The social dimension of globalization

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The social dimension of globalization

• DIR
• Course International Organisations, Autumn 2004
• 8th lecture
• Ole Busck, dep. of Planning and Development

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Karl Polanyi The Great Transformation (1944)

• Explored the socially disruptive and polarizing
  tendencies in world economy in the 20s driven by
  a self-regulating market, the result of
  coercive power in the service of an utopian
  idea.
• Out of a breakdown in liberal economic structures
  the phenomena of depression, fascism,
  unemployment and resurgent nationalism were
  produced resulting in a negation of economic
  globalization, leading to world war
• A double movement traceable market expansion
  entailing social dislocation a sharp political
  reaction, i.e. societys demands on the state to
  counteract the disastrous effects of the market

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The substance of globalization its primary
actors

• The global political economy, primarily embodied
  by TNCs (responsible of two thirds of world
  trade)
• States, although with dotted-line borders, and
  the interstate system still play a role
• Macroregions EU, NAFTA, APEC etc.
• Subregional patterns Asias Growth Triangle,
  the Alpine Diamond etc.
• Microregions Lombardy, Quebec, Shenzen
• Global cities
• Civil societies

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The dynamics of globalization

• Starting point the division of
  labour/organisation of production globally
  (labour creates value)
• Focus How societies adjust to and try to
  influence changes in this organisation and its
  manifestations
• Causal factors Hypercompetition, in practice
  ideology Structural changes in competition
  production. New meaning of time space
• Facilitated through Technological
  developmentNeo-liberal discourseStates taken
  over by corporate logic

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Characteristics of the present accelerated type
of globalization (arguing against Hirst)

• 1. Strongly increased FDI in developing
  countries - 40 of total inflows in
  developing countries in 1993
• 2. Global capital flows at 1.5 trillion a day,
  from - debt payments - cross border
  mergers and acquisitions - tourism -
  foreign exchange transactions ( 900 billion per
  day)
• 3. The volume of world trade grows at twice the
  rate of world output
• 4. The changing global division of labour. From
  Fordism to a flexible
• work force
• 5. The flows of remittances and their
  significance in the economy and social
  structuring of developing countries (50 of
  foreign income in Pakistan, 70 in El
  Salvador)

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The division of labour
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Theories of international division of labour

• IDL, International Division of Labour-theory of
  the classical political economists
• The value-creating advantages from specialisation
  of work and coordinated production spread out
  internationally and enhanced through trade
• NIDL, New International Division of Labour-theory
  of 70s
• Transfer of manufacturing from advanced
  capitalist to developing countries through
  fragmentation of production in management, RD
  etc., kept in the heartland and low-skilled jobs
  abroad (ex apparal, consumer-electronics)

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Sweat shop workers, Indonesia
ZigZag, Ibis
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GDLP, The Global division of Labour and Power.

• What is new about the contemporary period is
• The manner and extent to which domestic political
  economies are penetrated by global phenomena
• Varied regional divisions of labour are emerging
  tethered in different ways to global structures,
  each one engaged in unequal transactions with
  world centers of productiuon finance
• Within each region subglobal hierarchies have
  formed, with poles of economic growth, managerial
  and technological centers and security systems

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The global middle class
The globalised rich (Z. Baumann)
80 affluent
Share of ressource use 80
North 20 of w. population
20 marginalised
South
20 rich
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80 of World pop.
80 poor
The localised poor
World Watch 2003-report Global consumer class
of 1.7 billion, while 2.8 billion
live in absolute poverty
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Chinese economic zone
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Characteristics of states in GDLP

• States not sidelined, but scope for state
  autonomy reduced Primarilyaccomodation of
  domestic policies to pressures generated by
  transnational capital
• State-leaders held responsible to market forces,
  including debt payments, SAPs, credit rating
  agencies and US forreign policy
• Courtesan states servicing foreign and
  national capital, open to regional solutions,
  coercive towards internal resisting actors
• Inherent disjuncture between globalization and
  international institutions as these were
  designed to cordinate a system of nation-states
  in which each state was sovereign over its own
  domestic economy

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Democratization?

• Identifying different historical and cultural
  forms of democracy from Anglo-Saxon polyarchy
  to guided democracy Mittelman concentrates on
  the challenge to democracy as an ideology of
  domination from the mobilisation of social
  resistance movements, inclined to participatory
  democracy cf. ecological resistance movement
• Civil society and its institutions and
  organisations become increasingly important as
  the state and social order disintegrates and
  the environmental scars accelerate. Imported from
  the Western political culture, but now a key
  feature in resistance politics.

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Central aspects of GDLP

• MigrationSeeking to escape a marginalized
  existence and repression, population transfers
  within a stratified division of labour reflect a
  hierarchy among regions, countries and different
  rates of industrialization.
• - 100 mill. workers staying outside their own
  country (-93)- trade unions historical
  international weakness- remittances by far
  surpassing int. aid - 30 of Africas skilled
  workforce in EU (1987)- Pressure from and
  conflicts over immigrants in USA EU (the
  walls)
• The global division of labour expresses
  itself as a distinctive territorial division of
  labour

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• Global commodity chainsNetworks of labour and
  production processes whose end result is a
  finished commodity
• In business studies global value chains is
  the hottest theme
• Underpinning and connecting the global social and
  ecological distribution conflicts as well as
  reinforcing the power of TNCs (UN commission on
  TNCs?)

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• Cultural networks(GDLP also linked to
  ethnicity), e.g.the Chinese transnational
  division of labour in S.E.-Asia outside China (40
  mill. person worth 250 bill. )Chinese
  minorities globally linked to homebound
  ideoligies, traditions and capital
• Chinese banks and stakes actually upholding
  US- economy!Guangdong province Hongkong
  global capital
• Cultural networks lubricate the flows and
  chains of labour and capital globally and
  regionally as well as heighten tensions

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Goodman, Washington Post
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Conclusions