Not a global catastrophe
Globalisation is a term that seems to have been created solely to encapsulate just what it is about the world that a particular political movement hates. Incorporating issues from the increased homogeneity of global culture to the suppression of labour rights in the 'developing' world, it was the process that inspired thousands of protestors to take to the streets in cities such as Genoa and Seattle, cities that have now become synonymous with leftist idealism.
Although such protests appear to have somewhat subsided of late - in part due to their being superseded by the huge anti-war movement - over 100,000 individuals still saw fit to make their voices heard at the World Trade Organisation summit in Cancun last year. Yet while the "anti-globalisation" movement certainly means well, too often its thinking is over-simplistic.
Amongst the most common criticisms of globalisation is the cultural argument. The present spread of Western 'big business' into the high street and the workplace the world over is, allegedly, leading to a world in which just one language is spoken (generally assumed to be English) and everybody buys the same goods from the same shops - to be consumed alongside a daily Big Mac and fries. Evidently this is an exaggeration, but there can be little doubt that global society is indeed becoming more homogenised. But question for a moment: is this necessarily a bad thing?
There is something immensely patronising about relatively prosperous Western opponents of globalisation arguing that the economic process is eroding the cultural distinctiveness of the developing world. One gets the impression that such individuals have an idyllic, romanticised notion of 'an African village', or 'a Chinese rice field', and thus want to see such lifestyles - which they themselves have never experienced - preserved in perpetuity. Of course, those who actually do lead such lives on the whole find them to be far from idyllic. Life expectancy is often low, hygiene often very poor, and even self-sufficiency sometimes hard to achieve. Is it really such a bad thing if the economic prosperity that should be associated with globalisation results in an ending of such lifestyles? After all, a Big Mac is better than nothing.
Cultural homogeneity can also lead to greater international understanding. It may seem a simplistic point, but if two cultures have the same basic values - even if these are based on somewhat vulgar, consumerist lines - they are far less likely to fall out with one another. Wars and conflicts can only be sustained by vilifying the enemy, portraying him to be barbaric and of a fundamentally different set of principles to 'us'. Globalisation diminishes the extent to which this vilification can ever take place.
This is not to say that any erosion of cultural differences is to be unequivocally welcomed - there is, after all, something deeply troubling in the thought of all individuality being discarded, for the sake of our becoming faceless cogs in an international economic machine. It is, rather, merely to acknowledge that there exists in some areas of the world a trade-off between economic prosperity and cultural independence. The former should not always be sacrificed for the latter, as some opponents of globalisation would have it.
Many other arguments against globalisation seem to be less concerned with the principle of an international economy, and more with the manner in which this internationalisation is taking place. Take the jobs issue, for example. A common line of the anti-globalisation movement is that the process is leading directly to atrocious working conditions in areas where goods are produced for Western markets - the term 'sweat-shop' having been aptly coined to describe the factories concerned.
It is indeed true that shocking practices take place in these sweat-shops (where trade unions are repressed, overtime compulsory and wages pitifully low) - a fact that should not be discounted for the sake of the conscience-clearing "if they don't want the jobs, they don't have to take them" line often employed by defenders of the present system. Just because people accept particular jobs as a least bad option does not mean that we should fail to improve the quality of these jobs wherever possible. The point is, though, that these practices are occurring not because there has been 'too much' globalisation, but not enough. Over the past few decades, economic globalisation has, of course, taken place at breakneck speed, aided by the work of international institutions such as the IMF and WTO. Legal and regulatory globalisation, on the other hand, is lagging far behind.
There are no international labour regulations that must be abided by as a precondition to a product being traded. As such, countries are forced to compete with one another, in order to attract vital jobs, by permitting ever more despicable labour practices to take place on their soil. As in any unregulated economy, the 'strong' (multinational companies, or their 'out-sourced' agents) abuse the 'weak' - those with market power can, quite literally in some cases, get away with murder.
An international employment code of practice would avoid this problem, and go some way towards bringing to an end the days of the sweat-shop, by simply refusing firms the right to trade internationally without compliance - countries would no longer be able to undercut each others' regulation levels.
This same principle of 'taming' globalisation through regulation can be applied to numerous other supposed 'problems' with the process. Environmental damage caused by the actions of multinational firms (such as Coca-Cola's infamous polluting of the water supply in Kerala state, India) could in theory be stopped by decent international laws. Likewise human rights abuses (such as the state hanging in 1995 of Nigerian tribal activist Ken Saro Wiwa). In countless other domains, the legal system (that has always in the past been a vital restraint upon the worst excesses of free-market capitalism) could be introduced to bring the global economy back into line with its citizens' true interests.
Globalisation should be a really good thing. It does not take a degree in economics to understand that trade has the potential to benefit all concerned, and thus to lift many of the world's most desperate people out of poverty. To oppose the entire process based upon the fact that there are problems with the manner in which it is taking place is thus akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
It is also time many in the anti-globalisation movement stopped their often patronising, selfish defence of other people's cultures. Development cannot be stopped; globalisation must be tamed.
The motion: 'This House believes that Globalisation is causing a Third World War' will be debated at the Oxford Union tonight at 8pm
20th May 2004