Globalization

Globalization

I’ve been reading lots of posts recently regarding immigration, capitalism, and lots of systemic and social situations. Some may be strongly opinionated, while others may have a political backdrop and others may even just be informative. I’m no expert in the field but I am an avid reader and follower of social studies along with history and would like to write an article on Globalization based on academic research and studies rather than information interpreted from massive social media outlets that tend to bend the argument to favor a personal agenda. I especially hope to do this from the most neutral stand point possible.

So what is globalization?

As defined by Anibal Quijano, it’s A basic floor of social practices common to the whole world, and an inter-subjective sphere that exists and acts as the central sphere of value orientation for the whole.

In English this means that there are tons of social practices in which we all as a whole play a part in and accept given that they are put into play subjectively through common moral and ethical standards accepted by the whole (society). There is a different theory for those who don’t abide by these standards. It’s not relevant to globalization but shouldn’t go without mention. Basically, those who don’t abide by these standards will face being stigmatized socially. Meaning those who do not agree or follow these practices are more than likely punished via different formats by the whole.

For example, a common occidental social practice is to form a line at a movie theatre to buy your ticket. Any person within this territory that doesn’t abide by this practice, whether it be because of a cultural difference or any other reason, and skips the line to buy their ticket will more than likely be stigmatized by the majority (social group) that follow this common practice via any type of retaliation to communicate their wrong doing. Clearly this is just an example to relate to & acts in many more ways than just these types of simple situations

Back to globalization it’s intentions are to provide a dynamic process of economic, social and cultural unification that seeks intercommunication between countries.

Why is it important and what are its pros & cons?

Pros
Some economists point out that they have a positive outlook regarding the influence that globalization can have on the growth of the economy. The effects have been analyzed for years in the framework of some economic variables of certain countries: financial market, capital flows, GDP, foreign direct investment, among others. Although they gave an analysis of each variable independently, some results are confusing and even contradictory. However, they have served to resolve the position of economists on this issue.

Trade between nations and the encouragement of comparative advantages (the production of goods at a lower cost) has fostered growth. This has opened the way for expanding capital flows and increased foreign investment globally. At a financial level, one of the potential benefits of globalization is that it provides opportunities to reduce macro risks through asset diversification across countries.

Cons

Many expect that the costs associated with globalization will yield more profit than losses. However, the least developed countries will not have this opportunity, since their macroeconomic indices are not even close to the developed ones. Global free trade benefits large corporations, but not small businesses that cannot compete. In addition to this, free trade could raise production costs, which would demand higher wages to hire more qualified labor.

So to summarize, it can be seen that globalization is a fundamental aspect in the capitalist system, where large corporations earn by their large cash flows and small ones lose by their scarcity of resources.

Now moving on to the historical backdrop of how this came to be, which in turn will later lead to other articles I will write on this particular subject. I want to continue giving some prequel information to this modern concept. I’ll be very brief that way I can leave some information for other posts.

Historical backdrop of the development of this concept.

Conventional Strategies
America and the new world power pattern: America as the first ID of modernism.
2 historical processes converged and became associated for production during this space / time and were established as the two fundamental axes of the new power pattern.
On one hand, by the differences between conquerors and the conquered in the idea of race (Using Darwinism for their personal agenda). A supposed different biological structure that is unique in comparison to the situation of other races. Based strictly on cultural differences and classifying them as inferior with respect to the others (European vs others) .
This tool was used by the conquerors as the main constituent and founding element of the relations of domination over other social groups.
On the other hand, the articulation of all historical forms of labor control, its resources and its products around capital and the world market
Race
Race and racial identity were established as instruments of basic social classification of the population. Social Darwinism. It had no known history before in America. In America, the idea of race was a way of giving legitimacy to the relations of domination imposed by the conquistadors. The subsequent constitution of Europe as a new ID after America and the expansion of European colonialism over the rest of the world led to the development of the euro-centric perspective of knowledge and with it the theoretical elaboration of the idea of race as a natural aspect of those relations. Colonial domination between Europeans and non-Europeans has proved to be the most effective and enduring instrument of universal social domination as it still pertains to our present day.
On the other hand this instrument of power came to depend and include another equally universal, (although older) inter sexual or gender conquest. Race became the first fundamental criteria for the distribution of the world population in ranks, places, and roles within the power structure of the new society.

Basic mode of universal social classification of the world population.
“Idea-image” concept (new world power pattern and new world inter subjectivity) Based on the myth that the history of human civilization was as of a trajectory that starts from a state of nature and culminates in Europe. This is commonly known as the Euro centrical point of view or hegemony. It was also used to give meaning to the differences between Europe and Non-Europe as differences strictly due to nature (racial / biological) rather than of a history of power and domination.
The question of modernity
The current pattern of world power is the first, truly global one to known history.
It is the first one where in each of the realms of social existence all the historically known forms of control of the corresponding social relations are articulated, configuring in each area a single structure with systematic relations between its components and in the same way in its set.It is the first home of one of these structures of each area of social existence, under the hegemony of an institution produced within the process of formation and development of this same pattern of power.
In modernity it has three central elements in common that affect the daily life of the entire world population: the colonialists power, capitalism, and Euro centrism.
Bibliography: Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America; Aníbal Quijano

World Capitalism
Work - control structure
Division of Labor
The capital-wage relationship and the world market share all forms of control and exploitation of labor and control of production, appropriation, and distribution of products. Including slavery, servitude, small commodity production, reciprocity and wages. Deliberately established and organized to produce goods for the world market.
They did not exist only simultaneously during this time, but have all been articulated with capital and its market. Both elements (race and division of labor) were structurally associated and mutually reinforcing. (Although they are not necessarily dependent on each other)

Euro-centering of world capitalism

Europe positioned itself on the shores of America (this includes North, Central and South America including the islands) for the control of gold, silver, and other commodities expropriated through the work of aborigines and slaves. Its geographical position also brought a great advantage to dispute the control of world commercial traffic. This was later strengthened and consolidated through white colonial domination over the diverse world population.
Western Europe became a new Geo cultural ID. Emerging as the headquarters for world market control.
Capital was the axis around which all other forms of control of labor, resources and products were articulated. This made it dominant and gave capitalist character to the whole structure of labor control. This specific social relationship is geographically concentrated in Europe. This was how Europe became the center of the capitalist world. The worlds current form of capitalism originated from the colonial, euro centric stand point.

Independent state and colonial society: Historical and cultural dependency

As part of the new pattern of world power, Europe also concentrates under its hegemony the control of all forms of control of subjectivity, culture, and especially knowledge. Including the production of knowledge. They expropriated from the colonized populations any of those who were most suitable for the development of capitalism and for the benefit of the European center. They also repressed and condemned the “Indians” of America to be a peasant subculture, illiterate, & stripping them of their intellectual heritage objectified. They forced the colonized to partially learn the culture of the dominators in everything that was useful for the reproduction of this same domination. Whether it be in the mental, technological, or subjective (particularly religious) field or activity.
This entire process implies, in the long run, a colonization of cognitive perspectives, the ways of producing or giving meaning to the results of material or inter subjective experience, of the imagination, of inter subjective relations, and of culture.

Bibliography: Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America Aníbal Quijano

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The theories of David Ricardo (nineteenth century) and the Swedes Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin (20s and 30s of the last century) affirmed that international trade was based on differences between countries. Depending on their access to technology or labor, they specialized in some products or in others. However, in the second half of the century many deviations from this pattern were observed. Rich countries, in particular, exchanged products of the same type without significant differences, for example in technology.

The Krugman article was also the embryo of the 'new economic geography', in posing what would happen if international trade were impossible because of very high transport costs. If two countries were identical except for the number of inhabitants, the more populous country would have lower prices or more variety of supply because it could make greater use of economies of scale. Therefore, the people of the less populated would emigrate to the other. These concepts gave rise to the core-periphery model, which explains the concentration of population in large cities surrounded by depopulated rural areas, thanks to the reduction of transport costs.
Krugman's approach is based on the premise that many products and services can be produced cheaply in large series, something typical of economies of scale, while consumers have to demand a growing variety of goods and services. As a result, small-scale production in local economies are being progressively replaced by large-scale production of the world economy, dominated by companies that produce similar, competing products.

Classical theories of trade patterns hold that countries are different from each other, which explains why some nations export agricultural products while others export industrial or steel goods, for example.
But Krugman's review provides an explanation for why international trade is dominated by countries characterized not only by having similar economic conditions, as the classics argue, but also by trading in similar products - an example would be Sweden, a country that at the same time Imports and exports cars. According to the professor, this type of trade facilitates the specialization of large-scale production, which in turn affects a decrease in prices and grow a large variety of consumer goods.
Economies of scale combined with low transport prices also help explain why people tend to focus on cities performing economic tasks and similar geographic locations.

The low prices of transport can provoke and self-reinforce these processes through which the growth of the metropolitan population contribute to the increase of this production on a large scale, which in turn causes an increase in real wages and a greater diversity of supply of goods.

Most information I gathered from cited bibliography I own.
All credit for images goes to the image section of Google.

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