Globalization is one of the most commonly referred to concepts of our day. This is inevitable because it alludes to a growing economic interdependence of countries through an increasing volume and variety of interaction in flow of capital, goods, services and diffusion of technology. Put in other words, globalization is a state of the world involving networks of interdependence with multiple economic, legal, financial, political, national security, environmental, social, cultural and technological linkages among individuals, markets and nations (national-states).
William Greider ("One World Ready or Not") has a more eloquent description:
Globalization is like a "wondrous new machine that reaps as it destroys…Like the machines of modern agriculture, but vastly more complicated and powerful...running over open terrain and ignoring familiar boundaries… As it goes, the machine throws off enormous mows of wealth and bounty while it leaves behind great furrows of wreckage...But, no one is at the wheel…The machine has no wheel or internal governor to control the speed and direction. It is sustained by its own forward motion, guided mainly by its own appetites. The machine is modern capitalism driven by the imperatives of global industrial revolution, creating the drama of a free-running economic system that is reordering the world".
In theory globalization provides large gains that can be divided among all participants in the world economy. This may be in the forms of capital flows to those who invest in high-risk areas or in the form of handsome returns obtained from goods and services that are produced by those who have comparative advantage. These are all profit-maximizing processes. They seek efficiency in production and advances that mainly accrue from information technology and computerization that not only decrease costs but also enhance global interactions. Faster, easier and cheaper communications or interaction between financiers, investors, producers and consumers facilitate the re-organization of production on a multi-national or global scale that has never been seen before. These are all good for those who put their money and entrepreneurial capacities, and bear the burden of uncertainties and possibility of failure due to extra-economic factors. But what about the workers and consumers and the political entities (national states), the duty of which is, to see that they are not exploited and their needs for health, education, justice, retirement and other social (security) benefits like favorable working conditions are catered for?
The problem emanates from the facts that national boundaries disappear and the benevolent/protective hand of the national state has been largely rendered ineffective in the protection of the working people. The end result is unregulated development that often lag behind and the growing gap between higher and lower income groups (’income gap’). The ’gap’ is attributed to the new rules of globalization that is believed to have created inequality. For some researchers this simply means that contrary to its claim, globalization has failed to provide rising incomes for anyone other than the elites.
It is argued that those who exalt globalization ignore income distribution and just look at income per person. This reduces an overall human problem to just numerical values.Yet, the purpose of globalization has never been to create a boon for low-wage workers -- or workers’ welfare (increasing their quality of life) generally. The purpose of globalization is, first and foremost, about profit. And for that reason the driving force behind trade is the search for the lowest possible wage that disregards quality of life.
THE SOLUTION?
What is the solution then? Is pulling out of the global economy a panacea? Evidence suggests that the poorest countries of the world are also those that are least involved with the global economy. Adversely, those countries of, let us say, east and Southeast Asia have rapidly growing living standards, boosted by considerable participation in the global economy. Multi-cultural surveys of satisfaction indicate that rising average income levels increase satisfaction in poorer countries, more so than richer countries that have been saturated with material satisfaction. The same may be said of countries that are fairly advanced in their efforts of development. For example, Turkey, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan and Mexico that are most connected to the global economy not only grow rather fast but their citizens enjoy improvements in their social and political standards.
Yet globalization has to be managed for its fruits to be shared relatively equally and to make sure that its benefits have a human face rather than sustainability of its ever growing machinery that has a logic of its own: profit maximization. First of all, globalization must have a heart, not just a brain and pure muscle. It has to develop mechanisms not only to satisfy the producers/workers materially but has to enriching their lives in social and cultural realms that make them more a part of the human family. Some social scientists call this involvement/participation ’networking’ and some call it ’re-humanization of social relations’. If one aspect of this process lies in the work place, the other lies in community building in the wider sense. Thus disruption of traditional life experiences is ameliorated by creation of new ones consonant with new needs and a developing society in tune with global realities.
This transition or transformation is costly and painful but failing to make the transition to modernized means of production and social interaction (involving change of attitudes and behavioral patterns) means remaining rural, poor and traditional. In other words these are the conditions for missing globalization and fall out of the evolution of history in the making.
In our next essay we will analyze arguments against globalization.
Prof. Dr. Dogu Ergil