you southerners do things, only that your way is not always right, and that your pied piper's flute is quite loud enough as it is thank you.
The UN may be a toothless gaggle of squabbling children run by a third-world potentate, but it's also the only chance third world nations have of getting cash out of the west. Concentrating all of the economic power and focus on the 'States would mean the poorer countries would only get cash when the American desire for excess has been sated.
(And we all know how soon *THAT*'s going to happen)
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
I understand the point Jon Katz is trying to make, and to be perfectly honest, I don't even disagree with it. But he'd make that point a lot better if he didn't try to pretend he knows something about Germany while making it. First of all, it's 'Globalisierung', not 'Globalisiening'. Second, "hundreds of teenagers" did not "storm the Berlin Wall and bring it down" -- if you'd taken a mean age of the folks dancing and drinking on and around the Wall on November 9th, 1989, they'd probably have been somewhere in their mid-to-late twenties. Third, these "teenagers" did not all run first thing to music stores and buy videos on the morning of November 10th when the shops opened in West Berlin -- most people went instead for things like bananas and kiwifruits. And fourth, even those who *did* run to music stores weren't gung-ho about buying "the videos they'd been secretly watching on MTV". MTV is an American channel which even twelve years later is only available on cable television in the now-unified Germany, and certainly was not watched by *East* Germans *before* the fall of the Wall. Mr. Katz, you're a very good writer. You really are. But I'd like to see you use a little more of your brain and research skills behind that rhetoric instead of making things up on the spot just for the sake of being able to embroider detail onto your arguments. -J
After the death of Carlo Giuliani (related to the mayor of New York city?) and the mass demonstration in Genoa the following day I had the same question: "What is globalization and why are so many people against it? Are they against free trade? Sounds strange to me."
These columns gave some insight in what globalization as defined by IMF and World Bank mean in real life. It's not really free trade. In many aspects it is the opposite and I don't think it's very healthy. This year's Nobel prize winner for economics, Joseph Stiglitz, seems to be of the same opinion.
Bas
We need to look at this as seen from outside of the USA.
In this column in the Indian Online Magazine Tehelka, Swami Agnivesh warns the West that it would be dangerous to attempt a global, unilateral regime of the sort envisaged by the World Trade Organisation without a corresponding willingness to give up its parochial mindset. As he notes 'the Western commitment to equality remains suspect to the rest of us because they have not upheld this, in any real sense, in dealing with our societies. In its transactions with non-Western societies, the West has operated on the privileges and profits of inequality."
He warns the West that it would be dangerous to attempt a global, unilateral regime of the sort envisaged by the World Trade Organisation without a corresponding willingness to give up its parochial mindset.
The whole article is insightful, but rather unsettling to a usian who has never been out of country.
The idea that somehow the USA is better than everyone elsemight even have some truth in it, but too often it breeds a certain contempt and disrect.
In a similar area, look at Microsoft. They argue they have the best in the world, but this does not always promote respect from users of other technologies.
And so it is probably for the better that the US does not become the equivalent of Microsoft in the nations of earth.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
There is a very good book called NO LOGO (by Naomi Klein) which is essential reading for anyone who wants to have an informed opinion on this.
Essentially, the idea of globalism is that technology and wealth will gradually trickle down from the first world nations that generate (and dominate) them to the third world nations which need them so badly. But the problem is that large multinational corporations have hijacked globalization for their own agenda.
They sequester themselves in Export Processing Zones where they pay no taxes to local government and no overtime to workers who put in 16 hour days at least 6 days a week. They bribe local governments to lift restrictions on destruction of the nation's natural resources with no promise to compensate.
For the last 5 to 7 years (coining of the phrase globalization) third world nations have been getting POORER at a steady and alarming pace. This is WHY they hate us. They don't hate American citizens who go about their daily lives with no involvement. They hate the multinational corporations who root themselves in the US or other first world nations and then drain developing nations of their resources while violating their labour laws without fear of reprisal.
These are just a few of the shocking truths you will find in NO LOGO. You will also discover how the same multinationals have been dupping you for years. You will learn that the shirt you paid $40 for was made in Honduras by people getting paid less than a 20 cents for 16 hours of labour.
The facts in this book is an eye-openning experience for anyone who thinks they understand this issue. There is so much going on in the world that we are not told about. Isn't it we started paying attention?
I would suggest reading a book called "Snow Crash" by Neal Stenphenson (sp). The world depitected there is one of the possible outcomes of goverment stepping out of the trade and allowing corps to do what they want.
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
> but whatever their message is it isn't getting out. Protestors in seattle just looked like hooligans.
. ht m
Yes. Entirely true. Everything from CNN to West Wing protrayed them as a bunch of clueless whining disorganised morons. But, do you remember seeing an interview with any of the protestors' spokesmen on mainstream media, or did you just see a bunch of studio jockeys vaguely paraphrasing what they were unhappy about. Did you actually see any air time given to someone explaining what they were unhappy about and what they were trying to achieve ?
The media always portrays it as: look at these silly people, they don't understand the benefits of free trade.
Consider the possibility that the people who went to all the trouble of travelling to Seattle, risking arrest, etc, have actually looked into these issues rather more carefully than the average couch potato. Then the media invites all "regular folks" to feel contempt and scorn for these ignorant fools.
So, your impression is perfectly understandable, but you have probably only heard one side of the story. Or, more accurately, you have heard various conflicting opinions on one side of the story. To get another side, try here:
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/jan2000albert
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
We should limit the sale of guns. No one wants child pr0n distributed either so limit that. No civilized person would want drugs on the street, so limit that. We are far to advanced a race to allow the free distribution of alcohol, so that of course must me limited. And come on, we all know the damage those pesky internal combustion engines are so we must limit the sale of gasoline. Without gasoline then there can't possibly be any use for cars so why let people sell those. Tobacco is a horrible problem so we must limit that. Do you have any idea how many people each year are killed by falling out of windows, so we must restrict the sale of windows, only good solid brick.......
Once you open the door to one groups idea of what is evil (in this case the sale of guns) and must be banned, you start down a path that can lead to the restriction of something you consider to be crucial to the existance of a truly free society.
I would be very leary of a society that had no restrictions, but I would be even more scared of one that only restricted what one group determines to be "evil".
This "globalization" thing, that noone can define but everyone has a stance on, is coming. The biggest complaint that I hear is the fear that Big Business will be the ultimate ruler and none of us will be free. This is equally scary if some Big Group gets to be the ultimate ruler and none of us are free.
Free people don't get into groups to define what everyone else can't do, they get into groups to figure out what they shouldn't do.
Primitive cultures like the one running Afghanistan don't accept the inevitability of globalism Jon Katz, you ignorant slut! Primitive cultures don't know anything about how to fly airplanes into buildings, evade Interpol/FBI and advanced money laundering techniques. This particular part of the world has been civilized for far longer than most of the rest of the world (y'know Iraq, craddle of civilization, that stuff?). While they may or may not agree with the inevitibility of Globalization, they are certainly not primitive. If anything it's dumb old American who don't know shit about global politics or their own xenophobia who might be thought of as primitive.