Wanted: A New Strategy for Globalization
By J. Ørstrøm Møller
Editors' introduction: Denmark's ambassador to Singapore
argues that globalization gives us an opportunity to solve problems in a new way--with a
worldview of cooperation rather than conflict. But we are now seeing a backlash against
the technologies and economic systems that further empower the powerful. Legions of
disenfranchised minority groups, downsized workers, and others abandoned by the high and
mighty are blaming globalization for their woes. To avoid a massive social uprising, the
world's power elite must make a stronger case for globalization--and build stronger ties
with the masses they hope to lead to future prosperity.
t the end of the eighteenth century, the world saw powerful
new technologies destroying the social fabric of the agricultural and feudal society. The
visible conflict was the Napoleonic wars, but beneath the surface it was really a social
conflict between a society based upon feudalism and the new industrial society.
A century later, a similar conflict was brewing and at last
erupted in 1914 with World War I. The second Industrial Revolution introduced technologies
of transformation--technologies such as electricity, which could turn night into day, now
allowed humanity to transform its surroundings. But as with the first Industrial
Revolution, social structures were ripped apart, unable to accommodate all those striving
for opportunities and wealth.
The revolutions wrought by the new technologies of power
and of transformation both created growing disparities with regard to income, wealth,
education, and access to knowledge on an unprecedented scale. They created tremendous
wealth outside the established elite groups or classes of society, accompanied by
destruction of wealth inside those elite groups. This led to the emergence of new
political forces shaping the evolution of societies.
Our present societies epitomize exactly such a development.
The new social disruption can be seen both within and between nation-states. Although
clearly we have seen this disruption before, what is new is the strength, the speed, and
the powerful repercussions it will have on our societies.
It is difficult to challenge the statement that disparities
are growing both inside individual nation-states and between rich and poor nation-states.
All statistical evidence points to that effect. It is equally difficult to challenge the
view that tremendous wealth is being created outside the traditional elite circles. The
new technology has the power to make some people extremely rich. The wizards of this
global, high-tech economy may be worth individually about as much as the United States
spends per year in development assistance.
The establishment is being crowded out by this onslaught of
mighty economic and technological forces. The traditionally rich in society, having
accumulated some sense of noblesse oblige or social responsibility, are losing influence
as their wealth fades away. The new wealthy elite do not find it necessary to shoulder the
burdens of society, their country, or the international community. Why should they? They
believe they owe nothing to anyone other than themselves. The nouveaux riches have
acquired their wealth by breaking away from the existing society, to which they feel no
allegiance. Meanwhile, all those who lost jobs, income, or wealth do in fact belong to the
core groups of precisely that society the new elite have abandoned. No reconciliation is
in the cards. On the contrary, the nouveaux riches are distancing themselves from
political and social responsibility, conveying the impression that this is not worthwhile
and that those operating in these circles are losers.
One hundred years ago, we saw the working class coming to
power. As yet, we have not seen a new determining political class, but we have seen
well-established coalitions inside nation-states breaking up. In Britain, Margaret
Thatcher ripped apart the post-World War II political consensus. She could work a new
coalition while in power, but her successors cannot. In the United States, Ronald Reagan
was the last president presiding over some kind of political coalition. Neither Bill
Clinton nor George W. Bush has been able to shape a new coalition. Traditional and
workable political constellations have been blown apart without any visible lasting and
workable new structure rising to replace them. Political forces are ephemeral and
malleable, not foundations for a lasting social and political consensus creating
stability. There is growing uneasiness that this may pave the way for a decade dominated
by nationalistic, maybe even populist politicians after the policy-oriented politicians in
the 1980s and the management politicians of the 1990s.
. . .
Why Globalization Matters
Globalization is at the forefront of public attention because a rising share of economic
transactions and dissemination of knowledge and information takes place at the
international level. In the industrial society, most people could live a whole and active
life without much connection to international economic transactions. Not so today. People
are employed by supranational companies, they are being promoted or retrenched by
companies with headquarters in other nation-states, and they get much of their information
and entertainment from international channels. The sheer size of the global economy and
its impact on nation-states guarantee that most people feel the consequences of the global
economy.
But most people do not associate capital movements, trade,
and transfer of technology with the global economy. Either they assume these activities
are conducted at the national level or they consider them too abstract to care about.
Rather, to them, the global economy and internationalism are represented by the
institutions trying to rein in the activities of the supranational companies and
constitute some kind of political framework--the European Union, the World Trade
Organization, and the International Monetary Fund, just to mention a few. The majority of
people aim their criticism and anger at these institutions, because this is all they read
about and understand of globalization.
Most people still prefer the national political
decision-making process, despite the fact that it has become more or less devoid of
substance as the parameters that nations try to control have gone international. What they
don't realize is that the global institutions they blindly criticize represent their only
chance of gaining influence over the issues that affect them in the same way as they have
in the national political system. This is why it is so difficult to move the political
institutions onto the same level--international--as the matters they try to control, such
as trade, capital movements, and technology transfer.
. . .
For those convinced that globalization is the best model,
the challenge is to combine the benefit of economic internationalization with the right to
maintain and even develop cultural identities inside nation-states. If we do not master
that problem, nation-states will gradually break up, propelled by nationalism. This will
herald not only the end of internationalism but also economic, cultural, ethnic, and
religious confrontations of a very ugly nature. What we have seen in the Balkans for the
last decade will not be the final chapter of political misconduct 100 years ago but a new
pattern of international and national behavior.
. . .
About the Author
J. Ørstrøm Møller is Denmark's ambassador to Singapore, Brunei
Darussalam, New Zealand, and Australia and an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business
School. He is the author of The End of Internationalism or World Governance
(Greenwood, 2000) and The Future European Model (Greenwood, 1995). E-mail
jormol@denmark.com.sg; Web site www.denmark.com.sg/jom.htm.
