• Globalization refers to "the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole"
• (R. Robertson, Globalization,
1992: 8).

Three forces Drive Globalization:
1. Universalism - universalism seeks truths that apply to all times and places. (Global
Village, M. McLuhan)
2. Imperialism -the notion that developed nations can help and exploit less nations .

3. Capitalismthe search for surplus value -
Market forces = a drive to find cheaper and more efficient ways of producing goods for sale and consumption .


Globalization new historical era-new relations between people and institutions -a new type of interdependence.

The main features of this new era are:
1.
the emergence of a single transnational economy;
2.
3.
the weakness of the nation-state; and the spread of a global culture and global consciousness.

Globalization: Is it
Modernization?
• It is the process by which ideas, beliefs and practices cross national boundaries and tie individuals to world wide processes.

• a. The decline of traditional communities
• b. The expansion of personal choice
• c.
Increasing social diversity
• d. Future orientation and a growing awareness of time

•
Three forces Drive Globalization:
•
UNIVERSALISM
•
IMPERIALISM
•
CAPITALISM

•
See McDonaldization

Universality is a left wing movement…
• A philosophy concerning the provision of the benefits of the welfare state which declares that all citizens have access regardless of their need .
• For example, all citizens receive the same access to health care in Canada, regardless of their income.

1. The underlying principle is that less powerful citizens can be more easily deprived of benefits,
2. Benefits can be more easily reduced,
3. Not received by most people in the population.
4. The principle of universality has been seriously eroded by globalization.

• Multilateral trade agreements provide corporations with powerful legal recourse.
• Privatisation also undermines water quality and ecological sustainability.
• I.e Water companies work to weaken
water quality regulations and environmental standards

• Private operators are not
accountable to the public
• Privatisation can reduce
accountability and local control.

• Governments make long-term deals with the water companies, granting them exclusive distribution rights, thus sanctioning monopolies./

•
•
Mulroney Betrayed Canada ...speech in
1983 stated:
" Free trade with the United States is like sleeping with an elephant. It's terrific until the elephant twitches, and if you role over you are a dead man"
( Thunder Bay, 1983)

• 1
. Bill C22 weakened generic drug laws.
• in the name of profit
• 2
. FIRA and National Energy Program
• `guaranteed access'
• 3. Secret deals over
Softwood Lumber .
• 4. Secret deals over the value of the
Canadian dollar.

• .
1. Unemployment -4% points higheralthough recession will end-"but high unemployment, underutilized capacity, and a lower standard of living overall"
•
Underemployment -part-time, temporary, contractual jobs.

•
•
2. Deindustrialization -a warehouse economy-worse than branch plant....GDP now 16% from 19% before FTA
•
•
3. Jobs Heading South -"blind doctrinaire adherence to age old Adam Smith economics"

•
•
•
•
4. Foriegn ownership -1.fewer jobs
2.poorer jobs
3.less diverse exports
4. fewer professionals

•
Globalism -a transnational political mobilization that focuses individual energies on global issues rather than on the nation-state.

• Global consciousness where opinions are formed and issues are resolved by hammering out global interests.
• UN, World Bank, INTERPOL…

•
Globalization foundations include:
1.
The expansion of the West and its search for new markets

2. The uneven development of industry and the need for raw material from places far away from where the goods are manufactured
3.
( World Wars 1&2)
Produced need to secure stability throughout the world

4. American fears of Japan whose development of the small car and technology pushed the Americans into new level of competition (late 1970’s)
• e.
Oil Crisis 1979
5. 1980’s
Neo liberal (conservative)
Movement

• The global economy involves the following processes:
• 1. I nternational economic institutions such as the IMF, World
Bank
• 2. T ransnational corporations such as IBM, Nissan, McDonalds

• 3. World financial markets in
New York, London, Toronto and elsewhere
• 4.
Global spread of new production practices and consumption patterns

• 5. Competitive economic nationalism , as govts attempt to improve their own economic positions in the world
• 6. World wide division of labour and class system

•
1. Globalization has been called
Americanism .
2. Standardization of culture under corporate control.

3. Nation states are undermined by multinational corporations and a standard way of doing things become prevalent throughout the world.
4. Globalization - linked to the exploitation of third world countries by the first world.

Adam Smith developed first developed the notion of individualism and the division of labour

Capitalism is a mutually beneficial system consistent with human nature.
(See Hobbesian view of man)
Individuals seek to earn a wage or make a profit
An interdependent, mutually beneficial system of exchange.

1.
Marx believed that capitalism is ultimately a system of exploitation
2.
Marx believed workers receive a pittance wage compared to the owners of the means of production

3. Marx believed that Socialism would replace capitalism
4. Liberal critics argue that Socialism is unrealistic, others believe it may still happen

• . 5. Contractions of capitalism
=(surplus value)
• 6
. Surplus value requires worker exploitation.
•
• 7.
Maximization of profit requires bourgeoisie to go further abroad for profit.

• 8. Economic downturns inevitable
• 9. Attempts to correct system will ultimately fail.
•
• 10. Capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction.

•
THE RESULT: will be improved economic order-interests of all men better served.
SOCIALISM OR
•
SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION or True communism

•
FOR MARXIST/Conflict Theorists:
•
THE GLOBAL VILLAGE is THE
GLOBAL EXPLOITATIVE MARKET
• FREE ENTERPRISE IS AN ILLUSION’
•
FREE FOR WHO?

•
The is significant debate around globalization from different sociological perspectives..
1. SF -modernization and adaptation
2. Conflict theory -dialectical change towards end of capitalism-its last crisis
3. Symbolic Interactionism -rationalization

• It is a process that both connects and stimulates awareness of connection.
• Globalization dissolves the
autonomy of actors and practices in contemporary world order.

1. Functionalists and conservatives are in favour of trickle down economics .
2. The free market will take care of itself.

3. A corporation who is found to excessively exploit will lose favour with the consumer market correction .
4. Hierarchy is inevitable and functional.
5. Economy is one social institution-it is adaptive

1. Globalization =Iron cage of capitalism
2. Increase in formal rationality of bureaucracy I.e. monopoly capitalism
3. Decrease in substantive rationality, loss of human control
•
See G. Ritzer on Mcdonaldization of culture

• The symbols signs and language are characterized by Corporate Logos
• Logos affect consciousness.

• IS
HIGHLY CRITICAL OF THE
ENTIRE CONCEPT OF
MODERNIZATION.
•
Is society `modernizing’ or is it merely going round and round… fragmented, multiple realities, multiple discourses?.

•
GLOBALIZATION is key issue in sociology today.
•
Sociological theoristsstructural functional, conflict and symbolic interactionist debate its significance in terms of modernization

• The confrontation of their
world views means that globalization involves
"comparative interaction of different forms of life" (Robertson:
27).

• Global interdependence and consciousness of the world as a whole precede the advent of capitalist modernity

Economy Pre-industrial to
Industrial
1. 1900-1920most jobs in agriculture
2. Starting in 1920more services through trucking, mail delivery, telephone communication, financial assistance.
3. Other service s-medical care, educational instruction, demand for service workers
4. Manual recording , data entry performed by women, paperwork, order placement

5. Between 1941 and 1951, for example women married in workforc e grew from
12.7% to 30% to 47% by 1961
6. Today comparatively speaking women continue to do more work than men double day, part-time job-86 hours (paid and unpaid) to men 74 hours/

st
1. Increased competition among cities to attract capital
2. Businesses for generating employment and sources of undermine tax revenues
3. Widening inequalities between groups and individuals,
4. Discrepancies in the level of essential services provided to citizens

• WATER
• ELECTRICITY
• LUMBER
• MINERALS
• Commodification of basic resources-is exploitative…

st
• Privatisation of water and sanitation
• The impact of globalisation on the right to adequate housing

• In fact, corporate globalisation, and its clear expression of privatisation of services, is one of the greatest threats to universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation

•
• The Council of Canadians’ water campaign is calling for a national water policy that protects Canada’s water from bulk exports and privatization, because:

• The free market doesn’t guarantee access to water;
•
Bulk exports could open the floodgates to trade challenges;
• Canada’s water supply is limited;
•
Public water is safer, cleaner and more affordable; and
• Water is essential for people and nature.

• Corporations are in a rush to obtain access to water, which they can sell at huge profits.
• Mass extraction of water from its natural sources
• Ecological imbalances
• Aquifer depletion
• Groundwater contamination

• By turning a social good and scarce resource into an economic commodity
• The world’s economic and policy
planners claim that… “existing water resources can be managed and consumed”….?

• The World Bank and regional development banks often advocate for “unbundling” of services
• Separates the profitable and unprofitable areas of water and sanitation services

• Privatisation often leads to job losses.
• Massive layoffs are common as companies try to minimise costs
• To maximise profits , services and water quality are put at risk
• Understaffing; thus lay-offs
• Double negative impact as they hurt consumers as well as the workers involved.

• Privatisation often results in reduced access by the poor to basic social services.
• Meters on Shacks!!!@

rd
• In many cities and towns in developing countries,
• Between 50% and 70% of the population live in slums and squatter settlements
• Without adequate housing or basic services.
• Many of the poor end up paying up to
twenty times more than the rich for water.[

• regressive tax is a tax imposed in such a manner that the tax rate decreases as the amount subject to taxation increases.
• In simple terms, it imposes a greater burden
( relative to resources ) on the poor than on the rich.

• Trade-related competition for water resources
• Corruption in the privatisation process, where the system of checks and balances is weak.
• Capitalism is about egoism not self regulation..

•
FOR MARXISTS:
•
THE GLOBAL VILLAGE is THE
GLOBAL EXPLOITATIVE MARKET
• FREE ENTERPRISE IS AN ILLUSION’
•
FREE FOR WHO?

1.
Local crops are replaced by specialized industries
2. Standard of living may go up for some,
3. For others there is increasing exploitation .
4.
Instead of goods exchanged through barter,
5. individuals must work for a company and pay for goods in cash.
6. This has been linked to patriarchy and alienated labour.

1. Imperialism -the notion that developed nations can help and exploit less nations.
2. Inclusiveness leaves nothing untouched .
This notion has an embedded militarism .
3. The Koran and the semitar, the Bible and the Sword, Communist manifesto and tanks.
4. Imperialism is militaristic colonialism

1.
Capitalism-Profit or surplus value.
2.
The search for suplus valuethe market drive for profit
3.
Cheaper and more efficient ways of producing goods for sale and consumption.
4.
Capitalism is characterized by systematic consumption, exchange, wealth accumulation.