Hirst and Thompson: Globalization in Question: Introduction: Globalization - a Necessary Myth?

PQ Hirst and G Thompson, Globalization in question (Polity Press).

Ch. 1: Introduction: Globalization - a Necessary Myth?

It has become commonly held that we live in an age of radical change, where global interdependence directly affects social life in ways that are unprecedented. This understanding stems from, at least in large part, the forces of economic liberalization and interconnection.

This book approaches this issue with caution. Is it truly the case that national choice has become constrained by international capital? While it is clear that things have changed, this book attempts to put those changes within a perspective that is freed from the commonly held assumptions about global interdependence.

The following five points are argued:

1. the currently intensely interconnected economy is not unprecedented

2. companies that are able to truly span nations, ie., transnational corporations, are not as common as would be commonly assumed

3. there are not massive amounts of capital concentrations pouring into less developed countries. In fact, developed countries continue to be the bedrock of capital investment.

4. globalization is not world-wide: trade, for example, is concentrated among the largest players: the US, EU and Japan.

5. the three countries mentioned in the previous point do have the capacity to overwhelm the logic of capital (2).

The authors outline some potential origins of the myth of globalization. They then paint pictures of two types of economic organization with different degrees of internationalization: the inter-national economy and the globalized economy.

"An inter-national economy is one in which the principal entities are national economies" (8). This economic organization does not entail a radical systemic shift from the period of the Pax Britannia of the gold standard before WWI. Countries are still able to dictate economic policy that may not be to the benefit of global capital.

"A globalized economy is a distinct ideal type from that of the inter-national economy and can be developed by contrast with it. In such a global system distinct national economies are subsumed and rearticulated into the system by international processes and transactions. The inter-national economy, on the contrary, is one in which processes that are determined at the level of national economies still dominate and international phenomena are outcomes that emerge from the distinct and differential performance of the national economies"(10). In such a globalized economy, national governance is difficult to enact and enforce. Additionally, MNCs would necessarily have to be TNCs. Also, labor's ability to unionize and act as a balance against the power of capital would also be eroded. Finally: "A final and inevitable consequence of globalization is the growth in fundamental multipolarity in the international political system In the end, the hitherto hegemonic national power would no longer be able to impose its own distance regulatory objectives in either its own territories or elsewhere, and lesser agencies...would thus enjoy enhanced powers of denial and evasion vis-a-vis any aspirant 'hegemon'" (13).

The history of the current global economic structure is examined.

The overview of the book is then examined.