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MiddleOne posted:You're using Wikipedia as your definitive source when approaching a multi-levered complex phenomenon that is to this day heavily contested in academia, business and politics....? Well alright. I was just pointing out that the idea that globalisation refers to the wider phenomenon of the world becoming more integrated is relatively mainstream. I didn't mean it as an absolute source or anything, even pointed out as much by referring to it as "It's wikipedia but". e: Stealing a bit on globalisation from The British Journal of Sociology: quote:One of the widely accepted consequences of globalization is the development of individual outlooks, behaviours and feelings that transcend local and national boundaries. This has encouraged a re-assessment of important assumptions about the nature of community, personal attachment and belonging in the face of unprecedented opportunities for culture, identities and politics to shape, and be shaped by, global events and processes. Recently, the upsurge of interest in the concept of cosmopolitanism has provided a promising new framework for understanding the nexus between cosmopolitan dispositions and global interconnectedness across cultural, political and economic realms. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 21:41 on May 16, 2017 |
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May 16, 2017 21:32
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Private Speech posted:Well, yes, there are issues with how it currently functions, but arguably it helps the economies of many poorer nations too - certainly the ones developing at the most rapid speed appear to be those which are derisively called the sweatshops of the world. The wealth of a nation does not equal the wellbeing of its inhabitants. For developing nations where the wealth from profits actually stays in country (as opposed to the value from land and labor exploitation largely flowing out of the country and not going toward the development of both a robust public sphere), there's a difference between the wealth of a nation and the wellbeing of generations of vast numbers of lower class citizens who are caught in the trap while that wealth is built. Many people who talk of the classical liberal labor model as a form of "lifting out of poverty" are the same who bemoan any abuses by those non-liberal economic/political models which may also lift nations out of poverty after a few generations of citizens' turmoil (Cuba, for instance). Both result in suffering to a more invasive, time-demanding master for the time being for the sake of promised future wealth, which suffering generations may not even see. Whether that master is effective depends on the particular political situation. The China example someone mentioned upthread for the efficacy of liberalism kind of ignores that a strong nationalist mixed system was built in order to prevent the kind of outflow of wealth that you saw in the 1800s/early 1900s spheres of influence period. There's no parallel to be made between the fortunes of politically weak states like haiti or bangaladesh with strong ones like china.
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May 16, 2017 21:35
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Another way that "free trade" isn't totally free is that free trade countries often blockade countries with political situations that are contrary to it and which it feels ideologically are a threat to its continued way of being. Haiti, once one the richest colonies (in terms of raw trade), saw a european blockade against the sugar trade after the revolution in part because european nations refused to do trade with a nation run by black people (think of the implications for our concepts of civilization!). It owes some of its current plight to that, and to centuries of debt held over it by France. Some of it, too, is because its main crop was sugar cane, and it's easier to blockade (since you just get sugar from another sugar-growing island) or manipulate a single commodity or market. Nowadays, currently something like 90% of Haiti's current exports are textiles. When it sells on the world market, it's subject to the dictates of fewer competing (or colluding) buyers in a single commodities market - something that gives producers a pretty hefty amount of political influence to maneuver against citizens rights. It's also at the mercy of international textile prices, so national fortunes are sensitive to supply and demand fluctuations in a single market. A non-liberal state like Venezuela is likewise invested mostly in a single export industry, and with the crash of oil prices, that led to the current collapse and ensuing brutal state repression to hold onto power. A non-liberal state like Cuba has done relatively well when compared to its welfare in the past and compared to many latin american countries (both liberal and non-liberal), despite being blockaded, because iirc one of the emphasized parts of the revolutionary plan for cuba was to establish many different, diverse industries well beyond its traditional fruit and sugar trades so that it would be less susceptible to world market shocks and private influencers. Britain was initially very protectionist in its textile trade, setting up some pretty onerous (but capital-friendly, think establishing minimum weekly working hours for labor) regulations to try to nurse its nascent industry into something strong enough to serve as a force in the world economy. The use of machinery for textile works expanded into use for other manufactured goods which had, iunno, kinda good results economically for britain Having your economy tied to a single export commodity probably won't raise any country out of poverty long term. And if that's so, then there has to be some sort of will to establish multiple industries in a certain place. Usually, free trade capitalists don't seek out growing non-traditional industries in developing countries bc it's a huge risky undertaking and investment in a land that isn't their own and they likely have no emotional or cultural connection to.
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May 16, 2017 22:35
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