Globalization

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'''Globalization''' is the term given to the increased inter-connectedness of [[culture]], [[economics]] and social interaction.  Planes can carry people (or packages) around the world in less time than it used to take to travel between nearby towns.  Money and ownership can change as rapidly as electrons flowing through cable.  The globalized world knew about the war in Georgia about as quickly as people in [[Russia]] did.  People flow freely too, and attempts to stem the tides of immigration have been failing around the world.   
 
'''Globalization''' is the term given to the increased inter-connectedness of [[culture]], [[economics]] and social interaction.  Planes can carry people (or packages) around the world in less time than it used to take to travel between nearby towns.  Money and ownership can change as rapidly as electrons flowing through cable.  The globalized world knew about the war in Georgia about as quickly as people in [[Russia]] did.  People flow freely too, and attempts to stem the tides of immigration have been failing around the world.   
  

Revision as of 17:05, 30 January 2011

The dismal "science"

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Globalization is the term given to the increased inter-connectedness of culture, economics and social interaction. Planes can carry people (or packages) around the world in less time than it used to take to travel between nearby towns. Money and ownership can change as rapidly as electrons flowing through cable. The globalized world knew about the war in Georgia about as quickly as people in Russia did. People flow freely too, and attempts to stem the tides of immigration have been failing around the world.

The idea disturbs some nations as they see it as an encroachment on their own indigenous cultures.

Experts are divided on what effect globalization is going to have on the political and societal environment. Some argue that culture and national identity will become meaningless, with people instead merging across state lines into larger cooperative groups, like the EU. Others believe states will become meaningless as people look for strength in smaller, tribal groupings.

One thing that all experts do agree on is that globalization is not something that can be easily (or desirably) undone. The communications revolution has opened up trade, and much of globalization is based on the free flow of ideas and markets. Moreover, while states have tried hard to slow or stop the spread of various kinds of transnationalism, particularly with respect to labor or terrorism, they have been unable to do so. Globalization has opened up, and partially removed, nationalistic boundaries.

One thing to keep in mind: Whenever someone rails against the evils of globalization to you, ask them if they enjoy any of the following:

  • Foreign cuisine, like the ever trendy Indian food, and contaminated milk and baby formula from China.
  • Foreign entertainment (including martial arts movies and art house flicks)
  • The lowered prices on everything at Wal-Mart
  • The ability to communicate instantly and quickly with other anti-globalization activists thanks to the Internet and text messaging, but not knowing any of your own neighbors.
  • Websites like this.
  • Closed factories in the Rust Belt that were horribly inefficient anyway.
  • Pittsburgh losing half its population since 1979

Critiques of the globalization paradigm

As Fred Cooper points out in Colonialism in Question, there are two things wrong with "globalization" as a term for understanding the world's networks of information, economic and cultural exchanges—the "global" and the "-ization." By this, Cooper means that it is problematic to talk about globalization as a unified, worldwide and singular process when one takes into account the extent to which different social groups experience and are affected by the alleged phenomenon in different ways.

Another criticism is that "globalization" is nothing new—from the Indian Ocean trade of the twelfth century to the Atlantic system of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, people, ideas, information, commodities, technologies and money have been moving around the globe for a very long time now. The pace at which things move may have accelerated somewhat, but the networks carrying them have been around for centuries.

The Jamaican patty, and not the Big Mac, is the culinary legacy of globalization.

The legacies of these older forms of globalization can be found the "traditions" that people want to protect against the perils of contemporary globalization. Consider, if you will, the Jamaican patty, a "traditional" West Indian food. Essentially a Scottish meat pie filled with Indian curry, prepared by and sold to disaporic Africans in the Caribbean. A delicious treat impossible to conceive of in a pre-globalized world.

A real critique

In modern trade, with lowered tariff barriers, manufacturers chase the cheapest source of labor available. This has led to the de-industrialisation of western democracies and its horrible trade deficit with low-wage nations. Not only do second world nations offer incredibly cheap labor, on top of that they keep their currency cheap to encourage exports instead of letting it float on the market - which true globalism would expect.

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