Globalization

This concept has as many definitions as those willing to define it, in part because some view it as a benign (or even desirable) phenomenon while others see it as a malignant development, and in part because it has several different dimensions: economic, political, social, cultural, and so on. So, what is globalization? In a sense, globalization today is simply a reincarnation of a trend that had been set in motion during the heyday of European imperialism in that at its core it remains an expression of the universalization of industrial capitalism. Simply put, then, globalization is, as the term suggests, the deliberate and/or fortuitous accumulation-driven universalization of institutions, practices, and beliefs across geographic (national) boundaries at all levels (economic, political, cultural, etc.) intrinsic to the development of modern civilizations and empires. From this perspective, there is a directly proportional relationship between the degree of globalization and the size of the empire or civilization in question: the bigger the empire or civilization, the higher degree of globalization. While there are many examples one can provide to illustrate globalization, one that you should be able to comprehend readily concerns music. So, when we see the emergence of rap music bands in countries as diverse as United States, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, and Russia then we are witnessing an aspect of cultural globalization. From a cultural perspective, in addition to music, films (Hollywood cinema) and television provide us with an excellent example of two more important aspects (and agencies) of globalization. From an institutional perspective, the formation of such multilateral bodies as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Criminal Court (and even such global NGOs as Oxfam and Doctors without Borders) are an expression of globalization.[1] Because of the historically-determined hegemony of Western civilization today, globalization has been characterized by a number of fundamental characteristics, specifically (not listed here in any particular order):

· the universalization of industrial capitalism and other Western institutions, beliefs, practices, values, norms, and so on;

· the rise of the transnational corporate conglomerate as the predominant agency of globalization;

· the continued but now generally restrained use of “gunboat-diplomacy” by Western powers and which is often legitimated through multilateral agencies (such as the United Nations);

· the invention and worldwide deployment of satellite technology;

· the invention and worldwide deployment of the internet;

· the rise of techno-financial monopoly capitalism;

· the reincarnation and expansion of the compradorial class of yesteryear as today’s modern “middle class” across the planet;

· the intensification of the relentless predatory exploitation of the world’s natural resources, often at the expense of the human rights of the poor and the marginalized to whom these resources have belonged for millennia and legitimated by the natural law of prior claim;

· the super-exploitation of labor (including child labor and in some cases even slave labor);

· the globalization of communicable diseases (e.g. HIV/AIDS);

· the beginnings of climate change induced by the intensification of the phenomenon of global warming;

· the pernicious global spread of human-trafficking (of primarily but not exclusively children and women);

· the massive escalation of the global movement of both documented and undocumented workers;

· the escalation of the global movement of students in pursuit of higher education;

· the immense escalation of the global trade in illicit narcotics and allied substances sponsored by global drug cartels; and

· the escalation of the global arms trade.

While the view of globalization as a fundamentally malignant development in the eyes of some may be debatable, there are clear instances where globalization is, without question, simply that: such as in the case of global terrorism, the international narcotics trade, human-trafficking, transnational migration of diseases (e.g. AIDS), labor exploitation, and global warming. In the future, the emergence of alternative centers of world power (e.g. in Asia) may lead to a different conception of globalization from the one we understand today—especially in the realm of culture and politics, if not necessarily economics. From the perspective of the world’s poor, globalization can also have a very negative consequence. This is because at the simplest level globalization, in economic terms, has come to mean the relentless drive by corporate capitalism to penetrate every corner of the planet on the much ballyhooed premise—especially in Western countries like the United States—that everyone so effected by this drive will benefit equally via the logic of the so-called “trickle-down economics” (meaning in effect that, most bizarrely, if you allow the rich to get even richer by means of untethered capitalist accumulation the poor will also benefit). One does not have to be a rocket scientist to realize that in a world that was made economically unequal and politically fragmented over a period of several centuries as a result of Western imperialism (forms of which continue to persist to this day) the push for globalization on balance has simply made the rich richer and the poor poorer between and within countries. From an ecological perspective too, globalization has not been healthy for the planet, as we can see with the rise of global warming, the destruction of rain forests, the pollution of the oceans, and so on.

[1]. NGOs refers to organizations formed outside governmental jurisdiction by the citizenry and it is an abbreviation for non-governmental organizations.