Re: Globalization is pretty much an unstoppable force Bilow.. It's not being externally driven by US imperialism.
Globalization has been going on for some 100,000 years. I agree, it's unstoppable. And for the same reason, it's not driven by US imperialism. I agree with that as well.
Re: but internally by populations who are no longer willing to accept corrupt totalitarian rule.
You lost me there. When the Europeans discovered the Americas and stole the gold and silver from the indigenous people, that was globalization. The Silk road was globalization is a more benign form. The movement and peoples and trade [or product] is globalization.
Here's a definiton from a Canadian source, but you'll find similar definitions elsewhere.
canadianeconomy.gc.ca
The term “globalization” describes the increased mobility of goods, services, labour, technology and capital throughout the world. Although globalization is not a new development, its pace has increased with the advent of new technologies, especially in the area of telecommunications.
It's the means of globalization that are at real issue. The US is quite pleased that it has the highest per capita income in the world. On the other hand, we're not pleased that other countries that have lower per capita income can produce product and services at a lower price than the US. [duh].
So what do we do? We impose tariffs, subsidize various industries, e.g., steel and farm products so the US producers have an economic advantage over countries that have lower costs of production. Europe does this pretty well also. We publicly don't put it that way. What we say instead is: "We want a level playing field.", and/or "We want free trade." And we try to achieve it, with "balance of trade" accounting.
It's hard to be "popular" in a third world cotton producing country that has a cost of production 1/3 the cost of US producers, yet can't sell cotton because the US government subsidizes the cotton industry by $4B/year.
We call that policy "a level playing field". Third world countries that produce cotton call it something different. You appear to call it "progressive politico-economic policies". Some call it "US economic imperialism". If I had to pick between the two...I think it's closer to the later than the former.
Then you can get into the more esoteric topic of American values. What American values are we demonstrating with our globalization policies?
jttmab |
