B. Evaluating Globalization's Contradictory Dynamics

the most important dynamic of globalization to understand is that

it's uneven across space and time and it's uneven across

different countries and across different social groups and communities.

And so different people benefit from it and just different

people are disadvantaged by, it creates different winners and losers.

And as a result there's conflict, there's going to be

conflict and there's going to be backlash against globalization from

those who lose out on it.

Um and so as a result of these uneven dynamics,

globalization produces massive contradictions.

Um let me go over exactly what I mean by

this. So if we first looked at the sociocultural dimension

of globalization, we find that while there is greater cosmopolitanism

as a result of greater cultural exposure, we also see

greater parochialism as well.

These two things are happening at the same time.

And when I say parochialism, I mean that's when people

prioritize their immediate community um and have strong internally linkages

but weak external linkages.

And so these are like very strong in group identities,

and out groups are dip prioritized under parochialism.

So it's very much the opposite of cosmopolitanism, right?

Which is all about greater inclusivity um and and sort

of like an open relationship right with the whole world?

No, uh we find this greater parochialism happening, for instance,

with Brexit with the rise of trump and trumpism, which

is all about closing oneself more so from the world

than opening oneself more to the world, particularly with the

anti immigrant sentiment that has driven both Brexit and trump

is um now let's talk about the political contradictions of

globalization. Um so we know that globalization conflicts with national

sovereignty right?

Uh in that it's, you know, the rising power of

these non state formations, like multinational corporations, like transnational movements,

like international organizations, regional trade blocs um that compete and

challenge, compete for and challenges state power, but at the

same time, states, yes, are faced with these challenges to

their authority, but they still ultimately have the authority to

do a lot.

States are still guiding and shaping and dictating the extent

to which globalisation happens and the arena on which globalization

unfolds. So I'll quickly touch on three examples of this

first is in the realm of human rights.

So increasingly, human rights are being defined by a global

community, right?

The international community has been advocating for this idea of

universal human rights um and and has been formulating write

this as a global norm, but the international community can't

really guarantee human rights.

It's states that can guarantee human rights because states are

the ones that have the law enforcement mechanisms and courts

to guarantee this sort of thing.

So that's an interesting contradiction in that state still hold

the power at the end of the day.

But increasingly, these other non state global actors are shaping

what's important, right?

What should be the priority?

What should be, what should we talk about, what should

be guaranteed right to people?

So another idea or an example of how states guide

globalization is when we look at um free markets and

how Western industrialized states, particularly formerly imperialist ones, or presently

imperialist ones dr globalization primarily by imposing free markets on

poor countries, because these industrialized states want to access the

labor force and the consumer markets and the natural resources

of poor countries.

At the same time, these industrialized states try to protect

themselves from free markets by subsidizing domestic industries, by erecting

all sorts of tariffs and other protectionist measures.

Um and also, probably what is most interesting to me

is that these industrialized states recognized that free markets are

extremely disruptive to people's lives, and so they will enact

some sort of social safety net, right?

So to help the domestic population, whether the economic uncertainties

and dislocations that come with globalization, so, for instance, unemployment

insurance, healthcare, um things like that at the same time,

industrialized states, particularly through its influence in the I.

M. F, will tell poor countries that they had to

cut their public spending and slash their social safety net.

Um And so what this does right is that it

props up workers in industrialized states while leaving poor workers

to fend for themselves in other places.

Um And so it's almost as if industrialized states want

free markets for everyone else, but not themselves, and that,

and the problem isn't even so much with free markets,

but it is that it's free markets, combined with not

having any sort of measures in place that will protect

workers by ordinary people from the severe uncertainties and dislocations

that come with free markets.

So it's then really important to understand that different states,

depending on the status that you have in the international

power structure, will have different degrees of freedom to choose

how much they want to integrate into the global economy

and and whether to integrate in the first place.

So some states, especially poorer ones, will have zero choice

in the matter as to whether they want to globalized

or integrate into the global economy.

Rather that choices forced upon them um under conditions that

are forced upon them by actors like the I.

M. F.

Or by the W.

T. O.

Or by um they're much larger, more powerful trading partners.

Now the last political contradiction that we find under globalization

is pretty simple and that's that there is now an

increasing global norm of democracy which is supposedly spread by

globalization. But at the same time there's this unsettling history

where neoliberalism has gone hand in hand with the erosion

of democracy and we know that neoliberalism and globalization go

together in this world and so yeah how can it

be then that they're you know, we're supposedly trying to

spread democracy through globalization but at the same time that

globalization has in particular new liberal globalization has eroded democracy.

This is nowhere more clear then under the U.

S. Sponsored Dictatorships in south America um which happened in

brazil chile Argentina Uruguay where neoliberal ideas was first imposed

in the world under um these dictators that the U.

S. You know sponsored propped up and and oftentimes they

overthrew democratically elected leaders for these dictators to put these

dictators in place in order to implement a neo liberal

policy transformation in the country.

And so these countries were where neoliberalism was first imposed

in the world and has since spread from there and

that the conditions under which neoliberalism was imposed was one

of dictatorship.

Right? And so and in many ways democracy continues to

be eroded by neoliberalism in these places.

Um and we see this very clearly with one of

the first, probably the first reading that we did in

this unit on Argentina.

Now let's look at the economic um contradictions.

So globalization is greatest contribution has probably been to lower

poverty um in places that are most integrated into the

global economy, like china chile, Indonesia, India and South Korea.

At the same time, we also already know that the

wealth gap is increasing, so while poverty is diminishing wealth

inequality is increasing not only within countries but also globally

as well.

And so this increasing inequality seems driven more by financial

globalization than trade globalization, because there's just too many offshore

corporate tax havens and there's these very globalized investment flows.

And so um financial globalization right is allowing people to

accrue amounts of wealth that we have never seen in

history and that this is greatly contributing to the rise

and wealth inequality.

Um there's one exception to this, all of this in

terms of the rising wealth inequality.

The one exception is that if you break up the

world the world into rich and poor countries, you actually

see that the income gap between rich and poor countries

have narrowed, but that this is largely or almost entirely

due to East Asia's economic search.

So this means then that the benefits of globalization are

not as far reaching as the term globalization would imply,

and that the gains of globalization continue to be very

unevenly distributed, and they continue to accrue largely to industrialized

countries and urban areas over rural areas, and they tend

to benefit dominant racial or ethnic groups over historically marginalized

groups. Now, another way in which the benefits of globalization

aren't even better content are evenly distributed, but there are

concentrated is that, you know, we see that there's a

greater global organization of production chains, but that this globalization

of production is actually in um, almost entirely occurring within

a monopoly framework.

And what I mean by that is that a third

of world trade occurs within single firms, rather than among

different firms.

So what this means is that most firms, right, are

not actually engaged in globalization at all, They're engaging in

trade and stuff within their own network, a network that

they entirely control and monopoly monopolize the entire space.

And so a third of world trade right happens within

the space of a monopoly.

Now, this means that in an intensely globalized world, such

as ours, transnational corporations are more powerful than they've ever

been, because they control so much of this global market

and that they can translate this economic power into social

power, political power and cultural power.

And that's what's really worrying, right?

So while some say that globalization has flattened the world

and has created a more level playing field, so that

countries and peoples who used to be left out now

have access to global markets and resources through which they

can prosper, right?

The data actually shows that the world is not exactly

flat, but it is indeed more spiky.

This means that globalization does hold great promise to mitigate

poverty, but only if globalization is done right in that

only if globalization is gains and benefits are more equitably

distributed. In other words, if we're talking about trade, open

trade needs to happen on equitable terms so that poor

countries are not disadvantaged compared to rich countries and that

small businesses and the global workforce are not disadvantaged compared

to multinational corporations.

And this means that open trade needs to accompany fair

trade agreements that prioritized the development of poor countries and

and that prioritize um distributing resources globally in a fairer

way. Um and it means that, you know, there needs

to be governments to provide social services that can help

the poorest sectors of the poorest countries, whether all of

the economic disruptions of open trade.

So overall, as you can see globalization as complex city

and its multi dimensionality, um means that we can't really

talk about it as being good or bad.

It's good in some ways for some people in some

places that sometimes and it's bad for others.

So to give you more detail on texture on this

claim that I just made, I'm going to present to

you two case studies of globalization in the next two

segments, one is going to be on sweatshops and there's

going to be on migration.

And in one of these case studies I'll make a

stronger case against globalization and in the other case study

I'll make a stronger case for globalization.

And again this reflects the tension that globalization comes with

a lot of good and a lot of harm.

And I want you to evaluate the info that I

present to you in.

These next segment's not based on the simple binary question

of whether globalization is good or bad.

But I want you to think about more nuanced questions

like under what conditions is globalization occurring?

Who or what is driving globalization and for whose interests,

who enjoys globalization is benefits and who suffers its costs?

How should the costs and the harms be mitigated by

governments and communities?

And what could an alternative globalization looked like?

So? In other words, how do we steer globalization in

a direction that doesn't harm the already most vulnerable in

our world, while we can still enjoy the numerous benefits

of globalization?

B. Evaluating Globalization's Contradictory Dynamics

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