In other, less alcoholic news, I've been stuck on a thought for a while. I go to school to learn about a few things: 1) Noam Chomsky, 2) Why every definition of everything ever is reductive, deterministic or uninformed, and 3) Globalization. Believe it or not, globalization is the trickiest of the three. The term itself has become such psychobabble since the beginning of the 90's that it's diluted and confused beyond recognition. We see the Internet, TV and just about every other damn thing we interact with as a force of, or consequence of this ambiguous notion of "globalization." Our youth are no longer citizens of a nation, but citizens of the world. Corporations act nationally, but think globally, and a bunch of other bullshit that I suspect is mostly PR jargon.
I don't question the fact that geography is changing due to technology. I live in a profoundly different world that my parents did, and if I had a younger sibling, they would be of the first generation to grow up never knowing a world without the Internet. The fact that I can communicate readily and cheaply with someone half a world away from me without batting an eye is pretty astounding. But it strikes me, that the whole notion of Globalization is twisted. It's sold to the public as an almost wholly good, or wholly bad process. It's either the democratizing force of the new millennium that will eradicate borders, or it's the newest scheme cooked up by the West to exploit and devastate the downtrodden of the global economy. I take exception to both of these definitions. I think that much of the confusion that swirls around globalization comes from an ambiguity in the term. I must be learning something- I'm correcting definitions of concepts that are undefinable! Money well spent. Regardless, I think that there is serious definitional problems with the term "Globalization." The term itself seems to call up notions of tribalism, a return to a type of close-quarters, village living. It evokes images of unity, inclusion and, more than anything, a sense of mutual understanding. It seems to suggest that in a new networked social, political and economic reality, every "citizen of the world" shares some sort of fundamental understanding of how this new order is going to go.
There's some obvious flaws with that thinking. While I think she is kind of manipulative and may/may not be pushing the definition of hypocrite extrordinaire, Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, has articulated (or indoctrinated, depending on how you see it) most of the major arguments against the doctrine of globalization: That it is an exploitative force which kicks Third World nations while they're down, steals their milk money, and tells them to clean up the mess. ...Okay, so that may be a really big oversimplification of Klein's argument, but for my purposes, it'll work. Regardless of her overstatements, Klein brings up some really good points, one of which I feel is the biggest problem with globalization. So far, there has been nothing global about globalization. It has been carried out expressly on Western (read, American) terms. The idea of global community has been used to force open new markets in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa. Cheap imports flood into these nations, local industries stagnate and die and the local, indigenous economy begins to wither.
Thus the paradox of globalization: It's intentions are wonderful- opening global trade to increase the wealth of all the world's nations. And it could work, if we tried at it. The income that Third World nations, such as those in Africa and southern Asia, could generate for themselves if the globalized economy were truly global is staggering. The reality, however, is less reassuring. If a North American or European company sets up shop in Namibia and begins distributing goods at half the price of indigenous products, the action taken could surely be considered global. But you'd have a hard time convincing me that it helps to foster a new, global citizenry.
So what to do? There's bigger problems (way bigger) with globalization than simply the word itself. But, because of the language of "global," it's easily exploited and turned into a corporate buzz word for international expansion. I propose that we do away with the term "globalization" all together and give it another shot. Try "Universalization." To begin distributing cheap North American products in Namibia is global, but NOT universal. To call something an act of universalization implies a sense of wholeness, an inclusion of all parties affected, the bringing together of many into one- hence the prefix "Uni." You could not safely exploit a nation for corporate gain, then call it universalization in the same way as you could make it seem rosy and modern by tacking the term "globalization" onto it. Michael Burroway does a wonderful job explaining the notions of globalization from above and from below in his article "Manufacturing the Global," but essentially, globalization from above is the globalizing actions taken by corporations, NGOs, national governments, and other institutions who control the upper reaches of political and economic power. Globalization from below, however, refers to the "experience of globalization," and the concrete, tangible ways in which the process of globalization interferes, betters, worsens and/or leaves unchanged the situation of those living through the process.
It is a sad reality that "globalization" has become interchangable with "globalization from above," and what's even worse is that very few seem to have noticed. I'm not an anti-WTO protester. The WTO is a really, really solid idea, in my opinion. The agenda of globalization, though, needs to be reformatted. We need to look at the process, as Burroway observes, not as links in a chain, not as actions transmitted down the wire from above to below. We must look at it from above, from below, and from all perspectives beyond the chain. In other words, we must universalize our approach to the global to include the powerful, the weak, and everyone in between.
Give up on globalization, I say. We've screwed it up too bad with faulty definitions and half-hearted efforts. Universalize. Make me a citizen of a universal world, and I'll be a happy camper. We know from childhood to look both ways before we cross the street. Why is it so much harder in a conference room than it is standing on the curb?
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