After one reads a book like The Collapse of Globalism by John Ralston Saul, one is forced to look at globalization in a different light.
I just finished reading Making Globalization Workby Joseph Stiglitz, and for all its good intentions and its good analysis, particularly on the trade front as well as interesting insight into the reserve system, the author refuses to make that break from using the term globalization.
I find it fascinating that the two books will make the same point, but Saul is willing to point out that the word "globalization" used in the early 1990s at least popularly, is not used in the same way today.
We have in fact moved into a post globalization era. I think that once we recognize this and start using new language, we can begin to truly change things. Language is important and I think the more we hang on to the terminology of globalization which has been captured largely by the economist and right wingers the longer it will take for real change to occur.
I really think the book by Stiglitz really demonstrates the point that Saul makes, that the term has become so broad as to be meaningless. It can mean one thing and it's opposite, the use of the term economic globalization and other such terms merely serve to obscure the fundamental point that when one uses the term globalization it has no meaning at all anymore.
1 comment:
I'm all for inventing new words to refer to the different aspects of globalization (cultural, economical, etc) but what do you or Saul propose? To me "Post Globalization Era" is way worse than using "globalization" in terms of its usability. Whenever I hear Neo-, Post-, or other weighty suffixes, my mind sorta shuts off.
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