Globalisation: how the myth misleads

1. The term "globalisation" is used with at least three different meanings, that we should make an effort to distinguish.
   1. In the sense of cultural globalisation it is not happening to any great extent, nor is it such a bad thing:
      1. Even in Europe, where cultures have been interacting for centuries and the EU has meant even more cross-border traffic, there is not much danger of Italians, say, becoming less Italian.
      2. So why do so many people believe that globalisation, and in particular of course Westernisation or Americanisation, is such a threat?
         • It is an effect of the (limited) economic globalisation that the same companies operate and the same products are available in most countries – but the serving of a coke in Ghana still has a completely different significance from my helping myself to one from a friend's fridge in the US.
         • Looking at non-Western countries we mostly see the metropolitan elite – but these are not representative at all, and with their Western aspirations should properly be considered as extensions of the Western world.
         • Owing to the colonial past a school in Kenya, for instance, was until recently named after the Prince of Wales – but the way the school worked would have been unrecognisable to someone from a school in the UK.
      3. The influence has not been all one way, and the cross-fertilisation and adaptation of outside influences has enriched cultures rather than destroying them.
   2. in the sense of economic globalisation the main problem is not that there is too much of it, but that there is not enough: in particular
      • Western countries restrict access to their markets;
      • they subsidise their own farmers and protect them with tarrifs from competition; and
      • while insisting on the free movement of capital, they prohibit the free movement of people.
   3. in the sense of globalisation of thought, of all of us living in what might be called a 'larger world', being more aware of events elsewhere, and being open to being challenged from afar it is clearly a good thing:
      • It means that fewer and fewer countries get away with political torture, that the death penalty is being abolished, that a country's treatment of minorities becomes subject to international scrutiny, and so on.
      • As Joshua Castellino argued in a talk at AC some weeks ago, things like FGM and cannibalism are not an essential aspect of anyone's culture, but are only defended as such by those who benefit from these aspects of the social or power-structures of which they are a part.

2. Not only have different meanings of the term "globalisation" been confused, globalisation has also – more seriously – been confused with something quite different.
   1. This confusion on the part of the 'anti-globalisers' seems to me to explain why globalisation has been attacked in often violent demonstrations, most famously in Seattle some years ago. The confusion is between
      1. globalisation, which I have argued above either is not happening or is not such a bad thing, and
      2. certain power relations from which some people benefit while others are its victims: these are the real evil, that we should take a moral stand on.

         But this divide of power does not coincide – as the anti-globalisers seem to naively believe – with the boundaries between developing and Western countries, or between 3rd World producers and 1st World multinationals.

   2. In which sense is globalisation 'a myth'?
      1. A myth is not simply a false story, it is a story that a society lives by, and so the group that benefits from the present structure of society will have an interest in maintaining that myth: they may either believe in it themselves, or they may not – they may be either fools or knaves.
      2. So the anti-globalisers,
         A similar point was made by The Economist, on November 9th 2002, in a one-page article about Naomi Klein, one of best-known anti-globalisers:

         "In training her guns on free trade and big multinationals, Ms Klein is attacking the best means for reducing poverty and, for that matter, extending justice and a politcal voice to the world's poorest people. When companies, properly regulated [– "Ms Klein's oddest asertion is that multinational companies are more powerful than governments and consumers. Plainly, they are not. Governments regulate business as they choose, and have far more power over their citizens' lives than even the biggest multinational does." –] and acting within the law, pursue profits, they end up increasing prosperity. This is not a theory but an observable fact. The result, unintended though it may be, is social good. Ms Klein denies all this at every turn – and the tragedy is that her denials have effect.

         "... What a pity she has turned her talents as a writer to a cause that can only harm the people she claims to care most about."

         But then, The Economist could not argue otherwise, and I would agree with them, wouldn't I?

         it seems to me, in mis-addressing their anger have fallen for the myth, thereby helping, admittedly unwittingly, to perpetuate the present structures of exploitation, by distracting from the real issue.
         • This may be not unlike the myth Robert Mugabe has been trying to create in his country, to distract from the true distinction, which is between those who have benefited from the power structures in his country and those who have been its victims, by recasting the divide along racial lines:

           it is clear that he and his cronies, as well as many of the whites in the country of course, have gained at the expense of others, they have been on the 'bad' side; whereas according to his deliberate recasting of the situation they, he and his cronies, being black, can suddenly claim to be on the 'good' side.

   3. So we have a responsibility not to believe the myth and instead direct our anger against the real evil, ...

3. and to make the best of globalisation: while not always unproblematic, and sometimes personally uncomfortable, it is the way forward and an exciting prospect.