Throughout the enormous literature on ‘globalization’ there is a common theme that worldwide social, political, and economic transformations have contributed to reconfigurations and re-articulations of the world-system. The contention is that due to to recent technological revolutions in communication, media, and transportation, a ‘new international division of labor' has ensued a unique 'global' sociological imagination; the national 'state' as a principle of structuration is unsatisfactory for the social scientist - the 'space of flows' has replaced the 'space of places' (Ruggie, 1993). Dynamic connective configurations beget 'transnational' corporations omnipresent vertically disintegrated and horizontally integrated in an irresistible Gramscian transnational historic bloc of 'neoliberalism'.Naked Keynesianism
This approach downplays the primary force driving globalization, which is financialization - the international transformation of future streams of (profit, dividend, or interest) income into tradeable financial assets. The systemic power and importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions, and financial élites manifestly delink the national state from perceived social, political, and economic processes....
Globalization: A Fetish of (Post) Modernity
David Fields
2 comments:
OK, I think I understood that. I find I don't much like the sort of libertarianism implied in the notion that that the nation-state is now obsolete, constitutions and treaties are therefore "quaint," etc. Problematic though it may be should we not all "be statists now?" Or is it too late?
The implication is that as nation states loose sovereignty, democracy becomes less powerful and the will of the people cannot be imposed on international institutions and organizations by law. This has far-reaching implications for power relationships in the future and therefore who is in control socially, politically, and economically.
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