Globalization: Is it good or bad?

Effects of Globalization

Economic Hard Power: Multinational Corporations

Hard Power

Negatives of Globalization

Farmer Suicides in India

Far-reaching economic and political force of MNCs

Clusters of corporations joined by ties of common ownership and responsive to common management strategy

Unlike political leaders, the world's largest individual stockholders are virtually unknown to the general public

How do MNCs affect nation-states and thwart their wishes?

Exploding world population + poverty

The existence of hunger and obesity =

Double Burden in developing countries

Rising Pollution & Global Warming = Ecological & Climatic problems

Migrations all over the world = Struggles of Ethnic Minorities and Indigenous Peoples for Human Rights

Structural power can be divided into:

1. Hard power and 2. Soft Power

Hard Power: Coercive power that is backed up by economic and military force.

There are two kinds of Hard Power:

1. Military Hard Power

2. Economic Hard Power

Multinational Corporations Image: http://xeverousphotography.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/10-multinational-corporations-control-most-consumer-brands1.jpg

Structural Power in the Age of Globalization

Soft Power: Global Media Environment

Impact of Global Media

Utilization of ideological persuasion by MNCs

Soft Power: Co-optive power to presses others through

attraction and persuasion to change their ideas,

beliefs, values, and behaviors.

The general idea of Globalization is sold as positive and progressive while framing anything that opposes capitalism as negative and backward

Global media dictates the manner in which individuals and entire societies view themselves and their place in the world today = Global Mediascape

Emergence of expansive capitalism since the 1990s

Is it a successor to the system of colonialism?

Active rearrangement of dynamic global structures

by individuals, multinational corporations, and political institutions

Structural Power: Power that organizes and orchestrates the systematic interaction within and among societies, directing economic and political forces on the one hand and ideological forces that shape public ideas, values, and beliefs on the other.

Power of Multinational Corporations

MNCs: rare before the latter half of the 20th century

MNCs are today reshaping the world and the lives of

individuals from every walk of life, including those they employ

MNCs: create problems for consumers + producers and are responsible

for the faceless relations between producers and consumers

Result: Grossly unequal distribution of power in the world today

Military Hard Power

Globalization and Nation-States

USA: $711 billion spent on military in 2008

has the most hard power at disposal than any

other country in the world

How is hard power used?

Military might + Economic strength as a political instrument of coercion or intimidation

Economic size and productivity, finance capital, and technological capability are brought to bear on the global market, forcing weaker states to break down trade barriers protecting their workers, natural resources, and local markets

Are global flows undermining nation-states?

Do conventional ideas about nation-states require revision?

Massive global displacements of people have characterized

Western modernity. For example, Slave trade and Indentured labor in colonies.

The pace of world migration has increased drastically in the present day thanks to better transportation and techonological advances

Globalization: Whose responsibility is it?

Lecture Recap

Consumers in developed countries, though aware, often refuse to take responsibility

Corporations are more interested in profit than in being socially responsible

Rich consumers in developing countries fail to understand their role in the global market

The poor and marginalized peoples are sold the dream of one day being rich and successful if they accept globalization

Define Structural Power

Two kinds of Hard Power

Soft Power

Negatives of Globalization

Globalization and Nation-States

Globalization: Responsibility of Anthropology

Anthropology and Cultural Relativity

Should anthropologists create awareness? - YES

Striking a balance between creating awareness while

retaining objectivity is hard but possible

Anthropology also opens up many different avenues - specifically APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY