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What is globalisation? is it “anything that people hostile to the modern economy don’t like - or just a new name for old-fashioned imperialism? Some analysts stress how vast sums of money can be moved around the world with a couple of keystrokes, whilst others point out that trade in real, tangible goods is no greater than it was a century ago. Some say that politicians are powerless in the face of the might and mobility of multi-national corporations, while others retort that governments do the bidding of big business because they are run by the same people, from the same families, with the same interest in making life easier for the wealthy at everyone else’s expense. Others would shift the focus to culture and information, to CNN, MTV, Big Mac burgers, multi-national football teams and Nike running shoes. Go into a Provence bar and you’ll be the only one in a Van Gogh straw hat: the local farmers and truck drivers will be sporting baseball caps advertising the Chicago Bulls or Bacardi rum. When refugees in Kosovo fled the conflict, they were wearing Manchester United shirts, Lee Cooper jeans, and counterfeit Rolex watches assembled in Vietnam.
Yet resistance is everywhere. If the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank run the show, then they do so in the face of demonstrations and “counter-summits”, where the old left and the labour movement are joined by the environmentalists and the anarchists. Meanwhile, Chiapas peasants launch a symbolic armed revolt on the day the North American Free Trade Agreement comes into force, Indian farmers demonstrate against patents that rob them of traditional rights and South Korean factory workers strike against mass redundancies.
This book provides a thorough introduction to the many aspects of a complex and controversial phenomenon. Does the spread of the market economy further or hinder the spread of democracy? If global wealth is increasing, why do so many people seem to be growing poorer? Is globalisation the inevitable result of technological progress or does it depend on political decisions? Is this globalisation the only one we could have?
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