I decided since the big G got me going over the last few days and illicited a good level of response both positive and less so, both of which are good. Furthermore the pro-Globalisation lobby are taking pot-shots at some easy targets so that’s where I intend to start.

So Globalisation what has it done -let’s take the ‘positives’ and assess them for accuracy.

  • Globalisation has increased the proliferation of the free market and this has led to greater consumer choice and freedoms.
  • Globalisation has led to a rapid advancement in medical science and research and therefore increased our health prospects
  • Globalisation has removed the significance of national borders and brought us as a world economically closer together.
  • Globalisation has led to an increased awareness of other cultures and an understanding of those around us which has brought us socially closer together

So do these points stand up to scrutiny? Taking the first one – the Free market, well, leaving aside my own reservations about how ‘free’ the free market can be anyway, have global consumers got greater freedom and choice? What about quality and availability, is the global market fulfilling supply and demand? One must of course remove from the equation the people in countries who do not have the economic power to be consumers, these are people who do not have enough to meet their daily expenditure demands and include the working classes in Central and Latin America, much of the Middle East, many parts of Southern and Eastern Europe, parts of Asia excepting Japan and South Korea. We are left unsurprisingly with the Western world ie America/Canada Western Europe and parts of Asia. Even here there are many whose ability to act as discerning consumers is hampered by a lack of genuine economic freedom and this must undermine the authenticity of any such claim. What about the rest of us, do we have choice? Well, do we really? Let’s take music -all divyed up amongst the big global TNCs -RCA, WEA, Sony Polydor etc. etc., even most of the record labels we think are ‘independent’ are subsidised and controlled from above. What about food, surely we have a much greater choice of food now than ever before, well yes we do but at what cost, we pay more for food that is farmed properly as this is deemed a ‘lifestyle choice’, milk is sold in the supermarkets at less than it costs to produce it. Small shops and specialists -the butcher, greegrocer, grocer, baker, ironmongers, fishmongers, ice-cream parlour have largely died out, did we chose this? Yes we did because economically most of us are forced to keep costs down and this has led to a dependence on the big supermarket giants which removes the vital passing trade from the high street shops. Again this has led to increased lack of social cohesion as we do not know the people in the supermarket and we cannot build up the same inter-personal relationships and knowledge of those who live around us as we might have been able to do 30 years ago. What about consumer freedom then, we can go to Tesco an English global supermarket chain, or Asda which is owned by WallMart a US global supermarket giant and then there’s Sainsbury’s and Morrisons etc. you all have your own varients I know the German ones, some of which like Aldi and Netto we have over here too. But is it really choice, much of what we buy is standardised brand name pre-packed stuff, the food is mass-produced and full of preservatives, the prices are standardised across the board, the actual selection is exactly the same. Most of what we buy is governed by the fact that we no longer have time to cook and sit down to a good family meal every day, or even for many people every week.

I will answer the next question on technology tomorrow.

Song Of The Day – Sleeper ~ Sale of the Century

Original Comments:


Rachel made this comment,
good subject. liked this entry.
fifth red. taking a break? 🙂
i suppose i’m going to regret being so cocky…
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

comment added :: 22nd July 2004, 02:28 GMT+01
Rachel made this comment,
you HAVE to go to this site. you will greatly appreciate it. it makes both george w. bush and john kerry look like complete jack asses.
http://jibjab.com
and play the strip.
Visit me @ http://palmysinfullbloom.blog-city.com

[Redbaron responds – That really is most amusing! I will add it to my 3rd party links it’s well worth people seeing.]

comment added :: 22nd July 2004, 04:31 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
cheer up chuck
comment added :: 22nd July 2004, 18:22 GMT+01
provemylovetoyou made this comment,
thats so true, you know chuck palahniuk once said
“a moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection”… that kind of holds true to that statement, huh?
comment added :: 30th July 2004, 20:29 GMT+01