Globalization and Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is a political and economic philosophy that advocates for free markets, free trade, and limited government intervention. It emerged in the 20th century as a reaction to the economic failures of the Great Depression, and it has had a profound impact on the global economy since then.

Key tenets of neoliberalism:

  • Free markets: Neoliberals believe that free markets are the most efficient and effective way to allocate resources.They support the privatization of state-owned enterprises, deregulation of the economy, and the removal of trade barriers.

  • Free trade: Neoliberals believe that free trade benefits all countries by increasing competition, lowering prices, and promoting innovation. They support the reduction or elimination of tariffs and quotas on international trade.

  • Limited government intervention: Neoliberals believe that government intervention in the economy can distort markets and lead to inefficiency. They advocate for a smaller role for government in the economy, with a focus on providing public goods and regulating monopolies.

Criticisms of neoliberalism:

  • Neoliberalism can lead to inequality: Critics argue that neoliberalism has widened the gap between rich and poor,both within and between countries. They argue that the focus on free markets has led to the exploitation of workers and the erosion of social safety nets.

  • Neoliberalism can destabilize economies: Critics argue that neoliberalism has made economies more vulnerable to crises, such as the 2008 financial crisis. They argue that the focus on short-term profits has led to excessive risk-taking and the accumulation of debt.

  • Neoliberalism can undermine democracy: Critics argue that neoliberalism has eroded democratic institutions, as governments have become more focused on economic growth and less accountable to voters. They argue that the focus on markets has led to the commodification of everything, including healthcare, education, and natural resources.

Globalisation

  • is an ongoing process that involves interconnected changes in the economic, cultural, social, and political spheres of society.
  • As a process, it involves the ever-increasing integration of these aspects between nations, regions, communities, and even seemingly isolated places.
  • Internal economy and the political culture and structures were led by wealthy, powerful nations until the mid 20th centrury
  • Involves the spread and diffusion of ideologies (values, ideas, norms, veliefs and expectations)
    These are not neutral processes and that it is ideologies from dominant nations that frame economic and political globalization
    Francouzský filosof Jacques Derrida proti pojmu globalizace namítal, že to není jev zeměpisný (přesněji fyzickogeografický), takže se netýká globu, nýbrž lidského světa, společenského a kulturního.
  • Modern Globalisation
  • Industrialization enables standardized production
    Population growth starts permanent demand for it
    Movement of capital
    Multiculturality of society

Jean Francois Rischard - High Noon

Economist – world bank vice-president for Europe Twenty issues – twenty failures

  • GLOBAL PROPERTIES
  • Global warming
  • Depletion of fish stocks
  • Deforestation
  • Lack of water
  • Pollution of seas
  • GLOBAL OBLIGATIONS
  • World poverty
  • Keeping of the peace, prevention of conflict, war against terorism
  • Education – solution for population overgrowth
  • Danger of world pandemics
  • Digital inequality
  • Prevention of catastrophies and the mitigation their consequences
  • LEGAL REGULATIONS
  • Reconstruction of tax system
  • Technological regulation
  • Illegal drug trade
  • Bussiness investment and rules of competition
  • Protection of intellectual properties
  • Rules of electronic bussiness
  • Labour conditions and rules of migration

Perspectives

  • World of Davos – China and India as new economic power
  • Pax Americana – a scenario describing conditions how US can keep its dominance
  • New Chalifat – global movement of radical religious identity
  • Cycle of fear – leads to Orwell’s world

Anthony Giddens

  • Dynamic of modernity is entangled by space and time
  • Process of globalization relativizes these ties
  • Social world can not create the stable environment which we wish
  • Runaway world – how globalization reshapes our lives
  • Why modernity transformes to late modernity or post-modernity? It is a set of globalizing processes
  • Process of globalization is decentralized and it does not mean a domination of US over the rest of the world – but it has a bigger influence on it
  • Sceptical approach – nothing has changed
  • Radical approach – the national states are about extinction
  • The world market is intensive
  • Global economic enables quick transfer of money without limitations of borders
  • The necessary condition for globalization was communication systems (60)
  • Also personal and intimate parts of our lives are touched
    • – changes in families and friendship
  • Four dimenses of globalization:
    • System of national state
    •  
    • World military order
    • World capitalist economy
    • International division of labour
  • Cultural globalization – shared knowledge represented by the news
  • Globalization creates new economic and cultural zones insiede states and also across
  • The Uneven development divides the world by co-ordination without loosers But the opposite opinion is the division is between winners and loosers.

RISKS

Natural risks vs produced risks

  • We stopped worrying which trouble can nature do to us but we are more worried what we are doing to nature (environmental issues)
  • Risk which is doubted – viruses (AIDS, bird flu)
  • Risk of radioactive pollution
  • Global war or global economic crisis – leading to a war
  • Rising power of totalitarism

SAFETY

  • Comparison with the pre-modern systems :
    Pre-modern states never reached peace in the same level as now. Inhabitants of cities and towns were permanently endangered by attacks of invaders
    Traditional cultures were full of generally extended human violence
    Modern world supports big areas with ontological safety for their citizens
    Unsafe places are relatively isolated areas (comparison)

Safety vs Unsafety

  • Industrial development provides a certain degree of safety in our personal lives and activites
  • But the same technological development creates environmental issues for the whole planet
  • And also the risks in social level of the society are mitigated by institutional mechanisms but the risk of possible breakdown of this system would be destructive
  • Globalization of risks – endanger everyone without differences
  • The possibility of nuclear war
  • Increasing number of occasional affairs – extension of risk environments – global division of labour
  • Risks of artificial environment – loosing natural en – natural laws don t work, n. cycles are broken or no natural renewal – agriculture.
  • Development of institucionalized risk environment
  • Gaps in knowledge of risks can t be transformed with the magical or religionistic knowledge.
  • Distributed consciousness of risks is well known to everyone
  • Consciousness of limits of expert knowledge or expert systems (they do not know the whole truth)
  • Permanent naming of risks has so-called deadening effect – people get used to “threatening” and cease to take it as serious

Beliefs

  • Beliefs in expert systems (mechanism of cars or plains) is joined with belief
  • We trust that this invention does not betray us
  • The world is constructed by risks humans is no more place for god s actions “deus ex machina”
  • Risk and belief is entangled. Risk expects assign of danger and belief mitigates the danger
  • The opposite of belief is not non-belief but fear or anxiety

PERSONAL

  • Shell institutions – the wrap is the same but the content is different – a typical example is family
  • In partnerships, sexuality, family life – everything is changing – mainly meanings, routines…
  • The word “traditional family” – not well defined – depended on the context of the country

Zygmunt Bauman

  • Globalization is a set of processes
  • New world non-order – includes disorderliness of the world situation
  • Followed by absence of the centre of world society
  • Order is dependent on territorial power but the recent world is marked by extra-territorial power
  • Processes are unprompted – no one controls the
  • The establishment of the globalizing processes is out of anyone’s control than the results are also unmanageable
  • The priorities of G. have changed. It is not concerned by what the society wants but it is more about what is happening to us.
  • The powers of today are exteritorial but the political actions are local
  • Power is not in parliaments but mainly in media and electronic networks – not locally bound
  • The new power hierarchy – ability of a quick movement
  • The fact that the politics is divided from power makes the world unmanageable, unpredictable
  • The co-operation in military, economical and cultural aspects – extension
  • Globalization has its opposite – localization
  • Everybody is globalized but also localized
  • Mobility is the main characteristic of the elite
  • Movement without limits or obstacles is a reason of the chaos and obfuscating ball of cultural habits, ethnic elements social rules. It creates pressure on an individual identity – valid for individuals but also states

Aspect of Time

  • The aspect of time in communication influences our relationships – we can communicate with everyone as quickly with our families

  • Intra-community vs extra-community  no difference- reachability

  • The space assignment is no longer meaningful – the transfer of information is shortened to “zero”

Aspect of Space

  • Territorial-urbanistic constructed space – “cybernizing”

  • Time and space are not interconnected

  • Time is dynamic and space restes static

  • The magic of “now” – an effort to use an opportunity to cut off the past and the future results from now

  • A special event (theatre play) – a specific occasion and then back to their daily lives

Controversy

  • The new stratification criterion is the ability to move

  • The top of the new hierarchy is exterritorial

  • The elite part of the society is freedom of movement contradictory to the territoriality of the rest

  • The territoriality of the rest is perceived as a prison

    • Globals vs locals

       

       

       

Travelling

  • Everyone can be a traveller – if the person has access to global mobility
  • The first are priviledged and the second deprived because they can’t change their place
  1. People globally mobile – live in time – globals – They have an opportunity to overcome distance. They live in the presence and use every moment
  2. People locally entangled – tied to a certain place. They are coerced to bear the changes over the place. They have no control over time, their time contains nothing, empty and monotonous.

Freedom

  • Elites were always cosmopolitan

     

  • They created their own culture and social relationships – they were always regardless of borders 

     

  • The common population did not have this option

     

  • Mobility is not the only privilege of the high steps of the social hierarchy but this influence is a part of the social striving.

Elites

  • Elites are global because they are mobile
  • Mobility is the ability to escape and avoid danger or criminality which is connected with the locality
  • Forced territoriality causes separation and segregation and also alienation.
  • The locals have to be aware that the only way how to get to the elite is to thrive amidst chaos and have the courage to dwell in disorder

Glocalization

  • Why chaos?

     

  • The globalized world did not find rules of fluent cooperation between global pressures and local orders

     

  • The contradictory pressure is not neutralized but the differences are bigger – for example, freedom and abundance of the rich are accompanied by bigger poverty for poor

Poverty

  • Globalization brings new opportunities to earn money but it can be used only by the “mobile elite”
  • The Fortune of the rich is increasing and the poor can t use these advantages
  • Abundance is global but poverty is local nevertheless the reasons are global
  • States become – multicultural and multi ethnical