globalization

I went to a lecture last evening on globalization by a distinguished local economist. For some reason my mind wandered a great deal during the presentation, but I came back to reality often enough to hear him support free trade and globalization and express the hope that the US will lead "by example" in the future. I have to confess, and this is probably to be attributed to my lack of attentiveness or simplemindedness, that I generally don't "get" economists when they speak. They have their own jargon and statistics, and are so fluent in speaking adversatively ("On the one hand; on the other..") that you tend to think that someone told them once long ago that the word "balance" was the most important thing to strive for in presenting their material. I think, however, that understanding is lost to the degree that you see yourself as trying to provide a "balanced" picture of things. Identify shaping factors. Point me to policy-making documents. Show me seemingly inexorable trends. Bring me into the heart of underestanding real problems. But don't just tell me that free trade is a good thing and that what we need is a "nuanced" assessment of current trade realities. Or, if you tell me these latter things, I reserve the right to daydream.

The Problem of Langauge

In his famous 1897 law review article "The Path of the Law," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. argued that the person of the future would be the economist or the "man of statistics." He was living in a period where the general language of intellectual speech was still strongly shaped by Protestant theology and moral philosophy, but he saw enough in the circumstances of the 1890s to conclude that America would be money-happy in the 20th century. Holmes didn't foresee the rise of psychological language, which dominated our common patterns of speech in the 1950s-1980s ("unconscious," "drives," "sublimation," "narcissism," "complexes," etc.), but I think he basically was correct in his assessment that the 20th century would be dominated by those who talked numbers and the economy. So, the language of "inflation" or "recession" or "growth" was on our lips in the last few decades, but today the economists have given us two more words: sustainability and globalization.

No one really knows what these two words mean, even though there are definitions you can no doubt come up with, but the fact that they are used now in common parlance shows me that the language of economists still dominates our public life. We secretly, or not so secretly, have money on the brain and take up the language of economists because we believe they are the modern-day shamans who can keep us rich. Language of sin and grace doesn't make much sense anymore to a generation that wants to make sure its pension amount will allow early retirement.

Back to Globalization

The difficulty with the term "globalization" was pointed out by one of the historians in the Q & A after the presentation. He thought that what historians had been talking about for 500 years has been the growing interdependence of nations, even since the "rise of the modern nation state." So, in what way was "globalization" different from what had been happening in our world in the past half millennium? But because the presenter defined no terms and had no hard edges of clarity in presentation, the questioner didn't stop after that observation for clarification. Indeed, the Q & A period became a time for general genial (or even off-the-wall) observations on chemicals, buying refrigerators and "global warming." So, we ended up, in my mind, in rather a mush at the end of the time. We knew that global trade barriers weren't so good and that things needed improvement, but we had no sense of how to take the first step in understanding the "problem of globalization," if indeed there is such a thing that could be called a problem of globalization.

But it seems to me that something has to be going on here, and is highlighted by a few simple observations. On the one hand, the "centrists" in the USA, as well as the Clinton and Bush Administrations, were/are all in favor of "free trade" and "globalization." We not only support the WTO and NAFTA, but even seemingly agree to follow the decisions of WTO courts or reviewing bodies when disputes arise. But, on the other hand, we are also members of the UN and don't seem to want to follow the dispute resolution procedures of that body. What gives? I think this is the key to understanding our approach to globalization. We as a nation support it because we think it can make us richer in some way. Certainly we might lose some jobs (held mostly by union or traditional Democrats) but somehow we think we can gain economically by this.

But when the US thinks it can gain by something, why should we naturally believe that the world also gains by it? It is this question which, I would think, would open up the discussion not only of what globalization means but the real issue behind it: who gains? If someone wants to maintain that it is a "win-win" proposition (is this term from modern psychology?), let them make the argument. Otherwise, let's assess how the WTO or other arrangements help or hinder societal development. That, it seems to me, is where the action is, rather than generic statements about support for free trade.

Conclusion

I ran into my colleague who gave the presentation last evening at the Colin Powell Q & A. We had a pleasant conversation, and I asked him some further questions about globalization. He, too, is not quite sure when the term emerged, even though it seemed to "fit" our day. But, how do we differ from previous periods of our history with respect to "globalization?" He suggested that the rate of flow of private funds into global markets was different today. Now we have private investors who are fueling growth, and sometimes provoking collapse (the Asian currency crisis of 1997 is an example). But I think there is still a lot of the story to tell, though I am not going to try to tell it--today.

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