Marxist View on Globalisation - Essay Example

Nowadays one can hardly find more topical and debatable theme than globalization. Dozens of conferences and symposiums, hundreds of books, thousands of magazine and newspaper articles are devoted to it. It is discussed and argued by scientists, politicians, businessmen, religious actors, people of art, journalists. Last century humankind has become a witness and a direct participant of great changes. The development of communication networks, digital technologies and genetics, trade and culture connections, and general globalisation of civilization give us variety of possibilities. People and states get more and more freedom in choosing their behaviour and the way of life in general, however everyone should understand that such freedom involves certain responsibilities. According to a typical definition, globalization is "the intensification of economic, political, social and cultural relations across borders" (Holm and Sorensen, 1995). Speaking about the bases of this phenomenon it is possible to note that some features of modern globalization have a long history. Roots of this process are in the epoch when colonial empires have laid the foundation of the first basis of the international economic relations in this millennium. However the modern international economic relations underlying globalization essentially differ from those that have been generated from the beginning of an epoch of Great geographical discoveries and foundation of colonial empires. Globalisation is an all-round rapprochement and integration of all countries of the world in technological, informational, cultural, economic and political spheres. Though, the term 'globalization' is rather new and "begs for clearer conceptualization and more precise empirical application" (Krieger, 1999: xii), the given phenomenon has its own history. Tendencies to integration and rapprochement between the states existed always, but most considerably these tendencies were presented in two historical periods: first, in the middle of the nineteenth century before the World War I, and secondly in the 1990s years of the twentieth century. Technological basis of the first wave of globalization were phone and telegraph in the sphere of communications, railway construction in the sphere of transport, assembly line production in industry. Technological shifts have caused economical ones expressed first of all in the strengthening of economic interdependence and formation of the uniform world economy. About constantly amplifying internationalization (globalization) of economic development testifies also the fact that the world trade grew more quickly than world production, so the role of the international economic relations constantly increased. Since 1970s of the nineteenth century alongside with export of goods grows export of the capital. Economic globalization in the second half the nineteenth - the beginning of the twentieth century has also pushed integration processes in other spheres. During this period appeared the first international inter-governmental (The Universal Postal Union, International Telecommunication Union) and non-governmental (the Red Cross) organizations. People have started to conduct international sports competitions that have led to revival of the Olympic movement and creation of the international sports federations. But most of all globalization manifested itself in the political sphere. Alongside world economics it is now possible to speak about world politics. So let us oppose the Marxist view of globalisation to that of liberalism, using their assessment of the North-South divide in the contemporary global world. The North-South divide is just one of the "global economic challenges we have to confront in the twenty-first century. Economic scarcity' in the form of shrinking global markets and increasing production costs is intensifying economic rivalries. Technology races and various forms of commercial warfare have replaced the arms race of the Cold War days. According to Japanese politician Isihara Shintaro (Japan Information Centre, 1990), the twenty-first century will be an era of economic warfare. Today it is possible to allocate three schools, which representatives are hyperglobalists, sceptics and transforamationalists. Each of these schools, on trying to understand and explain globalization, gives own estimation to this social phenomenon. For hyperglobalists, for example such as K. Ohmae, modern globalization means a new era, which distinctive feature consists in the fact that people everywhere in the increasing degree get in dependence on orders reigning of the world market (Ohmae, 1990; 1995). Sceptics, for example Hirst and Thompson, quite the opposite prove that globalization is actually a myth, behind which lays a fact that within the limits of the world economy it is possible to allocate three basic regional blocks, where national governments remain very strong (Hirst & Thompson, 1999). At last, for transforamationalists (among them Giddens and Rosenau) modern globalization is represented as historically unprecedented. From their point of view, a state and a society in all corners of the earth meet radical changes as try to adapt to more associated, but to rather changeable world (Giddens, 1990, Giddens & Hutton, 2000; Rosenau, 1997). World economic and social development passed under the strong influence of liberal political ideology. For today liberalism is one of leading ideologies in the world. Concepts of personal freedom, self-respect, a freedom of speech, general human rights, religious tolerance, inviolability of private life, a private property, the free market, equality, a lawful state, a transparency of the government, the Supreme authority of people, self-determination of the nation, etc. have received the wide circulation. Liberalism proved necessity of economic freedom at national and international levels, considered it necessary to aspire to the increasing interdependence and integration both in economy and in politics. Liberals after the World War I have formulated the program of 'reorganization' of the international relations, which are based on the other principles, rather than offered by realists. The liberal school was based on the assumption that interests of people, societies and the states basically are harmonious, and the aspiration to the order and the world is natural both for the person, and for a society. In spite of the fact that today liberals are far away from utopian ideas of idealism of the inter-military period, they nevertheless always aspire to replacement of force with the law in the international relations, to system of agreements and the international organizations. They consider that except for hegemony and a balance there is the third model of the international relations based on the universal law, international organizations, which oppose the state of anarchy with confidential cooperation of states and people. This vision essentially differs from 'realistic' school, for which the international cooperation is if not impossible but extremely complicated, as there is an insuperable differentiation of interests and natural competition between the states. According to Brown (2004: 527) "the key difference is that while liberalism characterizes the political sector of the international system as a states-system, it maintains that the international system as a whole cannot be understood by viewing it purely from the point of view of its political sector. In turn, the reason for this difference is that liberalism argues that politics to a large extent reflects and embodies interests and identities located in and shaped by economy and society. This means that liberals have based their analysis and recommendations for reform on a different understanding of the elements of the international system to that of realism". Whereas realism is associated with the idea of the autonomy of the political - that is, "the claim that states are able to pursue the national interest, defined as the pursuit of power in relation to other states, independently of the interests, values and identities of the social and economic groups that make up society - liberalism sees politics as something that is socially, culturally and economically constructed through the agency of individuals and private interests" (Brown, 2004: 527). "Neo-liberalism is linked to globalization through the argument that economic independence from the state, and therefore economic prosperity, can only occur in a global market" (Muntigl, Weiss & Wodak, 2000: 17). Alongside with liberalism there are also other political ideologies proving the necessity of globalization and connecting the achievement of political purposes with this process. First of all, it is referred to Marxism. Among Marxists globalization is understood in quite incompatible ways as, for instance, the extension of monopoly capitalist imperialism or, alternatively, as a radically new form of globalized capitalism (Callinicos et al., 1994; Gill, 1995; Amin, 1997). For Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels economic globalization of the world was the main precondition for its social and political transformation. "One might think that Marx would shed few insights on globalization, since Marx himself focused almost entirely on issues found within the domestic political economy. He said very little about international politics in general. In some of his few observations, he wrote about British imperialism in India. These were included in a series of newspaper articles written in the 18505. In this account, Marx gave us a good idea of how he might view globalization" (Brawley, 2003: 45). Recently the question on a role and a topicality of Marxism in the twenty first century became widely discussed. Thus the Marxism is usually identified with its dogmatic version. Meanwhile alongside with orthodox Marxism develops the school of neo-Marxism. Among its distinctive features are critical inheritance of achievements of classical Marxism; criticism of dogmatic versions of Marxism; an open dialogue with other social and economic schools; an accent on understanding of modernity as an epoch of global qualitative changes in the basis of public life; consideration of modern economy as a new quality of development of the capital - its global hegemony; a dialectic attitude to the experience of 'real' socialism. A neo-Marxist view would be post-modern in 'that it believes a multiplicity of social groups and fragmented classes exist in the era of globalization that have little or no relationship to the universalized proletariat enunciated by Marx and Engels" (White, 1991: 88). Having gone through short-term euphoria in occasion of new impulses for 'socialism of future' in connection with post-industrial tendencies, the Left critics of the present system have quickly run into pessimism, on having convinced that in practice the growth of information technologies conducts to the opposite - to consolidation of transnational corporations, which "have become central actors of the world economy and, in linking foreign direct investment, trade, technology and finance, they are a driving force of economic growth" (Chen, 1994), and market in economy, and the Right ones - in politics and ideology. The postmodernist point of view has become stronger: practice shows that the progress of an information society is a reality; it gives the certain advantages to certain actors and brings problems to another; it is described in different ways within the frameworks of different paradigms, but 'meta-theoretical' definition of these processes is impossible, and not necessary. Neo-Marxists claim that behind changes in technologies, institutes and forms of social and economic life there are also changes in the basis of economic life, going against forms dictated by the global hegemony of the corporate capital. First, the resources which become general and by that cease to be resources come up to take place of limited resources. These are cultural values. They are not limited, non-destroyable and are unique by their nature. Secondly, cultural values generate other needs, which are boundless qualitatively, in the sense that a person is never limited by the given circle of cultural phenomena. An individual always aspires to new ones, and this not artificial, but the valid creative novelty is the main impulse, the main value. At the same time these needs are especially limited quantitatively. In the world of culture you possess all values, but it is necessary to manage 'to consume' these all values. Such 'consumption' assumes the complex of creative activity demanding abilities, time, efforts, and energy of a person. Thirdly, creativity as an intrinsic characteristic of the world, ulterior to production of goods, comes to replace reproductive activity as a dominating activity in conditions of material production. For creative work the system of public relations at which this work cannot be alienated and is subordinated to the external purposes and conditions is quite adequate. Inherently creative work cannot be carried out within the limits of social division of labour. Accordingly, an internal motivation becomes its attribute. Interest which has such a person is a work as such plus a leisure time actually incorporating with the time of work. If as 'resources' of creative activity act cultural values, and interpersonal relations and dialogue become means of their use, it is clear that key 'resource' for such an activity is a cultural person, a 'person-creator'. Here we come to the issue of a free all-around development of a person, formulated by Marx 150 years ago as a super-problem for a society removing contradictions of capitalism, and perceived by Neo-Marxism as an objective orientation of public transformation. Distinction between Marxist and liberal models of globalisation conceptualisation has more likely normative, than basic substantial character. Both versions bring to focus macro-structures and macro-processes connected with globalization and treat the change of structure of system of the international relations as a kind of opposition of a centre and a periphery. The model based on conceptual dichotomy 'centre-periphery' is the general for both variants of the model. As with the universal/particular dichotomy, the centre/periphery, and global/local, dichotomies are no longer perceived in globalisation theory as pairs of binary opposites, but as mutually constituting terms which simultaneously give rise to specific domains of identity, discourse, power and politics" (Crawford, 2005: 26). The difference consists in an estimation of a character of structure of the international relations system. In the Marxist version the given structure is considered as exploiter, unfair, not stable and non-progressive in its basis. In liberal variant it is progressive; it has potential for the development of periphery. Reference list: 1. AMIN, S. (1997). Capitalism in the age of globalization: the management of contemporary society. London, Zed Books. 2. BEAMS, N. (1998). The significance and implications of globalisation: a Marxist assessment. SEP lecture series. Bankstown, NSW, Mehring Books. 3. BRAWLEY, M. R. (2003). 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