Emerging Commercial, Technical and Economic World Is Getting out of Control - Research Paper Example

Introduction The world is in the center of an economic and industrial revolution more advanced than the one that lead to the transformation of Europe and North America in the 19th century. This revolution is a juggernaut that cannot be controlled by either the governments or multinational corporations (Greider 331). This revolution has also been either to impact human generation both positively and to some extent negatively. While greater amounts of wealth are being produced, there is a downward, too: economic uncertainty; social dislocation; and the rawest, oldest form of exploitation and unfairness of the weak by those that we refer to as the strong. In his book of One World Ready or Not, Greider advocated for some steps that he believed could avert this disaster: change labor practices specially in the developing economies, control the flow of commodities by imposing tariffs as a means of correcting trade deficits, and give chance to labor to share in the capital ownership (Greider 334). He sees multinational corporations as not just looking for cheaper labor but a huge power base. As multinational firms compete for global power and market share, they forget their national mandate of their home country and take no notice of any social obligation will not be profitable in the short term including exploiting and displacing labor. On his book specifically in regards to the statement in page 335; Grieder helps us to visualize the ultimate impact of globalization, and above all to realize that economic globalization is unattainable without similar revolution in the political, social and even the spiritual dominions (Greider 335). The globalization of business enterprises is a world-shattering force- akin to the sort of revolutions shaped in the past on a nation-by-nation basis by such improvements as the assembly line, steam power, and the proliferation of the combustion engine-that is, today, responsible for the world’s total political and social order (Robbins 298). The quintessence of this global revolution is the fact that finance and commerce have jumped importantly above the existing consciousness of people and societies (Hopper 302). Trade has adopted a global outlook, in essence, fast creating a new practical reality for numerous everyone’s life, a new order which has its base in the dynamics not cramped by the traditional social structures. This is a bitter fact that many may wish to shun away from unless one does not live in an industrialized nation. The global production system is a powerful teaching tool: it gives power to every individual to express their capabilities all over the world. Every country especially those with greater resources and wealth, promotes its own description of national arrogance, a natural egocentricity that cannot be isolated easily. But the essence of global commence undermines-and may destroy in the future- the ancient, native pigeonhole where by different people are ranked and rank themselves. The difficulties and disarticulations of the modern world economy can be attributed to a single reason: that is more supply than the available demand (Greider 221). An upward trend in efficiency in the developed countries and new industrial centers appear in the developing world, demand is not able to keep up, for the reason that the consumers are not able to cope up with increasing number of new production being produced. As a result, there is an unrelenting global excess capacity, producing always a downward pressure on prices and more importantly the labor wages (Greider 223). Because of this overproduction there exists a counterpart increased income where by every dollar sales has to be a representative of dollar profits or wages to somebody. But this income can only be saved or spent. Now, a global oversupply problem seems to be a complement to global excess of savings compared with the investments prospects. If anything we seem to experiencing declined savings rates in the developed economies while savings have had an upward trend in the developing economies, the demand for investments has surged even more (Hopper 307). The globalists’ point of view is to some extent seen as quite economical with economic revolution having both cultural and political implications. Nations lose influence and power or even sovereignty because they have to focus their policies to the requirements of mobile capital, with costs for the practicability of the welfare and social democracy which abridged to satisfy the business interests (Wejnert 168). This, culturally, paves way for deterioration of country’s national cultures and hybridized global cultures where national differences is increasingly becomes less marked as globally individuals utilize culture from around the global and forgetting the culture from their own nation. This is aided by the global electronic communications such as, global TV networks, internet, tourism and migration. New technologies have made globalization to be viewed as a new recent thing (Robbins 300). However, that is not the case as globalization has existed since early 1960s. Politically countries that believe in hyper-globalist ideology are seen to be outmoded by international organizations such as IMF and UN, which are regarded as global social movements. Culturally, politically and economically globalists see international, worldwide forces taking charge from countries as the main sources of sovereignty, economy and identity. For this reason, a methodological nationalism is attached to the ideas of society to more global perspective and cosmopolitan on social relations (Hopper 310). E-participation refers social transformation process of the participation in the knowledge and networked based society, within the political and cultural context emphasizing market rationality and efficiency precedence and where the public spheres has been strongly violated by the immense market colonization process (Barber 192). Considering this concept, the function of democratic politics in itself appears subjected to intense transformation (Barber 193). This is attributed to ICT in shaping the new global politics and democracy. The current transformation of the citizen’s participation has its origin in the cultural and structural transformation as indicated by the post industrial/post-modern and the globalized society. E-participation and E-democracy pertains to a specific political context attributed to the standard of neo-liberal society (Barber 195). The relevant elements arising from this social scene of e-participation includes: individualized society as a result of neo-liberal globalization; the increasing distrust for formal and the consideration of politics as a vigorous aspect of the individuals experience outside from the political discourse and institutions in regards to consumption and private life; the effect of globalization on the perception of legitimacy of political structure; the new claims and organizations rising from the wave of social movements at the start of the new century, trying out more individualized mobilizations and a varieties of comprehensive belongings (Barber 197). The world is headed for a difficult and chaotic set of economic and social circumstances; unmanageable surplus goods, disastrous overcapacity in the industrial sectors, unemployable labor resources, unserviceable debts, chronic massive unemployment and frantic and irrational stock speculation (Greider 227). These may seem to be great to an ordinary observer viewing along the surface, the world is walking along a very thin ice of completely new and revolutionary combinations of socioeconomic situations, and we should be barely racing across this frozen and fragile span so quickly or irresponsibly, believing blindly in numerous unidentified corporate forces that for quite a long time have been concerned with the economic, social and political consequences following their activities which are mainly focused on making profits (Greider 229). With the ever increasing uncontrollable and random flow and subsequently use of capital, coming to terms with this emerging slogan of the ‘new world order’ will be ever increasingly problematic (Wejnert). The government of the world seems as if they are uninterested or unwilling to limit, regulate or constrain policies, powers or depositions of the multi-national corporations who now produce, control and distribute the majority of the world’s commercial efforts. These increasing concerns about the emerging commercial, technical and economic world is getting out of control. In his book of, One World Ready or Not, Greider’s ideas are like heaven sent call to arms; the first concerned by a mainstream of social critic whose reasoning we would all like to consider (Greider 231). Works Cited Barber, B. Which technology and which democracy. In H. Jenkins & D. Thorburn, Democracy and New media. MIT Press. (2004) Print. Greider, William. One world, ready or not: the manic logic of global capitalism. Carlifornia: Simon & Schuster, 1998. Print. Hopper, Paul. Living With Globalization. Chicago: Berg, 2006. Print. Robbins, Jeffrey W. Radical Democracy and Political Theology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Print. Wejnert, Barbara. Democratic Paths and Trends. London: Emerald Group Publishing, 2010. Print. Read More