Further Thoughts on “What Is Globalization?”
Roderick Bell, Ph.D.
Political Science
College of DuPage
“Globalization is not new” (Carnegie). To a large extent, the history of civilization
is the history of growing trade between societies that had once been isolated
from, and even unknown to, one another. But does this mean that “globalization”
is just a word for “very large increases” in volume of trade among different
societies?
It appears that something is, indeed, different about “the age-old patterns of
interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of
different nations”—a “qualitatively new phase” in economic development
(Carnegie). But what, exactly, is that change, and why is globalization
controversial?
It is commonplace to note that exchange makes both parties better off. This
seems obvious on the face of it, but why is it so? The answer is easily seen if we
consider that you and I would not bother to exchange a pound of butter for a
pound of butter, because neither of us would be better off. But we might
exchange a pound of butter for a dozen eggs; now I have eggs I didn’t have
before, and you have butter you didn’t have. This works better than each of us
raising our own chickens for their eggs and our own cows for their milk, because
we can specialize and do a better, more productive, job at our respective
specialties. Exchange encourages specialization of labor, which makes all
members of a society better off.
Trade between societies only enhances this process and its benefits. One
society and geographic locale may be better at producing some goods and
services, so they benefit from trade with another society that’s good at something
different.
Yet the development of specialization and highly productive economies has not
been all sweetness and light. On the contrary, serious and even deadly conflict
has attended the process: labor against owners; big companies against small;
government against business, government against labor, and vice versa. But
over time, those countries fortunate enough to have both the material resources
and the right mix of laws and policies have become abundantly productive.
People around the world try to get into these countries, not out of them.
The most developed and productive economies in the world today can no longer
be contained within the borders of one country. The fiercely contested and hardwon national laws and policies that enabled these big national economies to
develop can no longer be relied upon to maintain workable order among all the
participants in the process. Instead, the production of many products, from giant
airliners to complex computer software, occurs in a kind “space” that ignores
borders and nationalities and regions of the globe. Division of labor still occurs,
but the “assembly line” of production is now global. Sophisticated computer
programs, combined with information technologies that link people and
processes instantaneously regardless of distance, now regulate production
processes that know no borders.
In this way, globalization goes beyond exchanging goods between country A and
country B, because countries A and B, together, are producing goods. And while
this is exciting and potentially world-transforming, it may also renew many of the
conflicts that were settled, or at least managed, inside the borders and under the
laws of the leading economic countries.
An important insight, therefore, is that the controversy should not be over
globalization, itself. Economic development, though it has its costs, its
“externalities,” has been on balance a boon to every nation that has been
successful at it. Rather, we need to think about how to regulate and bring order
to an inherently conflict-laden process that is now going on partly within, and
partly outside of, any government’s legal control. Labor laws and labor relations,
regulation of pollutants and other negative externalities, consumer protection
laws, limitations on monopolistic practices, protection of intellectual property—to
name just a few of the issues that governments have had to deal with as their
economies developed—are still problems for big economies.
Citizens of all nations do need to understand how globalization works (Carnegie).
They need to understand, as well, that their own governments may not be able to
resolve the problems on their own, unilaterally. All of us need to remain open to
discussions about how to regulate, protect, and encourage a process that is
bigger than any nation.
Work Cited
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
www.globalization101.org/What_is_Globalization.html/2Feb2008.