So what is so bad about globalization?

[innonimatu]

This is difficult. Because on the one side you want the people to control their own policy, but one the hand the interests of the population of any state will be too narrow due to globalization.

Take global warming. The EU thinks we need to do something to make the problem more manageable. But it needs action from other countries as well. So in a sense, I think it might be unavoidable that some of the policies that affect us are made by technocrats who work behind the scenes at conferences such as the one on Bali.

Yes, that is a problem, one that I freely admit. But "rule by technocrats" is not a good answer for it, in fact it makes things even worst. If the interests of the population of a single state are too narrow, what can we say of the interests of a group of unelected technocrats - for that is what they are, a small group made up of of people isolated in the ivory towers of universities, top bureaucrats of governments and international organizations, and a handful of influential figures from the financial and industrial world. A very limited club. Can we trust them to hold the interest of the world's population over their own particular interests, of those of their small groups?

I would rather have small national governments, more easily accountable to the population. They can cooperate, but they must be free to respect the wishes of their nation's populations, instead of evading them (or being forced to ignore them) through international agreements. And I don't like the way the EU is going, by the way - greater integration usually means more technocrats and less accountability. But small national governments appear to be doomed anyway, so the challenge is to create confederations of states that remain democratic. I don't have any good answers to this problem to share, unfortunately.

 

[amadeus]

It destroys local businesses and people's ability to be independent.[/URL]

Independence? My independence is almost based off our ability to trade overseas.

 

[Narz]

Independence? My independence is almost based off our ability to trade overseas.

Exactly, without the exploited masses oversees who make your plastic junk, sew your clothes, can your sardines and help w/ your technical support questions you would be completely helpless. In a future of declining petroleum increased localization of goods and services will be necessary. Unfortunately most people are completely unskilled except for highly specialized skills that depend on a smooth running and ever growing global economy.

Globalization means you are at the mercy of forces far outside your control. Of course there are always just forces but it's somewhat emasculating to realize the true scope of it. Look at New Orleans, when the **** hit the fan there people had no idea what to do or how to survive because they were lulled into complacancy by a life of comfort. This is the effect of globalization. Why learn how to build your own water filter when K-Mart has a blue light special on Brita's for $7.99. Why grow crops when subsidized corn from 2,000 miles away is costs only pennies per 100 calories. Stocking food & water is for nutters & Mormons; electricity outages, fuel crises, global warming, that only happens to other people, on the news, far away, stupid ones who just don't have the smarts or political will to compete.

Of course when grain prices double (as they have) for you, it's no biggie. But for a third worlder globalization is far more devastating. Look at the situation in Africa. Globalization has no morality save for short term economic gain (if it destroys long term biodiversity and reduces the planet's human carrying capacity long term, who cares, doesn't effect the next quarterly report).

Many people had grandparents who knew how to grow crops, raise chickens, build a home, sew clothing, identify wild plants, hunt, work w/ wood & metal, create but most people today are nearly completely useless (myself included, though I'm working on it!). It's the worst of course for those in the 3rd world. They may have jobs now (which they are now dependent on having lost their traditional survival skills and/or become overpopulated to the point where those skills no longer are sustainable) but their jobs are fragile, at any moment they could be deemed expendable by the global marketplace if some other poor suckers elsewhere are desperate enough to work for even less or because they coal, diamons, zinc, coppe, iron ore, whatever runs out. They are left w/ nothing, no longer able to revert back to a preindustrial lifestyle but as unprepared to compete on equal grounds in the global economy as a second grade is to play high school football. Such is the case in most of Africa.

Exploitation makes both parties (the exploiter & the exploitee) weaker. And when it ends as it inevitably must it is a struggle for both to pick themselves back up (as it was for the American South after slavery).

 

[amadeus]

Many people had grandparents who knew how to grow crops, raise chickens, build a home, sew clothing, identify wild plants, hunt, work w/ wood & metal, create but most people today are nearly completely useless (myself included, though I'm working on it!).

They also had a life expectancy of 50, lived in absolute squalor, and were barely literate. Don't romanticize about things you don't understand.

 

[Theige]

Globalization just means reducing the barriers to trade.

People have gone from absolute poverty to a high standard of living through trade; in a very large part due to international trade. This holds true for every country on the planet.

Whether it was Europe exploiting their colonies, or the US having to accept increased competition from Europe and Asia to the detriment of its exporting oriented businesses after WW2. The net effect of almost all increased trade is positive.

 

[Japanrocks12]

I'm sorry, I'd take a globalized US economy over one that had Embargo Act of Hawley-Smoot barriers to trade anyday.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Many people had grandparents who knew how to grow crops, raise chickens, build a home, sew clothing, identify wild plants, hunt, work w/ wood & metal, create but most people today are nearly completely useless (myself included, though I'm working on it!).

They also had a life expectancy of 50, lived in absolute squalor, and were barely literate. Don't romanticize about things you don't understand.

My grandfather grew up learning almost the skills Narz mentioned (exceptions: e.g. he caught fish rather than raising chickens) and he did most certainly not live in absolute squalor. He is not only literate but earned a university degree. He is in his seventies and going strong.

Narz may be romanticizing, but you seem to think that the Dark Ages ended two generations ago. Extremists, both of you.

 

[Elta]

Globalization is like baking a cake - difficult to do correctly but nice if so.
There are many ways to go about it, I don't feel that we are going about it the right way atm.

* I speak specifically of global trade.

P.S. You all make good arguments from the 3 or 4 positions we generally here from when there is a discussion on globalization.

 

[El Koeno]

Yes, that is a problem, one that I freely admit. But "rule by technocrats" is not a good answer for it, in fact it makes things even worst. If the interests of the population of a single state are too narrow, what can we say of the interests of a group of unelected technocrats - for that is what they are, a small group made up of of people isolated in the ivory towers of universities, top bureaucrats of governments and international organizations, and a handful of influential figures from the financial and industrial world. A very limited club. Can we trust them to hold the interest of the world's population over their own particular interests, of those of their small groups?

I would rather have small national governments, more easily accountable to the population. They can cooperate, but they must be free to respect the wishes of their nation's populations, instead of evading them (or being forced to ignore them) through international agreements. And I don't like the way the EU is going, by the way - greater integration usually means more technocrats and less accountability. But small national governments appear to be doomed anyway, so the challenge is to create confederations of states that remain democratic. I don't have any good answers to this problem to share, unfortunately.

Well, I think we're agreed that we don't really have a good answer to this difficult trade-off. Perhaps our democratically elected governments should hand those issues that might be better managed by technocrats to them, but still keep the last word. I think this is more or less the way the central banking system works in most countries, and it has brought great stability since the 1970s.

@Narz: Globalization does not take away your right to learn how to hunt, farm etc. Most people willingly choose to abandon those skills (I could have some chicken if I wanted to, but I'd rather buy the eggs). Subsistence agriculture really is not a nice way to make your living. I'd argue that Africa's problem is a lack of being "globalized". Most Africans don't have the choice we have to abandon "subsistence skills"; they can't get a job in a factory, because there are too few. Until they can have access to those opportunities they will be left to the vagaries of the weather (not a pleasant outlook for a lot of them given the uncertainties regarding climate change), and unable to make investments in the quality of their lives that pay off after the next growing season, as they won't know if they would have lost everything by then.

 

[Narz]

They also had a life expectancy of 50, lived in absolute squalor, and were barely literate.

I don't know about your granparents. Mine lived into their 80's. My grandfather on my father's side was a doctor (and worked as a medic in WW I & II). His father was a farmer (don't know how long he lived). Neither of my grandmothers had to work at all and lived pretty well. I never knew my maternal grandfather (technically I never knew my paternal one either but I knew of him).

Anyway, many did die young or even in childbirth mostly due to ignorance of basic sanitation. But plenty of intelligent learned people lived long healthy lives.

And those who were educated often had a much higher respect for education than people do today (maybe because of it's rarity). I read that during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 the candidates would debate lucidity about the issues for hours w/ no notes. It's not like people were stupid brutes.

Don't romanticize about things you don't understand.

I don't.

As for you, don't try to degrade things you don't understand. From your posts it doesn't appear you've spent more than 5 minutes thinking about how non-Americans live, except as to deliberately demonize or mock them.

 

[Narz]

Narz may be romanticizing, but you seem to think that the Dark Ages ended two generations ago. Extremists, both of you.

It takes an extremist to break thru the apathy of today's American. Guys like amadues probably won't wake up to the problems of globalization & modern business as usual until a Katrina of some sort hits his neck of the woods or a large scale grid (electric) failure or local fuel crisis. And still he'd probably find a way to blame Mugabe or Russia or something.

 

[El Koeno]

I don't know about your granparents. Mine lived into their 80's. My grandfather on my father's side was a doctor (and worked as a medic in WW I & II). His father was a farmer (don't know how long he lived). Neither of my grandmothers had to work at all and lived pretty well. I never knew my maternal grandfather (technically I never knew my paternal one either but I knew of him).

Anyway, many did die young or even in childbirth mostly due to ignorance of basic sanitation. But plenty of intelligent learned people lived long healthy lives.

And those who were educated often had a much higher respect for education than people do today (maybe because of it's rarity). I read that during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 the candidates would debate lucidity about the issues for hours w/ no notes. It's not like people were stupid brutes.

But it's not like they lived in autarky either. The world was already pretty globalized in the 19th century. Back then, supply chains for many products already spanned the globe, and it is highly doubtful that the candidates in your debates would have had the privilege of a good education were it not for these global supply chains.

 

[Narz]

I agree. But globalization was not as extreme then (80-180 years ago) as it is now.

Plenty of people lived healthy lives before globalization is fact globalization is deteriorating quality of life for many. I'd be willing to bet suicide rates in third world countries rose dramatically upon imperial conquest/colonization and probably are still higher than they were in the pre-colonial era. If suicide rates are not a valid indicator of quality of life, I don't know what is.

 

[El Koeno]

I agree. But globalization was not as extreme then (80-180 years ago) as it is now.

Plenty of people lived healthy lives before globalization is fact globalization is deteriorating quality of life for many. I'd be willing to bet suicide rates in third world countries rose dramatically upon imperial conquest/colonization and probably are still higher than they were in the pre-colonial era. If suicide rates are not a valid indicator of quality of life, I don't know what is.

What exactly makes their lives worse? The problem is not material, as material well-being is increased by trade IMO. Of course there are many things that affect well-being than just material things, but which of these is so negatively impacted by globalization?

 

[JerichoHill]

I have to disagree. Using 1 metric (suicide rates) isn't a very good way to measure whatever demographical judgment you're trying to make.

 

[LordRahl]

There is nothing bad about globalization. Everybody wins, except for the spoiled brats/hippies that use it as a pretext to destroy public property..

 

[El Koeno]

There is nothing bad about globalization. Everybody wins, except for the spoiled brats/hippies that use it as a pretext to destroy public property..

I think our resident economist JerichoHill would confirm that freeing trade does create losers.

 

[Narz]

What exactly makes their lives worse? The problem is not material, as material well-being is increased by trade IMO.

Not necessarily.

From a purely economic viewpoint a man living in a tiny dirty apartment w/ a job working at a factory is better off than a man who has no official net worth but has use (owns for all intensive purposes) a few acres of land, lives in a decent sized home he built himself and is his own boss, trading for what he needs on his own terms.

The movie I mentioned in a post above above does a very good job at illustrating what I'm trying to say.

Of course there are many things that affect well-being than just material things, but which of these is so negatively impacted by globalization?

Time is the first thing that comes to mind. What use is all the money in the world if you're away from friends & family nearly all the time. Ask any healthy child whether they'd rather have daddy show up on the weekends buy them crap and say "now isn't this nice!" w/ an insincere grin on his face and then dissappear or to not be able to provide new shiny things and gadgets every week but spend quality time w/ them and not be distracted w/ work all the time. There are a multitude of others ways to measure quality of life beyond money (not saying money isn't a factor but it's hardly the only one), I'm sure if you sat and thought about it you could name ten or twenty yourself.

I have to disagree. Using 1 metric (suicide rates) isn't a very good way to measure whatever demographical judgment you're trying to make.

Of course using more than one criteria is ideal and if I was getting paid to debate here I'd use as many as I could.

There is nothing bad about globalization. Everybody wins, except for the spoiled brats/hippies that use it as a pretext to destroy public property..

I used to feel sympathy when everyone made fun of you for being so one-dimensional but not so much anymore. Perhaps you should travel abroad to actually see some other parts of the globe (producing nations specifically) and perhaps you'll gain some perspective.

 

[Theige]

Narz, you cannot possibly assert that trade has not increased people's well being.

 

[Elta]

Narz, you cannot possibly assert that trade has not increased people's well being.

Even if it has it has not been nearly as fair as it could have been, some people go the more raw sides of the deal.