From this point, no return
the Necessity of Sustaining Globalization
Part I
Typing and Forecasting Globalization
n his
1999 book, Global Transformations, David Held examines globalization from
a new angle. Setting aside the debate over its virtue, Held focuses on its
construction. He wants to know how globalization is perceived and construed.
Held breaks down the current rang of academic thought on the concept of globalization into three schools: the
hyperglobalizers, the skeptics, and the transformationalists.
(chart)
Hyperglobalists are those who believe that the global
marketplace has taken over as the preeminent unit of human interaction and
state-level control. Ultimately, as the market and transnational and
multinational corporations expand their authority and control, states will lose
all the authority they pretend to have over social and economics forces within
their borders. Again, this classification does not take virtue into account:
there are both pro- and anti- globalization forces within this camp (3).
The skeptics doubt the whole concept of globalization, from an economic point of view. They believe that while
individual countries are certainly interacting more than before, they are not
really participating in a global system at all. Were that the case, the
skeptics would expect to see one price for similar goods everywhere. They
concede the internationalization of economies, but restrict that
internationalization to regional trading blocs (North America, Europe, Asia),
not the globe. Skeptics also see states as the primary builders of these trading
zones and, assuming they are acting in their own best interest, don't expect
them to disappear anytime soon. Indeed, the role being played by national
governments may be contributing to what they see as a rise in nationalist and
separatist movements (5-6).
Transformationalism believes that globalization is a
much grander force, driving all the unprecedented "rapid social, political, and
economic changes that are reshaping modern societies and world order."
Transformationalists don't care to predict in which direction globalization is
leading us: they focus instead on the dramatic changes that we now have to deal
with because of it (7).
For our purposes, however, we are not so concerned about the
debate over the classification of the construction of the globalization concept,
but rather the debate over where globalization is headed. In evaluating that
debate, we will see the limits of this tripartite model.
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