09 March, 1998
An insight into globalization
By Dr Mahnaz Fatima
GLOBALIZATION is ordinarily understood to be a further expansion of the global production and financial system and lifestyles that many in the under-developed economic system and traditional cultures remain apprehensive about.
Apprehensions about the expansive influence of the global production and financial system remain shrouded in its gap- amplification tendency in underdeveloped countries that has already been discussed considerably through these columns.
Traditional societies fear global lifestyles as some of the life-enriching values of these societies, that many in the West might also wish to emulate, stand distorted or threatened, for the global information system, originating mainly from the economically developed nodes in the West, tends to export lifestyles suited to the capitalistic mode of production aiming at surplus generation and extraction for transfer to these centres in the West.
Even the developments in the global information system have served to benefit the Western owners of financial capital resource disproportionately, more than their not-so-privileged counterparts in the newly industrializing countries in South-East Asia with the help of which the former could move capital out with great speed by simply pushing a button or two leaving the region devastated.
There are, therefore, enough practical reasons for fearing globalization if this is all that it means, that is, a global information network helping a financial system expand further globally and to impose a universal lifestyle with a view to enforcing just one concept of good life all across the globe.
If this view of globalization were true, then there would be an inherent contradiction in the aims and objectives of what is currently understood by globalization and some other values that the world had come to accept universally and voluntarily which were based on openness, tolerance, participation, and pluralism.
So, are we even understanding the term 'globalization' correctly or are we interpreting it much more narrowly than what it actually connotes or should connote? Even an elementary review of the subject would reveal that the latter is true.
Esoteric factor
Even though the available literature on globalization presents the concept as having originated in the West and being strictly secular, the strongest global movements should be traced to god's revelations about the divine truth which should make the globalization movement deeply religious in character.
However, even if we were to begin studying the movement of globalization from recent history, the world is on record for having willingly accepted some integrating global trends especially in the last two centuries.
These include the system of the rise of nation-states, mass production and division of labour, mass consumption, mass communication, and global social movements restoring the rights to the under-privileged and disadvantaged segments of societies including women, minorities, and children. I use the word 'restoring' as these universal human rights were first granted by god through divine revelations which the world lost sight of until recent centuries.
Despite the above benefits of the movement of globalization that may be restricted to the period commencing in the recent centuries, the world in general and the Third World in particular remains ambivalent about 'globalization' mainly because the term is being narrowly defined to include only the new shape being taken by the global economic order.
IBRD's sham glamour
As the above questions were cropping up, a three-day seminar organized by the Heinrich Boll Foundation of Germany, in end- February 1998, on "The Impact of Globalization on Asia" was timely.
It was refreshing to have independent scholars from Germany, Philippines, Thailand, India, and the host country make presentations in a city which mostly sports glamorously advertised seminars/ conferences dominated by World Bank thinking.
This writer had the pleasure of participating in the last half-section of this seminar which included presentations from distinguished speakers that one does not get to listen to ordinarily in Pakistan. The common theme that ran through the presentations this writer attended focused on the increased marginalization of subsistence communities due to the emergence of the new global economic order.
Dr Christa Mueller from Germany dwelt at length on the impact this movement would have on women in subsistence segments of economies in under-developed countries.
For, in the rural economies of many Third World countries in Latin America and Africa, women play a key role in social, economic, and political affairs. The global economic order driven by the capitalist mode and based on international division of labour would tend to dis-empower them.
Mr Bamrung Kayota from Thailand demonstrated how the disfranchised can mobilize and struggle for their rights as was done by the Thai after a major agricultural land resettlement programme of the Thai government.
These small farmers not only organized into an "Assembly of the Poor" and fought for community rights but the movement advanced into a struggle for the rights of the urban poor.
Mr Tasneem Siddiqui threw light on the plight of the urban poor in Karachi and the efforts made in the direction of providing low-cost housing to them by the Sindh government.
The Orangi Pilot Project's presentation was also scheduled as it is exemplary in community self-help and development where the government failed. The next key question is: is the community self-help model an alternative to the traditional organization of production and administration?
Professor Anand Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi illuminated the subject matter by providing some crucial missing links in the search for alternatives to globalization.
He articulated the Ghandian alternative to globalization which is no less global in nature and approach. The alternative seeking greater grassroots participation and advocating a decentralized approach based on local markets and indigenous methods for transfer of technology is already finding appeal in countries ravaged by frantic international movements of capital.
According to Professor Anand, the Gandhian alternative has four key components, (i) ideals, (ii) values, (iii) processes, and (iv) goals.
Gandhi's ideals included freedoms with self-regulation, self- reliance, neighbourly inter-dependence, and duties of the globe. Gandhi's values emphasized practising the truth and non-violence.
Gandhi's processes included character-building and social reconstruction. He believed in constructive work which would climax into civil disobedience if constructive work failed to deliver.
However, Gandhi believed in and practised compassionate conflict and resistance without ill-will which would eventually shape the structure and character of humane societies.
His vision aimed at the development of a constellation of empowered communities that would interact with each other and from which all power would flow rather than from some capital cities designated for the purpose.
Gandhi's above vision has universal appeal as he rejected nation-centricity, state-centricity, class-centricity, male- centricity, and above all ethno-procentricity, thus elevating the status of all forms of life created by god.
However, Gandhi's vision is an alternative to the West-driven movement of globalization as he also rejected Euro-centricity, market-centricity, and machine-centricity which can be dehumanizing.
Professor Anand presented Gandhi's vision as an alternative global approach for the ends of all concepts of globalization remain the same, that is, participatory democracy, freedom from all forms of chauvinism, sustainable development, and a peaceful and prosperous world.
He presented the Gandhian alternative as it seeks human liberation and empowerment in a world where a major portion of the globe is facing the '6P' problems of powerlessness, poverty, population explosion, pollution, pseudo-intellectualism, and populism.
He advocated empowerment of communities as people are growing increasingly disillusioned with state power, class power, party power and market power which have only led to the '6C' problems of consumerism, corruption, criminalization, castism, communalism, and cynicism.
The advocates of the current wave of globalization, however, assert strongly that even the Western originated globalization leads to "a universalized form of life that touches on everyone and causes individuals to orient their actions towards it," (Spybey: 1996, 9).
According to Spybey, globalization would lead to a "saturation tendency" according to which inequalities in the world would gradually diminish until the periphery of LDCs would become indistinguishable from the cores in the West.
If this is the advocacy of the proponents of current wave of globalization, then one needs to research as to how the above noble objective can possibly be achieved. Also, there are the local counterpart groups who are the beneficiaries of this globalization movement which creates a demand for more of the same.
There is, therefore, a need to study the subject in much greater depth with a view to identifying the ignored missing links in the current movement of globalization which are leading to a "maturation tendency" of gap amplification instead.
In addition, alternative thoughts and strategies need to be explored/developed with a view to harmonizing all of them and supplementing/complementing them with each other so that the common goals of all approaches to globalization might become attainable. The subject, therefore, remains a fertile research area.