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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.
lobalizationgay in piglatin
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.
At least thats what it means to me when I hear it. We are basically talking about US-centric ideology and economy. It means that things like this invasion of Afghanistan should be accepted by the rest of the world, because sooner or later it may happen to them. Forget that nations have their own sovereign right to determine their own internal affairs. They only have that right insofar as the US does not feel the need to interfere. And this does not apply equally across the board. Would we allow France to bomb our cities because we are harboring a political fugitive they are seeking? Would we allow Russia to arm and finance groups in America that advocate overthrowing the US government? Yet that seems perfectly acceptable for the US to do in other countries. Of course when the US does it, its not called "state sponsored terrorism".
Globalization can be classified as a polarizing issue. Often seen in politics, it is simply an issue that one can use to easily separate people into two groups; those for, and those against.
Somewhere in the middle exists a rational argument, but either sides probably aren't interested in hearing it.
Third. The French call it troisième, the Germans say drittes, and throughout much of Latin America, it's called tercer.
The major Ottawa bus routes (Transitway) come within 100m of the conference center where the G20/IMF summit is held.
Info: Global Democracy Ottawa
" Neither could say what it was. Can you?"
It is either a floor cleaner or a dessert topping.
Don't worry, it's both!
My big concern about globalism is that it doesn't define the end-user as a global citizen but as a global consumer.
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.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
"Interconnection". That's all globalism/globalization is. Everything else is circumstantial, meaning it depends on the particular implementation or course of history or time-space continuum you happen to live in or whatever. ;-) So no, it is by no means inevitable. Presumably, one could find an island (physical or metaphorical) that allows total isolation from the rest of humanity. It is, however, worthwhile to note that known human history shows a trend vastly in the opposite direction.
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.
standardisation and centralisation of policy for reasons of convenience, all at the expense of diversity, freedom of choice and (therefore) long term darwin-style improvement of policy.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Don't trust professors from that "Amherest College." It's no good. Neither is Amherst.
- Williams '01
The thing that really scares me about globalization is the homogenization that follows. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some extremist or religious nut. But every nation being different is what makes it so interesting. Once there are McDonalds on every corner, and the whole world shops at The Gap, this place will be so boring it will drive me mad. On the other hand, if you go too far protecting your national identity, you end up like the french, with their laws preventing social dilution at the expense of personal freedom, or like the Taliban, so scared that people will see western ways and abandon their twisted interpretation of religion that allows them to keep control. It really is a fine line.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
Globalism is, among other things, the only way for local markets to keep expanding. Since there is nothing left beyond the world for now, I guess this is the last phase until the end of the old world and probably the beginning of a new middle age.
Don't get me wrong. Globalism in itself is the negation of any kind of territorialism being used as forms of abuse -- the fall of barriers. But those barriers still want to survive on their own ; if they're going to disappear, they may try not to go down alone and take a part of the world with them.
Therefore, any side-effect of globalism should not be attributed to itself. It is rather an opportunity to get rid of systems that do not have any use anymore, that will crash anyway on their own, and that can blow us with them if we do nothing. If we're going to globalize anyway, let's not do it half-assed.
--Martin
Globalization is one of the finest things that can happen to human race, if it's done the right way. It means a world without barriers, but since human stupidity makes ppl try to push their own ideas down other ppl throats, that's what is going to happen. Furthermore, it's interesting how globalization is always shown connected with world economy, instead of being defined as a massive cultural exchange. Of course... the greedy capitalists out there have a focus on this matter just a 'little diferent' than we do :)
Rio de Janeiro's dwellers are stupid. No, really.
globalization is what JonKatz (tm) is/was/will be against. What more do we need to know?
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
(Score:
+1 True
-50 moderator didn't like it)
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
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.
Globalism is never a problem for anyone -- it allows competition to level the paying field for even the poorest nations as long as they have the people who want to work for it.
Where globalism, capitalism, and "Big Business" get ugly is when the government (any government) intervenes in any way: whether its a subsidy, a tariff, an embargo, even a bailout (a la airlines). The minute a government steals from the citizens in order to help a business, the system falls apart. Those who worked hard to make their business profitable get hurt for their smarts (Look at the airline industry, there are numerous airlines HIRING right now, and some of which who are still profitable). Instead, our government takes the biggest ones, with the worst track record of profitability, and bail them out, hurting the little guy who was making it work.
Big Business will always fail with no government intervention, eventually. 10 smaller companies in a co-op situation will always do better in the long run if they have the competitive edge and no sanctions to hurt them or subsidies to help the Big Business competition.
It's evident that totally free trade can "save the world." It's more evident that our country will never allow it. Sanctions against Iraq destroyed that country (NOT Saddam Hussein as the media and government portrays as the culprit). Sanctions and subsidies destroyed the wheat crop in Columbia, then destroyed the coffee crop. What was left? Coca. Now our government intervenes to destroy that crop.
In order to have a peaceful society, we need to get government ENTIRELY out of free trade. Let businesses and people deal with whomever they want, bar none. I can understand if government may want to limit arms sales, but other than that, I can see no reason to ever limit or subsidies trade or business of any kind. In a totally free economy, there will always be winners and losers. Unfortunately, government intervention makes losers into smaller losers, and the winners into big losers. Tell them to stay out, and you'll see happy people all over the world, able to buy and sell their wares at prices that they deem proper.
We believe that without the government, prices would skyrocket (they wouldn't, supply and demand and competition prevent that), or we'd have shortages (again, suppy and demand and competition would help), or we'd see our economy fail because other countries do it cheaper (they do, and better, sometimes its even our unions that make our businesses unprofitable, not necessarily our business tactics).
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
Furthermore, it takes an enormous amount of time and resources for a corporation to become globalized. All businesses start out as a small mom-and-pop shop, and either expand or fail. Today's globalized corporations are merely the most sucessful of the previous generation's small town shops, and you don't become a huge multinational conglomerate by screwing over your customers. Companies like Wal-Mart, Montsano, and Coca Cola got where they are today by offering superior products and services than their competitors. Years of hard work got them where they are today, not some government Trilateral Commission conspiracy. It's free-market economy at it's finest, nothing more.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
The first problem (the one with the theory) is an attempt to homogenize culture. Face it, most people like their culture, no matter what it is. Culture is usually not prescribed by the government, but is certainly influenced by it. On the other hand, cultural homogenization may be inevitable--more influenced by cheap transportation and communication than any political actions.
The second problem has to do with the way globalization is being done. I am a US citizen, and consider having a say in my government to be a divine right. Current globalization efforts include, IMHO, the UN, the WTO, and the EU. These agencies, these super-governments (for lack of a better term) don't answer to people, they answer to governments. This removes the person further from the government imposing laws on him or her. I don't swear allegiance to the UN, I am not permitted to help elect its members, why should I answer to it? Why should my country's business laws be prescribed by the WTO, when I have no opportunity to vote the bums out?
This looks like a pure power steal. Global agencies are not directly accountable to people. If they were, if I could protest their policies peacefully at the ballot box rather than violently at protests (the only option we now have), I would have more patience with them.
--The basis of all love is respect
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Any leader who's country's most popular show is bayatch should be in despair about his people...
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 is:
1. Putting all your eggs in one basket.
2. Trying for harmony when everyone sings the same tune.
3. Letting everyone make the same mistakes, all at once.
4. Making sure the free market never decides anything.
5. Saying "Businesses have been a discriminated minority for too long."
6. Trying to disprove the myth that humanity doesn't scale.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
It is the consolidation of global power into fewer and fewer hands.
If there is any one lesson that mankind should have learned from its history, it is that power corrupts.
More power == more corruption.
I wonder why? I suspect because wars on self-defense or different-ways of thinking (drugs) make governments more-powerful. What did the Taliban first do? Take all the guns. What will be the US/UN's first objective? Take away all the guns from individuals. It makes taxation easier, and the constituency is 100% for that in the UN or any group of thugs who want protection-money. I'm sure this comment will induce whines from lefties, but they NEED to whine!
odds@dragoncon.net gets me.
www.jpfo.org gets my viewpoint on gun control.
Throw in military protection and I believe what you are describing is a government. This is the beginings of a world government, and we should be electing a seperate offical to represent us for it. Perhaps even voting in a presidential like election as well. Anything else is a wasted opportunity. We have the opportunity to inspire/republics and democrocies in countries that have never seen them before. It has the opportunity to civilize a variety of governments by having their citizens participate in a new and wonderfull process. Unfortunatly greed seems to be the order of the day with the current system in the US and the WTO meetings are just a easy way for presidents to pay back campain contributions with favors.
Our government is a slave and our press is their masters. Ben Franklin's fears about copyright have been realized. If US officals really cared about democracy they would create one limited over-government for the world and give up their some of their power to the peoples choice. Hopefully enough of the non-US goverments recognise the civilizing power of such an orginization and work around our currently undermined state.
Good luck to them.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Here we go:
globalize (glb-lz)
tr.v. globalized, globalizing, globalizes
To make global or worldwide in scope or application.
In this case it means trade and government.
Now that wasn't so hard, was it Katz? Did it really justify an article this size?
-- iCEBaLM
Too often people (governments, coporations, etc) attempt to employ the drive towards globalisation as a means to achieving particular ends, rather that accepting that stable globalisation only comes about as a consequence of other factors.
Whilst the dimmishment of the powers of centralised national governments, in favour of more decentralised power structures, may be a positive factor in the continuing development of advanced liberal democracies, for weaker and less prosperous nations it can be disasterous and is too easily perceived as an attack on their sovereignty. Similarly, the enforced acceleration of the economic development of weaker nations, without regard for the resources and equity of those nations can have terrible consequences on their lon term ability to survive independently of the international community (ie - for poorer nations the journey to a globalised community is one way).
You only have to consider the different manners in which Russia and China have responded to the West-driven globalism to see (relatively) how much better (stable, prosperous) China will be in the near future than Russia; Russia dove headfirst into westernised democracy without the social and economic infrastructure to support such liberalised globalism, China however, though it's record in many areas is wretched, has been focusing more on developing it's social and economic infrastructure, so that as it progresses a culture that can support liberal globalism will arrise naturally.
1. A major component of globalization is free trade. That means there are no "duties" or taxes levied by countries importing goods.
2. International law and international courts are another component.
OK, those are facts that are hard to dispute. Here's where my opinion comes in:
Globalization, as defined above is bad because...
1. Advocates for globalization are always saying that free trade is needed to spur economic development. The first major problem with this is that once trade is totally free, it can no longer be used as a tool to spur growth. If the cause for economic problems comes from some other area, they will eventually exhaust this resource and because they devoted so much effort to it, other potential resolutions will be neglected. This is similar to the interest rate problem with the Japanese economy. Another major problem with free trade is that there are hidden costs. For example, sea creatures carried in the holds of ships have had a devestating impact on the ecology of the Great Lakes in North America. Similar ecological problems have arisen with fruit flies, tree fungi, and various other pests. A tarrif is a logical way to protect against these issues because the revenue generated rises in proportion to the problem. The foolish assumption of free trade is to either ignore these losses in the economic equation or to assume that revenue to solve them can be readily obtained from some other source. This is no new problem. Expanded trade is widely credited for carrying the rats that spread black death throughout Europe in the middle ages. A tarriff to fund rat extermination at the port would have been a fantastic and foresighted action.
2. Global law is bad because it erodes the sovereignty of nations and deprives the citizens of a vote (where they have one). This could also lead to a "no where to hide" syndrome where legitimate dissenters cannot take refuge. In the 80s, the Shah of Iran took refuge in France. What if an international court had been required to allow him to be tried according to Iranian revolutionary laws? It doesn't take too much imagination to see such things being used to persecute all kinds of people.
In general, globalization is bad for the same reason that monoculture crops are bad: If The One System gets a disease, then the whole World gets a disease.
With multiple systems, one "diseased" country cannot infect the others too quickly. What if there was a world government, and it got taken over by Taliban?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The way I see it, globalism/globalization is all about potential.
/optimism
/pessimism
On the one hand, it has the potential to drop barriers and unite humanity into a complex, but harmonious web of inter-connected local governments. It has the potential to open the world up to new cultural ideas (Not just American ones. In this global community, everyone speaks). It has the potential to bring freedom, liberty, and higher standards of living to the globe.
On the other hand, it has the potential to bring an American corporate ogliarchy into existence. A homogenized, processed, company-approved world where everyone is a consumer rather than a citizen, the law is based on the "needs of the company", and everybody's rights are defined by EULAs.
Of course, these are two extremes, and it's more likely the true result will be somewhere in the middle. Hopefully leaning toward the first paragraph, but somewhere in the middle.
Damn inflation! It costs a buck and a quarter to get my two cents in . . .
-- If any of the above made sense, I assure it was purely by accident.
I've been writing about it for years, and got more than 2,000 responses and e-mails about it from some columns here last week, but you know what? I still couldn't tell you exactly what it is.
Translation:
I don't know what I'm talking about.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
. . . to any meaningful debate on the subject. Those who are in favor of globalization seem to define it in very different terms than those who support it. This is an issue that those who have protested at recent WTO meetings have failed to adequately address. They have successfully conveyed their message that "globalization is bad," but without further clarification, this will strike different audiences as either self-evident or as an absurdity, since "globalization" means entirely different things to different groups of people. If you take it to mean the exploitation of indigenous peoples by large multinational corporations, then of course it's bad. But if you take it to mean greater mutual understanding among people of different nations, it is long overdue. The problem is, globalization can, but does not necessarily, encompass all these things, and a lot more.
Globalization may well be inevitable, as Katz correctly points out, but what form it will take is yet to be determined. Therefore, rather than getting into a shouting match over whether globalization is Good or Bad, it would be much more productive to discuss how to take advantage of the opportunities that globalization presents us while avoiding the the dangers it presents. This is the challenge for our age.
Namely peace and prosperity. Commerce and communication have essentially brought us these. People who aren't hungry and have jobs tend not to fight each other. Knowing the facts and understanding what's going on around you makes you less able to be manipulated by leaders with their own agenda. It may sound stupid but TV has actually brought around world peace. It's reduced ignorance and brought new points of view to poeple who might not be exposed to them, and along with that understanding.
/bin/laden calling for death to the infidels, but how can you fault the benefits? I shake my head when I see people protesting against globalism. Largely they are healthy, middle class youths. Wearing Nike sneakers, Levi jeans and driving to the protest in Fords, etc. If they are serious, why aren't they living in caves, growing their own vegetables?
Globalism is merely more of the same. More commerce and more communication. It means that countries left behind by the prosperity that has benefited the west are more likely to share in it, even if the west gets fatter in the process.
There is of course the dark side of globalism. MacDonald's and any other given multinational,
Globalism is here. We should stop talking about wether it's good or bad and start asking how we can reduce its bad aspects and increase it's benefits.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Being against certain policies of the WTO, GATT, World Bank and so forth does not equate to being against global trade, or cultural cross-pollinization. For example, the globalization crowd is trying to push something called FastTrack through Congress. FastTrack is a law which says so-called free trade agreements can not be debated in our Congress any more. That's about as disconnected from democracy as you can get. They want FastTrack passed so corporations can hash out the agreements and not have to deal with what the American people think. Congress isn't the ideal place to have trade agreements fixed, but it's a hell of a lot better than just having a bunch of corporations write the whole thing.
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.
This ensures that no region will be rich and other poor. Because people can migrate.
/. message board about how a global government should fix the problem, then I have issues.
There will ALWAYS be rich and there will ALWAYS be poor. The trick is to do our best to make sure the middle class holds the deciding vote between them.
(ObHistory: The entire history of western civilization, up to and including "globalization" can be summarized in one phrase: "The Rise of the Bourgeosie.")
I have a real issue with folks who have Internet connections and the ability to speak freely saying we should be transferring more of global wealth to the "poor." If that's the case, please, set an example, sell your computer and donate the $$ from your college tuition to Food For the Poor. But if your contribution to the fight against global poverty and dispair is to bitch on a
Face it folks. WE are that global government. WE are the ones who can make a difference. Set an Earnings Tax on yourself. Vote in favor of stockholder resolutions that require companies in which we hold stock to act in socially conscious ways.
Funny thing about the open, competitive system that has yielded this globalization trend. It evolves from within, through debate and action. We don't need a global government. We don't need a world revolt against "corporations." Those corporations are us folks. We hold their stock, buy their products and take their money. (And if you don't think so, please cash out your 401(k), or if you're a student, please, only go to a school that refuses corporate help.) The "system" responds to the incentives we give it every day. Change the incentives, change the system. Change our individual choices, by an act of will not coercion, change the world.
Development is never balanced. It's not driven by structure or conditions. It's driven by individual people deciding to build a better life for their children. That's it. Why is Singapore rich and peaceful, but unfree, while Uruguay, which arguably has better natural conditions for development, is slipping backwards every day? Because of individual decisions about greed and power.
Build a world your children in which your children have a better opportunity, by making small changes to the way you live your life.
Don't burn down a McDonalds for 15 minutes of fame. Because that, my friends, is hypocrisy.
Whoah, bit of a rant here.
IMHO.
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"
Now then,
/.) have led to a class of empowered spectators to the game of world-affairs. When these empowered spectators act to bring about changes through the spreading reach of democratic government new players are advanced into the realm of world-affairs. These types of players, citizen's groups, international interest organizations and the like provide yet more complexity to the realm of world-affairs.
Globalization is nothing more than the results of the emergence into world-affairs of a set of new actors not previously counted as "players" at that level.
Classic theory holds that nation-states are the players at the level of world-affairs. This is a small, relatively stable set of players. Technological advances have increasingly opened that most exclusive game of international politics to a whole host of new players. And even more importantly, technological advances in combination with a hightening of personal-empowerment and a spread of democratic government, has created a set of active spectators to world-affairs that has never existed in recorded history.
While the recently-begun information revolution has added new players to the game of world-affairs, these players are still a select group. Multinational corporations and the associated bodies (governing organizations, interest groups, etc) mainly comprise this category, and while the ideological makeup of this group is both interesting and largely homogenous, the impact on the game of world-affairs is probably quite predictable.
Side note: As the most visible, and most active group to affect world-affairs during the information revolution, the group arising from multinational corporations is viewed as most threatening by non-wester societies. The predominantly western and first-world ideologies of these multinationals will eventually shift the ideological basis of the game of world-affairs. This shift is something threatening to proponents of non-western ideologies as it would decrease the effectivness of entities holding those ideologies in the game of world-affairs. Additionally, as these multinational corporations enter the game of world-affairs, the backing ideology will act to shift the playing-field (in terms of law and treaty-agreements between actors) of world-affairs to one most suitable for the western ideologies they represent. Specific instances of this are observable in various trade-treaties and resulting laws that exist today.
While the multinationals are by far the most visible of the new actors at the level of world-affairs, they are not perhaps the most numerous of new actors, and they are quite probably not responsible for the general acceptance that a process called "Globalization" is occurring.
Technological and resulting informational advances have begun to allow individual citizens of many nation-states to observe the game of world-affairs in a capacity they were not previously affoarded. Much as radio and television brought spectators into the realm of sports (and thereby increased the spectators role in shaping the world of sports) television and the internet are bringing individual citizens of participating nation-states into the realm of world-affairs.
Polls, audience-participation, and the ubiquitous internet forums (*grins* go
In addition (see the side note above), the concentration of these empowered spectators is much higher among groups with predominantly western ideologies.
In sum, globalization is causing an increase in the number of players in world politics who advance a western ideology. This increase is fueled by technological changes and market cost-pressures. Eventually it does point to an increase in the acceptance of a western ideology.
This probably does piss off pretty much anyone who proposes a different ideology.
So what.
All of which are good things.
Control being the issue the leftists are up in arms about. It's pretty hard to maintain control over people and groups of people (ie, businesses) when they have the option to walk away from power-hungry governments. You can't just throw up a Berlin Wall or Iron Curtain anymore. If governments don't play nice with their people, their best and brightest will walk.
Globalisation is a natural counterweight to tribalism. Playing "us" vs. "them" games becomes increasingly difficult when everyone works with people from all over the world. And darn, there goes that control again. bin Laden is cranky about that.
Same goes with the abuses of nationalism. We're seeing a partial remission of nationalism after the 9/11 attacks, with the move towards unification of the civilized world against barbaric tribalists. The positive side of nationalism, the unification of a people against a common enemy (red white and blue everywhere!), has surged nicely, and that's good.
What remains to be seen is whether the people living in nation-states that have resisted joining the civilized world (say, your average dictatorship that uses anti-American propaganda to unite their citizens against an external "enemy" to deflect criticism from their own incompetence and illegitimacy) will be able to change the course of their nations, or even learn that that would be a Very Good Idea. And does the civilized world have the confidence to help them?
Bilderbergs. The Trilateral Commision. Ring any bells? Conspiracy theories quote them, but you should do the research yourself. Look for David Rothchild quotes.
We are controlled by money. An oligarchy of the rich is approaching, and we're kissing their hands for doing it because of our own greed. I believe in true capitalism; bribery of the government doesn't fit into that.
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.
...everyone's fears about the future, among other things.
I don't believe that it will "make everyone homogeneous." The next town over from me is already so different, I doubt that cultural ideals will magically homogenize worldwide.
I don't believe that it will "make the rich profit off the poor," any more than it already happens. Foreign investment in a local economy always helps it, even if the investors profit more proportionally. Hello, capitalism...
But essentially, what I DO believe is that political, social, religious, and intellectual ideologies and institutions that have depended for so long on the restricted flow of information and/or goods, will not survive whatever "globalization" is. And that that transition will be painful, and will result in the short term with much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and planes flying into buildings until people get used to the idea and stop fearing the future.
My own view of Globalisation can be put quite simply.
It is the tendancy for people in all parts of the world to aspire to the same things, to buy, wear, eat and produce the same things. No longer do the dutch wear clogs, the german wear laderhosen and the scots wear kilts - we all wear Nikes and Levis. How long until the Afghans, the Eskimos, and those funny looking people in Wales will follow suit?
It is the tendancy for a single dominant brand of shoe, bread, chocolate, baby food to be available, and market leading in every corner of the world. It is nowhere near as much fun to visit a French hypermarche now as it was 10 years ago - so many of the brands are the same.
This is neither a good or a bad thing - it is just a thing. If everyone ends up eating McDonalds then its a bad thing, because I don't like McDonalds. If everyone ends up eating good pizza from a wood burning oven its a good thing, because thats what I like.
Here's my take on the definition, in a rather roundabout form.
For most of human history, if you didn't like things (government, economics, society) where you were, you could (at least in theory) walk a few hundred miles and find something completely different. A wanderer could, during his lifetime, sample dozens of entirely novel and separate ways of living. Renegades and outcasts could hope for a new home and a new start away from the powers that oppressed them.
Globalism is the end of that possibility. A uniform global economy and society erodes cultural differences and leaves no alternatives open to those who dislike the single society that remains.
The positive side of globalism is that it offers opportunities to those previously trapped under sadistic or merely uncaring domains. Globalism is slowly wiping out e.g. female genital mutilation, which is certainly a very good result.
The negative side, beyond the abstract harm of having no alternatives for the misfits, is that we become a monoculture in the biological sense, losing our memetic diversity and thus being more prone to societal "disease". A varied pool of cultures has more chance of weathering unexpected stresses than a single culture.
Anyway, that's my take on the issue. The other positions posted on this thread have also been intriguing.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
globalism (glb-lzm)
n.
A national geopolitical policy in which the entire world is regarded as the appropriate sphere for a state's influence.
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
The "left" isn't one cohesive group. On the contrary, the political left is extremely incoherent, because so many of the groups on the left consists of people that are extremely antiautoritarian and extreme individualists - it's hard for people to build cohesive movements from people like that. And you'll find that a lot of these groups will have dramatically divergent views on what globalization is and why you should be for or against it - just like in the rest of society.
Globalism is the biggest idea in the world right now. The French call it Mondialisation, the Germans say Globalisiening and throughout much of Latin America, it's called globalizacion.
Guys, stop ragging on poor old Jon Katz. He had the initiative to look up 'globalization' in THREE LANGUAGES! Bless his journalistic soul.
Globalism is allowing an independent entity to control or influence governments. They're usually corporations, but always an entity with vast buying power. Influencing or controlling governments gives these entities two very important capabilities.
Many cite globalism as a flaw in capitalism. I disagree. Destructive people exist in all walks of life, in both corporations and in government. You could blame capitalism for this, but you could also blame the government that sacrifices its principles after some key officials have been bribed. Do you blame Chiquita banana for its slave labor camps, or do you blame the governments that direct its soldiers to force people to work for Chiquita banana in exchange for bribes?
Capitalism abhors globalism as it disrupts market forces and rewards undeserving businesses, not to mention infringes on the essential rights of individuals. Globalism boils down to petty bribery, but it is committed on a level far above what law enforcement can address.
How did I do?
"Winners and Losers in a Changing World: Global Changes May Promote Invasions and Alter the Fate of Invasive Species"**
by Yvonne Baskin*
BioScience v48, n10 (Oct 1998)
"Although biologists have worked for several decades to figure out what makes some plants and animals good 'weeds,' and what makes some habitats more vulnerable to weedy invasions than others, there are no consistent answers. But the need for answers is becoming more urgent as scientists are being called on to project how native species and ecosystems will respond to a bevy of predicted human-driven disruptions now lumped together under the phrase 'global change.' These disruptions include continuing changes in the composition of the atmosphere; shifts in temperature and rainfall patterns that are expected to result from the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; changes in land use that replace, fragment, or degrade natural ecosystems; changes in the frequency or intensity of natural disturbances, such as fire; rapid growth in world trade and travel; and the accelerating loss of native biodiversity."
"In addition, the increasing pace of species invasions is itself considered a key aspect of global change - one more visible in most regions than the extinction crisis. 'Exotic invasions are the number-two threat to native biodiversity [behind habitat destruction], but that just doesn't say it all,' Stanford University ecologist Harold Mooney told his colleagues at a meeting near Stanford, California, last spring. 'Invasions are the number-one component of biotic change in the world today. The number of extinctions pales beside the number and impact of biological additions, at least for the present.'"
"Spurred by the Convention on Biological Diversity and growing international concern, a number of agencies and groups around the world are developing strategies to curb new invasions and prevent further damage by established invaders in wild as well as managed landscapes (BioScience 46: 732-736). That task is complicated, however, by continuing shifts in climate, land use, avenues for invasion, and other factors that affect the fate of potential invaders. Furthermore, invasions that alter the biological landscape feed back to drive new changes in the atmosphere, climate, and natural disturbance patterns."
"At the Stanford meeting, two dozen scientists led by Mooney gathered to take a preliminary look at the direction in which various global changes are likely to drive the fate of would-be invaders, including exotic species, such as the sea lamprey and spiny water flea, that already lurk like time bombs at the edges of many systems."
The general consensus of the workshop participants was evident from the start: 'Without question, global change is going to exacerbate the invasive problem,' Mooney said. But not all types of change have equally strong or unambiguous impacts. Workshop participants found that two global trends consistently and strongly encourage invasions: land-use change and the proliferation of vectors that promote species movement, especially those created by the growth in world trade. A number of other global changes, they concluded, have less consistent impacts but still play a role in influencing invasions."
Seastead this.
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?
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?
No one has pointed this out yet that I have seen (at +3): Globalism and Globalization are two completely different things!!! They are not interchangable words! Globalization is the economic and legal process of reducing barriers between nations so that corporations can more easily market goods and services internationally. (Actually, generically, this just means to make global in scope.) Globalism is a political or social philosophy in which the entire world is regarded as the appropriate sphere for a state's influence. That said, they are both important aspects of life in these times, but no more important than the notions of "world government", "unity in diversity", and "environmentalism".
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
- Cultural globalization occurs because large corporations keep expanding their target market, eventually seeing the entire world as one homogenous audience. We all see the same TV shows and commercials, and eventually start developing the same ideas about the world.
- Governmental globalization occurs because the more powerful governments know they can do better on the "world market" when foreign governments have similar political views to their own. So, countries like the US and Britain manipulate the politics of the world to their financial ends.
Past globalization attempts have been based in religion (crusades, jihad, inquisition, etc.) These have been for the most part ineffective.Good or bad, the current globalization that is changing the world now is all about money.
I know very little about the politics of he "globalization" issue, and I hope I find a chance to learn more about it. Definition of concepts is always difficult and usually you just have to accept it. Context-sensitivity of words is very common.
One interesting point of view might be mathematics, or more exactly, studies of complex nonlinear systems (you know, the freaky chaos people).
There are numerous studies concerning the behaviour of complex nonlinear systems interconnected in different ways. The research of Stuart Kauffman (a theoretical biologist) is perhaps the most well known, as well as other research from the Santa Fe Institute.
One aspect is simply evolutionary - globally interconnected systems tend to converge fast, while sparsely interconnected systems (such as 2d-lattices) tend to converge slower, but they have higher diversity, which often results in better overall solutions.
Also, highly interconnected systems are rigid because each connection is also a constraint. I don't really know how to apply this to economical globalization. The problem is that the human culture is interconnected in so many ways and on so many levels. Globalization might force a radical self-organizational change in the connectivity structure of humanity, by reducing connectivity in many aspects, or in other words, reducing diversity.
One significant problem in many complex systems is that simple changes at a lower level of a system (in parameters or laws) can result in emergence of totally unpredictable and often undesirable effects in large scale.
Some call this "the invisible hand". It's a pretty well-known concept in many scientific fields, especially the science of finance and economy.
For example, globalization of economy forces countries to compete with their laws to get foreign investments and workers. The result is that companies control laws very effectively. Sometimes this may be good, such as for preventing wars, but quite often not. For example, countries that have stonger social balancing system may suffer in short-term economical competition, as their taxes can be forced to too low level.
Unfortunately, just like the watchmaker of biological evolution, the invisible hand of market economy is blind. Just like other nature, it doesn't have ethics nor does it care anything about humans, and is thus sometimes undesirable.
I mean, corporate life, it will find a way, and then comes the running and the screaming.
I'm not sure if this helps the terminology issue much, but hopefully it gives some directions.
Non-economic factors can't be valued? Hogwash.
Ask any dot-commer who said "Fuck this" and went into volunteer work after his company appeared on fuckedcompany.com one too many times.
Ask any monk (Buddhist or Catholic!) who said "Fuck this material world" and joined a monastery, where in exchange for not having to work at a 9-to-5 job, he is provided with round-the-clock work (maintaining the building and farming the crops) and religious activities (prayer).
If you don't like this materialistic veil of tears, fine. Find some like-minded people and leave it.
Or (warning, possible strawman alert!) are you saying that you want to not have the 9-to-5 job and keep all the quality-of-life things you're used to purchasing with the fruits of your labor? That's cool too -- but it doesn't mean that "non-economic things" like a desired lifestyle don't have a price tag, it just means you can't afford what's on the sticker.
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.
It's different things to different people.
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.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
To be more exact, globalization means that capital can move freely, but labor cannot. Ford is free to move its factories to Mexico for cheaper labor: Mexican workers are not free to move north for more well-paying jobs. Nike can move its manufacturing to Thailand; Thais cannot go to Japan for better-paying work. It is a formula for a race to the bottom.
Globalism is when I make the rest of the world become like my society, which "everyone knows" is the best society.
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.
Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
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.
"The victors write the history books."
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 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.
The problem isn't globalization. What's wrong with people from different countries trading, communicating, and working together? Nah. The problem is that "globalization" is being carried out by unelected bodies of government appointees and corporations.
It's like saying leftists are against the idea of cities just because we think mayors should be elected by the people that live in them instead of appointed by General Electric and Microsoft.
And then, of course, there are the results of corporations determining the course of globalization -- "free trade" means corporations are free to go whereever they want and do nearly whatever they want, but the people who work for them get stopped at borders and are forced to endure corrupt, despotic governments that limit their actions. Corporations can shop around for the country with the lowest wages and oppressive anti-worker laws, but the workers in those countries are forced at gunpoint to remain.
And anyone that knows anything about how a "free market" works can see that this is anything but a free market. Given that corporations have the right to move into any country regardless of human rights, and given that all other countries are forced to accept the products, you have a situation where corporations are always seeking more and more oppressive and corrupt governments, and have a financial incentive to make them worse. Government leaders, on the other hand, have a financial incentive to cooperate. And when a worker in one of those countries tries to improve their situation, by moving to a better country, by organizing a union, by trying to change their government, etc. they are met with soldiers with guns keeping them back.
Final result -- lower wages, longer hours, and less rights for everyone around the world, higher profits for corporations.
Now what would happen if globalization was controlled democratically by the people whose lives it will affect? Short of revolution, we won't know.
"Globalization" means that capital can move where it wants, but labour (ie, you and me) are constrained in where we can emigrate to in order to follow the money flow. Borders restrain and impede people searching for better standards of living while being deliberately porous for capitalists.
What exactly is "globalization" all about? The IMF/World Bank/WTO knowingly bribe local officials to sell off national assets cheaply, deliberately push people into the poverty trap to inflame "social unrest" so that Western companies can buy assets cheaply during the ensuing panic, and "condemns people to death".
But it's not just me saying that. Or those rather smelly anarcho-crusties swinging their dreads forlornly. It's all in the words of Joseph Stiglitz, current Economics Nobel winner and former chief economist boffin at the World Bank. He seems to have done a Vadar and come back from the Dark Side.
Just how badly has globalized moneterism failed to achieve universal prosperity for all?
In the United States, the median real wage is about the same today as it was 28 years ago.This means that the majority of the labor force has failed to share in the gains from economic growth over the last 28 years. That is drastically different from the previous 27 years, during which the typical wage increased by about 80% in real terms. Trade has doubled as a percentage of our economy since the early 1970s, and there is no doubt that globalization has played a significant role in the worsening distribution of income here.
Now, international trade per se is obviously not the issue here, it's international trade under the deliberately poverty-inducing stategies of the IMF-led cartel. International trade could be defined and regulated in such a way as to promote prosperity of ordinary people within economic areas:
Globalization is no more natural or inevitable than the construction of skyscrapers. The globalization we have seen in recent decades has been driven by a laborious process of rule making. It is the establishment and enforcement of these rules that allows Timberland shoes, for example, to make their product in China at wages of 22 cents an hour, and then sell it at the local suburban mall. Advances in transportation and communications did not determine this result. Our leaders have rewritten the rules of the game in a way that has driven down wages for the vast majority of American employees. One may agree or disagree with this policy, but it should be understood as a conscious political choice.
...
The same thing could have been done to the salaries of doctors, for example. With much less effort and expense than it has taken to negotiate investment and trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO, we could license and regulate the training of doctors in foreign medical schools. By allowing these doctors to practice medicine in the United States, we could lower the salaries of doctors and greatly reduce health care costs, without any loss of quality. Interestingly, the savings to consumers from reducing American doctors' salaries to even those of Europe would be enormous: about $70 billion a year.
This is about a hundred times more than the gains from tariff reduction in our most comprehensive trade liberalization agreements, such as the one that established the WTO five years ago. Huge savings could also be achieved by introducing international competition to the practice of accountants, lawyers, economists, and other professionals. But it is unlikely to happen, because these professionals -- unlike the majority of the US labor force -- have enough political clout to protect themselves from international competition.
This Economist article is well-reasoned. But it ignores the underlying fact that globalization means the increasing freedom of movement of capital without complementing freedom of movement of labour, has led to a massive democratic imbalance in the world.
This is because Corporations have lobbyists and expense accounts whereas poor people can only throw rocks.
Corporations prosper while working people are denied freedome of migration and emigration and suffer and end up rotting in huge unemployed pockets of poverty. This is not right and leads to the kind of tensions that I see expressed as fundamentalism in Muslim countries and riots by rich Western kids in Genoa.
Apparently, "unbridled laissez-faire" has got us into this predicament. Maybe it's time to restructure international trade to prevent plunging so many countries into IMF misery?
This is not unprecedented. Before World War One the global economy was very tightly knited together. Unfortunately, this imperial, colonialist and racist system massively benefitted certain countries at the expense of others. What we call today's "laissez-faire" is in fact nothing of the kind but a complex regulatory system designed to perpetuate Western Hegemony.
I benefit greatly from this, getting to eat candies when I want and buy cheap shoes at Payless. But if I had to settle for less candies and knew this was in some way reducing the risk of a suicidal airliner dropping on my head then I'm all for it.
Maybe it's time for a Tobin Tax? Make all those currency speculators produce something worthwhile from their mindless machinations. Donate the proceeds to developing world educational programs....
Da Blog
> We believe that without the government, prices would skyrocket (they wouldn't, supply and demand and competition prevent that)
h tm)
Do you have any evidence for this, historical or otherwise ? Monopolies or cartels are the natural order of things. Companies maximise their profits, but they are not entirely short-sited and stupid about this. If it costs $10 to make a widget, then simplistic economic reasoning tell you that the price of widgets will level off at $10 + delta. Most companies would prefer to sell the widget at $20 or more. Competition is supposed to keep them honest, but companies can make more money through cooperation. What actually happens is that the market diversifies into confusopolies (see The Dilbert Future) where each company in the market makes a healthy profit. Cooperation is a very natural state of affairs (nicely demonstrated by computer simulations http://www.howardri.org/dilemmas_1_robert-axerod.
If a new company enters the market and tries to sell at a more "competitive" price then the existing entrenched companies will sell at below cost until the newcomer becomes bankrupt. Cooperation and coercment happen all the time on a vastly greater scale than commonly acknowledged. The government makes an effort to real in the worst offenders, especially monopolists, but co-operating cartels do not need to meet and talk in order for comfortable price levels to emerge.
Anyway, it's all irrelevent until one fixes the issue of where money comes from. In the current system, money is invented by private banks in the form of loans. This is not an ideal system, but I can't be bothered to go into that just now.
Hard-core capitalism superficially maximimses freedom, but things are not as simple as that. If 10% of the population own 95% of the property, those born with little spend their lives in service to the 10%. Governments can (and do)alleviate this.
The pharoes of the 21st century have the slaves begging for work.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Bullworth said it best:
"Let's just keep fucking eachother until we're all the same color!"
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
But globalization is an elusive notion.
"Globalization" must constitute an elusive notion: Katz utterly fails to provide even one definition in his article, ironically entitled Defining Globalism.
Come on, Jon. Give it a shot. Try to provide a three sentence or less, dictionary-style definition of one or more meanings of the word "globalization".
Gee whiz, at least try to distinguish between "globalISM" and "globalIZATION"
The enabling force of globalization is not a matter of economics or culture - these are just factors which come into play when globalization occurs. No, globalization is all about mobility. Of ideas, goods, and people. Improvements in transportation enable us to go anywhere in the world in a matter of hours, and to send products and raw materials anywhere at low cost. Improvements in communication culminating in satellite television and the internet have brought the ideas and culture of the world to our doorstep, and vice versa.
Is it any surprise that this can cause great change and upheaval? It shouldn't be. Is this inherently a bad thing? No, it's just the way things are. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and endlessly bitching about the state of the third world without offering solutions beyond isolation (which is laughably implausable and irritatingly patronizing) is pointless.
Let's face it - our world is approaching the point where a single person can acquire the capability of affecting (or even taking) the lives of everyone on the planet. It's high time we learned to deal with it, give up the idea that everything should be forcefully driven back to some non-existent state of blissful ignorance, and try to create a common set of values for the world.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Globalization IS McDonalds on every corner.
But it's not purely Western.
Large cultural gravity wells like China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, etc., will inject their own contributions into globalization and remain centers of gravity for their larger regions of homogenization.
Everyone will speak Spanish, Russian, English, or Mandarin in addition to their own language. And then their children will speak their parent's native language no more.
This is not to bemoan the loss of cultural diversity.
I mean, look at the cultural influence the tiny nation of Jamaica has on the cultures of it's much larger English speaking neighbors and cousins.
People should not bemoan the fact that we will all be living in one giant shopping mall.
It is the obvious and natural result of instantaneous global communications.
It is so inevitable and unstoppable that any anxiety over the process by fringe groups is almost funny.
So don't fight it if you don't like it, there is just nothing you can do about it, it is beyond anyone's control, unless you want people to stop communicating with each other.
And it is not entirely bad.
Hutus killing Tutsis and visa versa for ridiculous reasons are the kind of cultural fault lines that will fade away in the process of globalization and disappear in the sands of time- ridiculous racial and tribal and ethnic animosities fading away, think about that goodness. They are simply untenable in a world where more children are exposed to more cultural diversity.
One could argue that classism on a scale never seen before replaces these ancient animosities. As if classism is anything new? As if that is a sure thing? Explain why growing world classism is bad to a lower caste member in India who would lose their traditional stigmatism during a process of globalization.
I would say to those on the left who fear corporate power that the growth of the middle class will be unprecedented if corporations are given freer reign then the left would like. Remember the growing pains England went through during the dawn of the Industrial Age? As if that process of urbanization and subjugation can be shortcircuited. This is a Communistic idea that some of these growing pains can be shortcircuited or mitigated. These processes are organic, self-emergent processes of basic human nature.
No ivory tower of good will and sheer willpower will stop the excesses and abuses of Capitalism during these processes. It is simply unavoidable. But Capitalism is not the whole sum of human nature. Go read "A Christmas Carol" if you insist on being gloom and doom about the whole thing. It is the difference in believing that human nature is basically good, and things will sort themselves out for the better, and human nature is basically bad, and things will eventually fall apart. You can't be naive about it, but you have to have a 51% vs. 49% view of good and evil or what is life worth living for anyways? Is the glass half full or is the glass half empty?
Cultural diversity contracts by putting lots of different cultures under one umbrella. They all bleed into one another.
But don't fear the reaper. Cultures have been created and destroyed over and over again.
We are all human beings, and we all own each other's cultures anyways.
In the larger span of history, cultures have always been bleeding into each other. Nothing is really lost, merely reallocated and mixed and shaken up on a scale never seen before.
Eventually, looking far enough behind us or far enough ahead of us all cultural legacies on every continent are every man, woman, and child's birthrights irregardless.
Look at the larger picture folks, nothing bad is really happening.
Do you really think the cosmopolitan, global citizen of the year 3000 CE will have anything but laughter for the kinds of anxieties that are being expressed right now over globalization?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Click here to participate.
Slightly OT: Does anybody know if this is considered a DOS attack? If enough people participated (essentially a malicious Slashdot effect), could the creators of the page on geocities be held responsible? Could I, for posting this message?
Globalization has lots of meanings for lots of people. Here's what it means to one particular Canadian (myself).
Globalization means that we have free trade across the border, without tariffs, unless we can sell our products (read: softwood lumber) for cheaper than American mills can, in which case we're 'dumping' our lumber, and get nailed with 18% tariffs which is going to put tens of thousands of people out of work so that the American mills can afford to gouge instead of becoming efficient. Globalization also means that low-cost housing in the US is going to become less low-cost because corporations are the rule.
Globalization means that the WTO is the final ruling body on international economic trade, unless they rule against the US (in the softwood lumber dispute, they ruled against the US twice before the tariffs were imposed), in which case they are ignored.
Globalization means that, under NAFTA, Ontario cannot ban certain highly toxic pesticides, becuase the American companies can pick any court on the continent to file a dispute, and can pick the friendliest court of the lot.
Globalization means that once Canada's government sells a crown corporation, they cannot buy it back, which goes directly parallel to what many people in Canada believe in - government intervention.
Globalization means that Canada selling cheap tomatoes in the US is 'dumping', but the US selling cheap tomatoes in Canada is 'fair economy'.
Globalization means that the US can sell their fresh fruit, which grows earlier because of the climate in Florida vs. Ontario, to the people in the US, and then sell whatever the Americans don't want across the border at 'must clear out' prices right when our growing season starts, but that's fair, because they're the US.
I'm a big fan of free trade. I'm a big fan of European Unions and Commonwealths and so on, but the US has to start playing by the rules they set down, or the problems ARE going to be problems. I don't think most Americans realize how unfriendly towards other countries their government is. America first, and to hell with the rest.
Ironic, isn't it? The US won't play fair with Kyoto. They won't play fair with the WTO. They won't play fair with ANYTHING, for that matter.. but when something terrible happens to them because of it (and I'm not trying to diminish the horror of the WTC), who do they come crying to, but the rest of the world - and THEN, they have the gall to say 'if you're not helping us, then you're our enemy'.
Globalization means the US wins all the time, and the rest of the world loses if necessary. That's not something I can sign on to.
--Dan
Capatilisim is based on the idea of competition, the total antithisis of monopoly.
:)
Oh yes, I see the competition in the world-wide car market, or soft drinks, or computers. Gee, I think I'll just start my own car company and surpass General Motors.
There's a reason they call the right 'right'
Indeed. It's because of the French Congress, and it dates back to a few centuries, with Gerondines, who sat on the right side, and Jacobines, who sat on the left side. Hence the left wing and the right wing, if I can remember correctly.
It saddens me to see that you people all lack even the most basic hystorical background to help you understand what happens in the world. You'd be very surprised if you read up on this a bit. Just fire up google and good luck. I'd suggest searching for globalization instead of globalism.
Do we? Really? I doubt there is one single soul on Slashdot that has even the remote amount of shares to even be noticed as a minoritary acionist of the worldwide corps. You're so naive about corporativism, my friend.
It's not much really other than a vague, ill-defined term that can be used variously as a catch-all for accepting your hopes or your hates.
Want everyone to get along? Then, say that a "global" perspective and common global agreement are essential.
Have your individual rights been trampled? Someone not accepted your desire to be different? Then, blame everyone else that advocates a one-size-fits-all global straightjacket on you and your behavior.
I think the term is so wide and nebulous that it encompasses the full millenia old debate about how much the individuals contribute and conform to some collective behavior.
Last time I checked, there was considerable controversy and disagreement about this.
P.S. Katz always seems to have this penchant for wandering around in thunderstorms holding lightning rods. What's the deal? To get excited? I don't see much chance for any progress toward resolution of what really comes down to personal psychological issues.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
At least in the USA, this rhetorical/political tradition goes back quite a ways. In the post-Civil-War era, all social ills were typically attributed to "industrialism." Then came WWI and WWII, and the things to hate and fear became "fascism" and "totalitarianism." Then the Cold War, and "communism" was demonized. Remember (if you are old enough) in the 60s, when the epithet of "communism" was applied to everything from smoking marijuana to rock music to war protesting, by those who considered themselves the protectors of American values? Of course, the counterculture came up with its own epithet -- "imperialism" -- which its proponents freely and profusely applied to everything from the Vietnam action (rightfully, I'd say, given the French empire roots of the government we chose to support) to the Iran and Somalia actions (questionable), and also to the multinational operations of corporations, primarily US corporations (nope).
The "globalism" epithet began to gain primacy after Russia capitulated as a global power, and the EU and Pacific Rim came more into their own as power centers. It didn't make sense any more to decry US multinational business efforts as US "imperialism" -- that is, an effort to build a world "empire" dominated solely by the US -- when the US government actually was trending toward withdrawal from global affairs, or at least indifference. Conversely, opponents of the EU, and of Japanese economic domination of the Pacific Rim, needed a buzz word that would apply to their situation, and presto! "Globalism" and "anti-globalism" were born.
OK, I know the thread is supposed to be about what "globalism" means, and I'm not suggesting it has no meaning at all when people say it. Personally, I determine what someone means by "globalism" by looking at what they propose instead. The Taliban/bin Laden? Instead of "globalism," they advocate rigid theocracy dictated by autocrats who order the slaughter of all infidels in holy war. So to them, "globalism" must mean "freedom of religion" and "democracy." Likewise, we have extreme right wing groups in the USA who are just as opposed to "globalism," but to combat it, these people want to foment their own holy war and supplant the US government with white-supremacist and male-supremacist Christian theocracy. So to these people, "globalism" must mean "a racially diverse society with equal rights for women."
Now, I have to wonder - would the far more typical left-wing "anti-globalists" in the movement be able to answer this question? I fear not. Although they typically attribute the same loose amalgamation of ills (environmental damage, poverty, child labor, loss of native culture, excessive influence of large corporations) to what they describe as "globalism," they cannot articulate a game plan or even a vision of how a "non-globalised" world would function; e.g., what business method would replace the corporation they decry? what system other than world trade would they advocate to developing countries, and how would it help their poor? how do they propose to monitor environmental abuses and child labor without "globalised" international cooperation?
I think this is a key failing and hazard of the current anti-globalism movement. Because its moderate and leftist components have no clear, united vision of their proposed non-globalised utopia, any success they may achieve in thwarting "globalisation" advances the goals of the pernicious elements of the movement, rather than their own. Developing countries with their population's voiceless necks in the grip of autocrats (the Fahd family pointedly not excluded) need more globalism, not less.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
What are you saying? That our legally elected representitives would have to get together and decide, issue by issue, on the course of action that best strengthens our entire nation?
That they wouldn't be able to just subscribe to a single dogma like "the free market is always correct" and thereby abdicate their ability and responsibility to govern?
I'm with you. That would inded be a nightmarish world. That's why I've joined the Libertarian party.
I suggest finding yourself a pair of nuts and logging in the next time you want to flame someone.
I'd also suggest that you explain your curious notion that ideas in science fiction books should automatically be discounted in conversations about future trends in society. What do you think science fiction is all about?
I wonder if you ever read Snow Crash. If you had, you'd know it's exactly on target. The book is entirely about the consequences of globalization and it presents an interesting alternative vision.
In Snow Crash, there were a common set of low level protocols for all states to do business with each other, but it differed from our current reality in two major ways.
The world in Stephenson's vision, as silly as it was in many ways, thereby gained the benefits of globalization but it did not result in the bland, homogenous, corporate-ruled McWorld that so many fear. I think that's a worthy goal, myself.
I'm an immigrant to the US, and because of that I can tell you the joy one can feel from a fresh start. I'd welcome a world where there are many viable states with many viable philosophies, but all with fairly strong economies. We don't need one central world government, and we sure as hell don't need to have our own government overruled by unknown and unaccountable bureaucrats appointed in another country. Let's all go into business together, but preserve our own sovereignty.
That's what I think Stephenson was saying, and for you to just dismiss his entire book as being as relevant to the conversation as "The Matrix" only shows your own ignorance and lack of comprehension.
Every empire, from the Egyptian to the Chinese to the Roman, Spanish, British, French, and American empires have all believed that they were global systems which were an essential aspect of existence (they framed human existence and gave it meaning). The Egyptian, Chinese, and Roman empires believed that their emporers were literally gods; later empires have claimed their superiority over previous ones in part by limiting the divine claims of their rulers and hence the arbitrariness of their rule. More recent empires, the British, French, and American empires, have extensively used the corporate form to administer their colonial possessions. The East India Company was a corporation chartered by the British Crown to seek profits for the Empire, as was the Virginia Company. All this is not to say that things haven't changed; World Wars I and II essentially wrecked European imperialism and allowed the American empire to pursue global ambitions. Hence the sight of a British Prime Minister acting as an advance man for an American President. Instead of the East India Company, we have General Electric and other such behemoths. Instead of industrial production centralized in the home country, it is dispersed widely and interconnected with sea, road, rail, and air transport. But the end result is the same: the colonies (now designated as "free trade zones" and "developing countries" and "emirates" and "commonwealths" and "districts") supply raw resources (oil, diamonds, gold, timber) and tribute (foreign debt, denominated in home country currency/dollars) to the metropole. We have difficulty seeing what globalization is ("Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is... you have to see it for yourself") because we take the empire for granted. Most Americans, including many who will read this post, do not believe that there is such a thing as an American empire, despite the presence of permanent garrisons on every continent save Antarctica, warships on every ocean, and a "defense" budget larger than our potential rivals combined. Take the red pill. The forms may have changed, become more efficient; Harvard and Wharton MBA's replace hereditary Lords, the Chinese innovation of Civil Service Examinations being reborn as SAT's, baccalaureate degrees, technical certifications and other such tests, networked relational databases handling human resources, financial transactions, and accounting, and an emporer whose rule is checked by the favor of corporate heads, legislators, judges, a constitution, and treaties. It's a long way from divinity, but it is still an empire.
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.
-- "Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep voting? Do you think you're voting for something?"
Thus why I said "leftist" and not "liberal". Leftist is fairly narrow.
What if other companies want an economy like ours? Well if we globalize, then all the money goes to us.
Makes me think of people working in sweat shops for a penny so we can get some pair of shoes.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The USA of course.
This is the problem, anyone who accepts this has to work for us. I dont think people want to do that.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Judging from the demonstrations and the media coverage thereof, globalization seems to be kinda like a Phish concert, but with tear gas.
The reduction of tariffs to allow "free trade", and the "leveling of the playing field", prove on close analysis, to be frauds. Those areas that are close to the rules settled on, and already have the power and culture to move, dominate.
What ultimately happens is that great amounts of power are concentrated into a few hands, for whom there is little or no account.
The fact that all of the major political parties are on the same issue does not, in a democracy, prevent population discontent. Parties like the neo-nazies in Germany, and One-Nation in Australia, listen and play on this discontent.
If the discontent is loud, eg where traditional industries have been "globalised" out, then this translates to rather agressive behaviour, including the rise of radical parties.
Because, with globalisation, we concentrate on the economic issues, and not the strategic or social issues. Strategic issues include what happens when supplies fail to arrive, for example, because of war, a cartel [eg 1973 oil prices], or other tensions.
When all is said and done, we seek to lead rewarding and meaningful lives. Globalisation, and standardisation, to a great extent demeans that. And since economy serves our whole of being, and is not an end to itself, Globalisation must be seen as an evil.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
I suspect that McD's in India does NOT sell beef products, or at least has a lot more variety than just burgers.
I know that McD's in Indonesia are at least in some cases locally owned. There was a story recently in either the Economist or NYT (no reference, sorry) about how some Indonesian folks started an almost-riot outside a local McDonald's to protest the U.S. bombing of Aghanistan -- causing the Indonesian owner to come running out and beg them to stop ruining his business.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
People see Globalism in terms of what they already understand: corporations see it as a merging of markets and economies, politicians/terrorists see it as a merging/domination of cultures, and most other people see it as a growing interconnection to people they otherwise wouldn't care to meet.
It appears that Globalism is just a tag, a useful but obscuring shorthand for what is happening to our world. But there are too many things happening at once for it to be accurate: the word "Globalism" seems to say that it is one force, or movement, when I would argue that it is definitely NOT an organized, self-identifying, and discrete "thing".
We are reaching beyond history in the real world, but trying to describe what is going on in terms of an all-encompassing historical view. In that, Globalism is an oxymoron: a word that means we don't yet 'get it'.
jurisdictionality: the quality of belonging to a particular jurisdiction
globalisation: the gradual decoupling of transaction costs fom both distance and jurisdictionality.
Yep, I just invented this up. For you to judge if if it makes any sense
-- look, cheese ahoy!
False at face value, but an overwhelming preponderance of the material you're describing (much less so for the 'net than the other media, but it's still there) comes from a nominally Atheistic Humanist viewpoint.
I wish to specifically labour the point with that word ``nominally,'' since the vast majority of ``Atheistic'' Humanists are actually Gnostics but don't realise it.
[Terms: Agnostic == doesn't have any particular belief, including belief in the absence of a deity; Atheist == believes that there definitely is no deity; Gnostic == believes that there is a deity but that same is a form of ``good'' spirit and won't sully itself with ``evil'' matter; Theist == beieves that there definitely is a deity]
Many professed Atheists make an argument for materialism by pointing to a feature of nature and saying, ``that's ridiculous, no {sane,sensible,rational} deity would do such a thing.''
Well, how do they know? I mean, where do they get off defining the behaviour of a postulated all-powerful supernatural being in their own finite terms?
While we're visiting that argument, vestigial organs in the human body - objects of such an argument - once numbered hundreds, now we're down to at most 6 and the future for the remaining candidates is becoming steadily less clear as our understanding of biology expands.
Returning to the point: in order to say what a deity would not do, you have to define (however sketchily) a hypothetical deity, and the deity defined seems inevitably to be Gnostic, a sugar-daddy Strawgod who would never be involved in anything messy or nasty.
In order to rationally defend such a Strawgod in the face of threats such as people murdering and raping each other and generally being nasty, you have to distance it further and further from messing around in (becoming tainted with responsibility for) mundane matters until Strawgod is of no particular relevance.
Being a Theist, I look at statements that the world has been cursed, and destroyed by a flood, and - hey presto - it all suddenly starts to look reasonable again.
Globalism is basically a gradualist attempt to force Atheistic Humanism on everyone. Everyone the same. Pity that people are all different, isn't it?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
First off the general premise that globalism is so hard to define isn't exactly true. The problem with a definition is that it is a very complex issue, and not served by a short definition.
As to why do so many people hate globalization? and Why are are they from such diverse groups?
The reason goes to what it is about globalization that they hate.
You cited the dilution of the individual power of nation states, and that's partially true, but it comes down to the same issues in the American Civil War. One of the central issues was slavery, but the larger issue was states rights vs federal control. The danger of globalism is to create a world government that makes global laws that apply to everyone everywhere equally no mater the circumstances in a given area.
Let's take gun control for example in the United States. This is an emotional issue for a lot of people. Unfortunatly when people spend emotional energy making up their mind, they are quite reluctant to change it. I will concede that in large cities there is a valid argument for gun control (neglecting the issues of enforcement and implementation for now), but where I'm from a sizable fraction of the population either grow or kill most of their food. Fish and game will even often look the other way toward poaching when the poacher is known to be having financial trouble, and will need the meat.
Globalism creates the danger of not letting people in areas govern themselves according to their own needs.
The sovereignty of countries is something that wars have been fought over. On slashdot we generally hear about the first, and fourth amendments (there are a bunch of others, but that isn't the issue), but that isn't the issue. Remember that the U.S. revolutionary war was not fought for freedom of speech, or right to assemble, or freedom or religeon, or any or those reasons. Those came later, and were only added to the constiution after a good deal of argument. It was fought because the Americans thought they could do a better job of governing themselves than someone across an ocean. This is why the Articles of Confederation were so weak. The constitution was stronger, but comparatviely weak in relation to other governments of the day.
Even within the U.S. there is argument over how much authority the states have vs the federal government.
What would happen if some global government came in and were more restrictive than the constitution.
Another danger is in corpratism. We've dicussed this before on slashdot. In the United States right now jobs are going to Mexico, China, and whereever else that dirt cheap labor is available.
This isn't totally bad. It is good to provide relatively decent jobs to people in underdeveloped areas. When I was in the Dominican republic, people working for American companies earned much more than the national average, but by our standards, the wages were by U.S. standards criminal.
On the other hand, this exports our jobs elsewhere. This is one of the arguments many in labor have with it. It's exporting jobs we have our own with no jobs, providing jobs in Korea should be down on the list.
Others worry that the exportation of jobs from the U.S. weakens our position should there ever be a war. If for whatever reason we had an all out war with China, we would have problems. We would have to move all of that manufacturing back within the United States. Unfortunatly, we no longer have the manufacturing facilities to meet with our needs.
Others still have a problem with multination companies becoming the world government. Having large companies have several members of Congress and the President in ther pockets is bad enough, what would happen if countries were required by law to follow certain policies even if such policies were against the law of the land.
I found the argument that religeous groups hating it because they just want to control ideas tired and old, and the standard argument that comes from people who hate religeon. Funny that when someone attacks what someone says people scream first amendment, but the same people attack religeon at every opportunity, somehow forgetting that the same amendment protects religeon.
Some religeous groups (or political groups that use religeon as a control tool) want to control ideas, but many just want the right to decide how they live their lives, and fear that globalism will stop this. They fear one of the two possible outcomes. Since there are such differences among cultures, many of which couldn't easlily be reconciled, a global government must either allow nearly everything, or outlaw nearly everything. Both should scare nearly everyone, but for the religeous, it means that either there would be no way to avoid things they find immoral (contrary to what has been written in slashdot, most don't care if you participate, they just don't want to be forced to participate too), or the religeon itself would have to be banned to satisfy people in other countries.
Most of these fears and arguments are full of holes, but just real enough to make globalism something to be careful with. It seems to me that a global government could either be the best or worst possible thing we could do. If we do things just right it would be the single greatest thing ever to happen. If not, we will be lucky if humanity survives. Everything depends upon whether or not humanity is mature enough to handle it, and whether or not our leaders are smart enough to make it happen. Looking at the state of the world though, I tend to doubt it.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns