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| Friday’s Phrase: "globalisation" |
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| Friday, 06 August 2004 | |
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06
August, 2004: Rarely has a five-syllable word struck such fear into the
mass of humanity, middle-class diners (and the business community) to
the extent achieved by the word "globalisation"…
Take a deep breath and say it; "globalisation". Has the world ended? Not that we noticed. If it has, click here and complain. The G-word can disrupt dinner parties and international banking summits in equal measue; this says more about the similarity of the latter to the former than vice versa. There are as many different views of 'globalisation' as there are hues of political belief; even within the more narrow confines of telecom and ICT, there is a complete spectrumful of them. Globalisation and anti-globalisation are two sides of two quite separate coins. Sort of 'When Alan Greenspan met Naomi Klein', as Hollywood might (not) have put it. On second thought, they may be the same side of the same coin: 'When Alan Greenspan met Alan Greenspan'. On the one hand… Anti-G people tend to argue that the corporate world is intent on waging a war upon individuals; one to another, they pass this information via the Internet and mobiles which are about as global and as corporate as you can hope to be. Every 1 May (except when it falls on a weekend), the anti-G campaigners march against capitalism in cities like London or Berlin. Fast food outlets board up for the duration. On the other hand... Pro-G people are different. Global brands cover the realms of consumer products and culture from software and soft drinks to music, TV and films. Unlike vegetarians eschewing meet, few anti-G activists cut themselves off from the products of these industries. More often, their lifestyles would be impossible without them. If we believe in globalisation then the companies involved must take on some massive global responsibilities. They are about health, employment, water and food and they are about the people who do not live in big glass corporate houses, cannot throw stones and, if they are lucky, are not breaking rocks either. Opposed to the very nature of global business, the anti-G lobby would most likely deny people access to the information they need. This makes it hard to work out who's to blame for the latest global famine or plague, for child poverty or many other disasters that the modern world might have averted. Many of the big global capitalists ought to be ashamed of their failure to confront these issues and tackle these reponsibilities. Some of their mantras – like "think global, act local" – are fatuous and, in the light of events, bordering on the obscene. Even so, globalisation was probably inevitable from the very moment we were all put on the same planet. That's a tough clock for even the most determined anti-capitalist to turn back. Jim Chalmers |
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