The Inevitability and Desirability of Globalization
Host: Walter Anderson

The Role of Economic Theory and Capitalism

(Participant) It's always awkward to jump in after an absence of a few days, but one must try!

In my own peculiar way I THINK this comment to be relevant to what we are talking about, but to explain how-so would take awhile. Dick, I wish this were the place to debate your "take" on business leaders as civic and/or political leaders. I reject much of what you said above--but some other time & place.

You suggested from my earlier comment that I might be turning socialist--understandable given the words I used in isolation. The question I ask, however, is "Who makes the decisions?" With respect to investment decisions, the socialist answer is the government. Current capitalist practice gives the answer, business executives (with respect to their own companies). True capitalism (my definition of course!) gives the answer as the ordinary people, who decide in what to invest.

My model for economic systems is still "The Capitalist Manifesto", by Adler & Kelso, published a half-century ago.

(Participant) Ray, doesn't it seem that, in practice, making decisions is shared by all of the groups you mentioned, with the foreground being alternately dominated by one or the other for some period of time? Even at its height there was a flourishing black market (investment by we the people) in Communist Russia.

Doesn't it seem that the current stage of globalization is increasing the speed with which there is a change in which one dominates the foreground? And don't the boundaries between them seem to be getting a little fuzzier?

(Participant) I'm arriving here quite late in the game, but I would like to make a couple of comments in response. Some experts believe that much of the environmental decay we observe today is the result of the globalization of capitalism. The United States, the U.K., Germany, Japan and the rest of the most Industrialized nations, linked to the multinational corporations, continue to push for economic growth. The Industrializing nations try hard to play catch-up. The Least Industrialized nations want to get into the race but find it difficult to produce faster growth. Why is it that people around the world, but perhaps especially in places like Bangladesh, continue to overpopulate? Why do we continue to destroy the planet's resources? And why do so many people continue to become so involved in violent and bloody intra-national and international conflicts? Do you really think globalization has any impact upon these interlocking problems? Is it a solution or a cause or a bit of both? It seems clear that global economic production creates extensive pollution and the faster the production the faster the destruction of the environment. Is the goal of globalization really a sustainable environment? a true world system (regardless of the organizational label) in which we draw upon our physical environment to meet our basic needs without crippling our future as humans? Oh rats--the economic message of globalization just doesn't square with what I think we need to survive, flourish, and live a decent life. Hmmm. Going back a few pages, I should probably mention that not only am I an applied sociologist, I am also an applied Christian. Ho, I know, hum.

(Participant) Oh, you Christians! Environmental softies. Doesn't the Bible call for man's dominion over all living things?

The problem can be traced at least partly to unfettered economic growth, but not entirely. To have democracies we apparently have to have a market system. So, as Paul Houston asked, "Sound mind or sound body. Take your pick."

It is not a lost cause to bring capitalistic organizations under regulation. We do it all the time. Kip, we can indeed control media to some extent, even within a capitalistic system. The Brits do it, and we have an FCC that has teeth, but with this administration it doesn't show them. If regulated, the competition can continue, but on a different basis. They can still fight for market share, knowing that the playing field has been leveled. We just aren't exercising our regulatory laws. The ideal business system, it seems to me, is controlled capitalism. The ideal professional system is closer to socialism. They can coexist.

(Participant) Walt, I have the impression that "globalization" is a process over which we as individuals and even nations exercise far less control than we might believe. The process, to date, has been replete with strife, chaos, and collapse. Do you have the sense that presently the process is fundamentally different than it has been in the past? Do you think that the connectedness of people vis-à-vis the shrinking globe brought about by advances in telecommunications, media coverage, etc., represents a new player in the process?

(Participant) Business is the engine that is driving globalization. Trade (or business) comes down to successful (profitable) interaction between parties. If we're considering the 21st century and what is likely to characterize it, I'd have to say that this will be the Century of Business.

(Walter Anderson) Globalization, as I understand and define it, is not driven by business. It's a process of immense complexity with a history as long as that of human evolution itself. If I had to identify a single predominant driving force, I would say it's the increasing mobility of symbols (of which the electronic conversation we're having here (where?)is a good example). That symbol mobility has increased to an astonishing degree in recent years, literally transforming the world, and there are strong indicators--as the information-communication hookups find their ways into more and more corners of the world, --that it will continue and will, if anything, accelerate. Business is a part of this, but only a part.

As we move more ideas and words and slogans and information around the world, we become more interconnected in many ways--not always benign, not always pleasant. Agendas bump into one another, national sovereignty and personal privacy are threatened, local controversies become global ones. "Nothing will be done anymore," the poet Paul Valery wrote, "without the whole world meddling in it." So at the moment the US is meddling in the future of the Middle East, and the rest of the world is meddling in US foreign policy, and everybody is grumpy about somebody else's meddling.

This is not a happy time, but the world is becoming more interconnected with each passing day. As I have indicated, I would like to see the US government taking the lead in building a multicentric, post-superpower world order. At the moment that looks like the road not taken but, as a graduate of the Harlan Cleveland Academy of Unwarranted Optimism, I have no doubt that it will be taken sooner or later.

(Participant) I'm with you on that, Walt. And one possible scenario is that the impending disaster will become clearer to everyone very soon. That could lead to a major counter-reaction to the direction we are now taking, speeding progress toward your dream.

(Participant) Walt: I like your summary of globalization in # 173 better than any I have seen.

Being closer to the other end of the optimist-pessimist scale, I am concerned with how little the Bush entourage are willing to listen to the various signals which you describe. I think it will take a long time for the rest of the world to "forgive" us this transgression, and also will wonder how a self-styled democratic society as fully linked into the flow of ideas as we are can be so obtuse in responding to the messages.

One other point in agreement with your #173. Business as now "practiced" will need some fundamental up-dating before it can be a leading force in successful globalization. With all its magical abilities, free enterprise has a poison potential in stressing undiscriminating GROWTH as one of its main engines.

I am not suggesting that this can't be adjusted, but there is almost a religious linkage to growth on the part of traditional business leadership. There are also some excellent business leaders who have recognized this, and I presume most of you in this category here would agree. I don't need to elaborate on this for this gang!

(Participant) Walt, perhaps my use of the word business with its corollary meanings leads to some confusion. The single most common theme, apparent by evidence, that characterizes humanity is that of successful interaction or transaction (profit to both parties). All groups of people, have always engaged in this in some way. Business (or trade) is always about this. Even though it may be competitive, unless both parties benefit (interact successfully, profitably), business comes to a halt. I n law, the civil code (which is far greater in volume than the penal code) is primarily rules that govern transactions between people.

I would submit, with respect, that your Item 1:173, "increasing mobility of symbols" puts the cart before the horse. The symbols have evolved and become more mobile in order to increase the opportunity for successful interaction. I find it highly likely that the 21st century will see significant changes in transaction (business--changes that will benefit more people. I was interested to discover recently that in the 15th century it was common to see the entry "For God and profit" on the ledgers of the major trading houses.

(Participant) Short-term conflict can be viewed as a tool to increase future trading opportunities (particularly when those opportunities have been decreased due to the actions of a government), but prolonged conflict is a serious detriment to trade. The US military has focused on structuring itself to bring massive power to bear in order to ensure that hostilities will be brief (whether or not that structure will prove to be successful, only time will tell). Saddam constitutes a serious obstruction to trade. I don't say this meaning to imply that I agree with the administration's stand, but rather as an observation of history, and one which I think is a real part of the globalization process.

(Walter Anderson) Kip, one could certainly make a good case for your position on the cart-and-horse issue. Writing, we know, appears to have first appeared in connection with commerce. The telegraph, a great globalizer in its time, was not invented for business purposes but was rapidly assimilated into all kinds of commercial uses. But--as I watch young people walking around gabbing on their cell phones--I still have a powerful feeling that the urge to communicate, to send and get news and information of all sorts, is very deep in us. This offered not so much in argument but as an expression of an unprovable personal hunch.

(Participant) We are hell-bent for economic destruction unless we change course in one significant respect. Does it strike anyone else as absurd that we work hard at job creation--even job retention? Why is it better to have to work harder just to stay in the same place?

Alternative thought: There is a lot of work that needs to get done, and the chores ought to be spread around. There is enough of the essential goods of survival to keep all of us alive at a modest level of comfort, if it were distributed as well as it might be. So, what is it about our system that forces us to make our lives harder than they need to be?

(Walter Anderson) Ray, you know, a lot of people are thinking now about the changes in the whole nature of work--some saying the idea of the "job" is becoming obsolete. Some--not enough, I believe--of this thinking is asking the kind of questions you raise. The globalization/informatization process forces a new dialogue about such matters.

(Participant) Ray, the answer some of us would give to your question about what it is about our system that forces us to make our lives harder than they need to be is "capitalism". Free market economy creates a lot of wealth, but does not make sure that it is distributed equitably, or that the necessary work that needs to be done gets done. The system is oriented to the demands of the market, which of course can be manipulated by the wealthy. But almost everyone works hard, especially those at the top of the wealth pyramid. They just don't work at the things that would benefit us most. Everyday we see moves by this administration to support competitive business, leading to an unfair distribution of resources. Today, Bush announced a plan to provide prescription drugs to seniors only if it also benefits for-profit businesses like HMOs. We also have a huge segment of unemployed people (the 5% figure--large enough by itself--excludes many such as youth, retirees, prisoners and millions who have just given up) who could be helpful in doing the necessary work, but not in a capitalist system. The changing nature of work that those of us optimists discussed in the sixties, and that Walt refers to, has not only not yet come to pass, but we are working harder and longer than ever.

Are you becoming a socialist radical?

The experiments in "pure" socialism and communism, while they have accomplished much (reducing poverty, improving health, eliminating crime), are so far pretty much totalitarian nightmares. My guess is we need a mix of both systems, which we now have in the US, of course, but which may need to be weighted differently, and more intelligently.

Now if we were to factor in globalization, that adds another dimension and a huge untapped labor force.

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