Globalization of the economy
Topic 5
Vlasov M. P.
lecture notes on the discipline World economy
"Integration processes in the global economy"
1. Globalization of the economy……………………….……………………………. 22. Regional economic integration …………………………………. 233. Classification of countries …………………………..…………………….……... 35 Literature ………………………………………………… …………………... 52
St. Petersburg 2013
The concept of “globalization” in the modern world is used in relation to a wide range of phenomena to denote the growth of its integrity. In relation to the global economy, it manifests itself as the growing involvement of individuals and firms in international trade and investment. Increasing capital flows, labor migration, the reach of multinational corporations, the standardization of technology, and the rapid spread of change and new ideas are indicators that societies and countries are becoming increasingly integrated.
Globalization covers all spheres of human life. In economics, it is reflected in the following processes:
§ international trade is growing at a faster pace than the growth of GMP;
§ there is a significant increase in international capital movements, especially FDI;
§ there is a weakening of economic barriers between countries and their sovereignty due to the growth of international agreements leading to the creation of international organizations;
§ the global financial system is developing;
§ the share of the world economy under the control of multinational corporations is growing;
§ in the implementation of international transactions the role of such international organizations as the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF is increasing;
§ the deepening international division of labor in the form of fragmentation of production leads to an increase in the use of new business methods by multinational enterprises, such as, for example, outsourcing.
In the field of culture, globalization is reflected in the growth of international cultural exchange, in the expansion of multiculturalism and cultural diversity, in the growth of international travel and tourism, in the increasing popularity of the national cuisine of certain countries of the world in other countries.
Globalization is also manifested in the development of global telecommunications infrastructure and cross-border transfer of information through the use of technologies such as the Internet and satellite communications, in the growth of standards that are being applied globally, in the formation and development of universal values, and in the development of international courts.
Globalization can be carried out “from below” as a result of the activities of non-governmental organizations reflecting the positions of civil society, as well as “from above” under the influence of such international governmental organizations as the WTO, IMF, World Bank, etc. It changes the nature of the state and politics in the following directions:
§ shifts power from the national level to the regional and global;
§ reduces the importance of the state as a regulatory force and increases its importance in the production of public goods;
§ promotes the unification of public and private entities seeking to meet the needs of society;
§ promotes the transition from the growth of state institutions to the creation of public institutions.
Globalization has both positive and negative consequences. The economic benefits of globalization are obvious. The rapid progress of science and technology, the reduction of transport and communication costs and the development of international agreements have led to increased internationalization of trade, finance and investment. Globalization has made significant contributions to increasing factor productivity, improving living standards and expanding opportunities. However, in the field of politics, globalization can lead to a shift in power from sovereign states to global elites, to the erosion of national sovereignty and national values, to the internationalization of cross-border problems such as drug trafficking, terrorism, to growing inequality in the distribution of income between countries and between different social groups within countries
Globalization is a complex process, the nature and consequences of which require in-depth study. It should be noted that some experts are skeptical about the concept of “globalization” and deny the objectivity of this process. However, most scientists strive to develop a systematic and theoretically based scientific understanding of it. There are different approaches to understanding the nature of globalization and its essence, as well as different assessments of its impact on human society. In modern scientific literature, the following theories of globalization can be distinguished: the theory of world systems, the theory of world culture, the theory of world government, the theory of global capitalism.
World systems theory. World-systems theory began in the 1970s. in the works of I. Wallerstein devoted to the study of historically developed socio-economic systems. Proponents of this theory argue that the modern world system goes beyond the boundaries of any political and legal entity (state); it is based on a single division of labor, while allowing the coexistence of diverse cultural systems. The main connections between its parts are of an economic nature. The modern world system is considered capitalist in its socio-economic nature: its driving force is the accumulation of private capital based on exploitation; it is characterized by commercialization (commodification), i.e. the tendency to transform goods and services, as well as land and labor, into goods for sale.
World systems theory views globalization as a process of the spread of capitalism throughout the world, which lasted for several centuries and was completed by the end of the 20th century. Its supporters see the content of the modern era in the transition from the existing system of global order - the capitalist world economy - to another global system, the characteristics of which have not yet been determined.
Proponents of this theory believe that the world system includes various states and cultures, but at the same time relies on a single system of division of labor within the world market. Labor is divided between functionally and geographically defined parts, which are organized into a hierarchy of production tasks. Within the framework of the world system, subsystems such as “center”, “periphery”, “quasi-periphery” are distinguished. The central countries specialize in capital-intensive production that requires a high level of skilled labor. The “center” has military advantages, on the basis of which it appropriates most of the profits produced in the world system. Peripheral territories specialize in labor-intensive production based on low-skilled labor, as well as in the extraction of raw materials; they have a weak government structure. Quasi-peripheral regions are less dependent on the “center” than peripheral ones; they have more diversified economies and stronger states and serve as a buffer between the “center” and the “periphery.”
In the process of globalization and expansion of the world capitalist system, changes occurred in its structure. Initially, the “center” of the world system was North-Western Europe, Mediterranean Europe was the “quasi-periphery”, and Eastern Europe and part of Asia were the “periphery”. At the end of the 20th century. the "center" consisted of prosperous industrial countries, including Japan; former colonies that had recently won independence constituted the "periphery", and the remaining independent states constituted the "quasi-periphery".
Supporters of the theory of world systems see the main feature of the capitalist world economy in the fact that it does not have a single political center, which gave it the opportunity for constant expansion (expansion). The modern world system dates back to the 15th century. During this period, the crisis of feudalism in Western Europe led to technological innovation and the growth of market institutions. The progress of production and the growth of prerequisites for trade with distant territories encouraged Europeans to travel to other parts of the globe. Military superiority and means of transport allowed them to establish economic ties with other regions, which contributed to the accumulation of wealth in the "European core". In the 16th century Europeans established a functional and territorial division of labor, in which capital-intensive production was assigned to the "core" while the "periphery" supplied raw materials and semi-skilled labor. The unequal relationship between the European "center" and the non-European "periphery" led to unequal development.
Governments played a decisive role in maintaining the hierarchical structure of the world system, as they ensured that profits flowed to monopolistic producers at the "center" and protected the capitalist system by ensuring the protection of private property rights, as well as the security of trade routes. At certain intervals, some states increased their leadership in technological development and military posture, but no state had a permanent dominant position in the system. In the world capitalist system their competition has always remained. The Netherlands were the hegemon of the world economy in the mid-17th century, Great Britain in the mid-19th century, the USA in the mid-20th century; periods of clear leadership alternated with periods of struggle in the central regions.
World systems theory emphasizes that the capitalist world system is characterized by cyclical crises. They occur because, after periods of innovation and expansion, declining profits and depleted markets lead to recession and stagnation (lack of development). Then again follows a new period of capital accumulation. This is reflected in waves of increase or decrease in economic growth rates. In the 20th century The world system, guided by the goal of accumulation and the desire for profit, as a result of the expansion of capitalist markets to all regions of the world, has reached its geographical limits and thereby lost the ability to overcome periodic crises through the development of new markets.
The world capitalist system is by no means eternal, but historical in nature and can be replaced by another world system. It is currently in a state of crisis leading to such a historic transition, but the direction of the transition has not yet been determined. According to I. Wallerstein, the modern world economy is going through a transition period, the transition from one type of system to another occurs due to contradictions that cannot be overcome within the system; This is a period of intensifying conflicts and increasing unrest, accompanied by the destruction of moral values.
World systems theory has a number of features compared to other concepts of globalization. Firstly, priority is given to the study of economic processes. Secondly, this theory represents an established scientific school in modern social sciences.
Theory of world culture. Unlike the theory of world systems, the theory of world culture theory is not yet an established scientific school, although the name of its founder, the American sociologist R. Robertson, is associated with the appearance of the term “globalization.” However, this theory contains several fundamental principles that unite a number of scientists. First, in exploring the nature of globalization, it gives priority to culture. Secondly, the main issue in this theory is the question of how an individual and national identity can survive in the conditions of the formation of a global culture.
World culture theory provides a specific explanation of globalization that focuses on the question of how participants understand and attach meaning to life in a “global village.” In this sense, globalization is seen as the “densification” of the world, the development of awareness of global interdependence and understanding of the world as a single whole. Globalization covers a system of dynamically developing relations between four key units: societies, the international system, individuals, humanity, which is reflected in processes such as socialization, internationalization, individualization and generalization of ideas about humanity.
This theory studies how humanity moves towards unity, how the integration of national cultures occurs in a globalizing world, how the economic, political and cultural influence of Western society on other societies is carried out. The authors of this theory attribute the beginning of globalization to the period of the birth of modern Europe, which began in the 15th century. with the emergence of ideas about national societies, about individuals and their sovereignty, about humanism. However, the main features of the modern world community were formed in the 1870-1920s. Currently, world culture includes global concepts of the proper organization of national society, problems of personal rights and personality, the involvement of non-European societies in international relations, and the strengthening of the ideas of humanism.
In the context of globalization, the national state turns out to be subordinated to universal standards that originate in the general concepts of humanity, therefore the interconnection of citizenship of different countries is growing. At the same time, the dissemination of humanitarian principles in the field of international politics strengthens the prerequisites for the growth of interconnection not only of citizenship, but also of politics. World culture is characterized by the following features: imitation, glocalism, interpenetration, contestation. Proponents of world culture theory believe that globalization does not create a common culture in which everyone shares the same values and beliefs, but it does produce a global arsenal of ideas and common standards that can be selectively used to achieve certain goals. Peter I in Russia and Meiji in Japan are cited as early examples of imitation.
Within the framework of the theory of world culture, globolocalism is developing - a direction that studies the “territorial” features of the globalization of culture, which are reflected in glocalization. Glocalization is the process by which transnational ideas and institutions take on specific forms in certain parts of the world due to the fact that the universal ideas and processes that form the basis of globalization may be understood and adopted differently by different countries and social groups depending on their goals .
Interpenetration is manifested in the duality of the interaction of such alternative principles as particularism and universalism. Particularism means that each social group develops its own values and customs, which form the basis of their identification, applicable only in their own environment. In contrast to particularism universalism - it is the view that there are values and principles common to all humanity, such as universal human rights. Within the framework of world culture, a compromise of these opposing principles is formed, the universal acquires the meaning of the general, and specific experience - the particular; for example, such a universal concept as state sovereignty is embodied in various private forms of government.
World culture is characterized by disputes generated by globalization itself and the formation of global cultural policy, which provokes discussions between supporters of the preservation of cultural, ideological and religious differences, on the one hand, and supporters of globally oriented ideologies, on the other. World culture theory describes globalization as an endless historical process in which the features of world culture change as a result of various mechanisms, the most common of which is cultural conflict.
The theory of world government. World polity theory studies the formation of a global society based on universal principles of government. Governance is understood as the creation of shared value systems that are shaped by all participants in the “global society” (individuals, civil society, governments, international organizations) and govern their behavior. These systems are embodied in global models of government. Globalization is seen as the growth and widespread adoption of universal values, meaning world rule. In a diverse, conflicting and decentralized world, globalization provides common patterns of thought and action.
The basis of world government is made up of rationalistic values that formed in Europe in the 15th-19th centuries: progress, personal independence and rights, state sovereignty, etc., which have universal (universal) significance. By the end of the 20th century. they began to play the role of a structure-forming element in the world community as a set of rules that everyone must follow. Despite their “Western” origin, these values are perceived as a common heritage, institutionally embodied in many countries around the world.
However, the global models of government that have become ubiquitous do not lead to a homogeneous world: the institutionalization of universal principles in different settings leads to significant local variations. Specific conflicts may arise due to the fact that, despite the conviction of the population that government in the country is based on universal human values and principles, the actions of the state differ from global norms, which leads to criticism from the population of public administration.
The introduction of global models of governance creates significant institutional similarities among different states. They take similar constitutional forms, public education systems, women's rights and environmental policies. However, sometimes there is a gap between the general values that the state strives for and its practical actions. International non-governmental organizations striving for values such as universality, progress and global citizenship make a major contribution to the formation of global principles of governance.
The theory of global capitalism. A number of modern scientists can be classified as supporters of the theory of global capitalism (global capitalism theory). They point to the sources of globalization in the depths of the capitalist system itself, which contains transnational mechanisms in the economic, political and cultural-ideological fields. The main institutions in the economy are TNCs, representing the global business elite; in the political field - the capitalist transnational class (global political elite); in the cultural and ideological sphere - the ideology of consumerism and transnational neoliberalism, propagated by the global cultural elite, represented by the media, as well as elite social movements.
Proponents of the theory of global capitalism include among the economic forces of globalization not only global TNCs with transnational capital, but also international organizations with international capital (for example, the World Bank, IMF), as well as state-owned TNCs relying on state capital. They include the UN, non-governmental organizations, global business organizations, the WTO, political parties, as well as integration groups (for example, the EU), which are considered as emerging transnational states, to the global political elite.
Each of the listed theories of globalization has its own specific advantages and disadvantages. World system theory gives priority to the economic aspect of globalization, but underestimates the importance of political and cultural factors. The theory of world culture, on the contrary, gives priority to the cultural factors of globalization, the theory of world government - to political and legal ones, underestimating the role of economic factors. The theory of global capitalism, despite the fact that it seeks to include economic, political and cultural-ideological aspects, is also one-sided in nature, since it is focused only on one single political-economic system - the capitalist one.
Globalization theory
Introduction
General characteristics of the globalization process, its main reasons
Theoretical approaches to the problem of globalization
The contradictory nature of the globalization process
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
The accelerated development of communications in the 90s created a wide range of fundamentally new opportunities for obtaining information and influencing with its help, mobility and improving the quality of “human potential”. Thus, it provided citizens of developed and, to a lesser extent, successfully developing countries with qualitatively new “degrees of freedom.” Combined with the disappearance of the suffocating fear of annihilation in a global nuclear catastrophe and the democratization of the former socialist countries, this created a fundamentally new social atmosphere, the basis of which, like the social atmospheres of all great revolutions, was a radical strengthening of individual independence.
The first crisis of the global economy (1997-1999) not only convincingly and directly proved to humanity the qualitatively increased interconnectedness and interdependence of various countries and regions of the Earth compared even with the first half of the 90s (not to mention the period of the bipolar world order). Its main significance, it seems, was the awareness of the ambiguity of the influence of the communication boom of the first half of the 90s on public relations - both at the level of international relations and within individual societies.
Before him, the public consciousness of humanity (that is, primarily of developed countries) was fascinated by the process of expanding communications and perceived it with uncritical enthusiasm, reaching the point of perceiving it as an absolute good and expecting it to automatically eliminate all major economic and social problems - in much the same way as as before the First World War it referred to technological progress.
Just as the cataclysms of the twentieth century showed that in the medium term, technological progress does not necessarily lead to social progress, the first crisis of the global economy convinced humanity that radically facilitating and increasing the intensity of communications can not only improve, but also qualitatively complicate social economic situation both in individual countries and in the world as a whole.
Since humanity tends to give a new name to each new phenomenon (instead of a more logical and economical filling of old concepts with new meaning), these grandiose and in many ways dramatic changes could not but affect terminology.
The “communication boom”, which brought humanity closer together and turned it (within developed societies and the elites of successful developing countries) into a single whole, gave rise to the concept of “globalization”. The crisis of 1997-1999, having placed it at the center of very non-trivial discussions about the prospects of the entire civilization and individual countries, made it perhaps the most popular term.
Unfortunately, he did not escape the sad fate of most other fashionable words: almost everyone who uses them puts into them their own, special and only known meaning, as a rule, thinking little about the fact that the word should also have a commonly used meaning.
As a result, discussions about globalization in a number of cases acquire the unfortunate character of a traditional Russian intellectual dispute no less “senseless and merciless” than the Russian rebellion. Its participants, using the same terms, each fill them with their own content and speak not about the general subject of discussion, but each about their own. At the same time, the logic, motivation and thoughts of the interlocutor interest them not in themselves, but only as arguments to reinforce their own position and denigrate their opponents. (It is worth noting that international discussions suffer from the same vices, often on an even greater scale, especially when they affect issues of politics, ideology or the specific interests of even perfectly civilized and democratic participants).
Another feature of disputes of this kind is their deceptive constructiveness. After the participants have happily “blowed off steam”, having each passionately talked about their own things, at the end of the discussion they very easily come to what in fact should have been done long before the start of not only the discussion, but even the thinking - to mutual agreement of terms. Convinced that by the same words they meant completely different concepts (and that, therefore, the opponents are by no means such malicious idiots as they seemed throughout the discussion), its participants are relieved to note this difference. Then they part with a sense of fulfilled duty to history and science, deeply satisfied with the achievement of the highest, but, alas, completely unsuited to achieving any real goals, Russian national value - “reconciliation and consent.” Moreover, in most cases, they do not even remember the real purpose of the discussion they started - the search for truth.
This classic picture is fully manifested when discussing the processes of globalization (especially taking into account the loss of the colossal amount of knowledge accumulated by our society and the decline in the general level of real education and culture).
1. General characteristics of the globalization process, its main reasons
Most often, the concept of “globalization” is used in modern literature, and even in everyday life, to give a scientific appearance to the simple and unpretentious, although never losing its relevance, concept of “our time”. To recognize such approaches, which are often very sophisticatedly disguised, a simple but quite effective test has been developed. It boils down to offering the authors of relevant materials or organizers of scientific conferences one of a list of obviously ridiculous, but scientifically shaped topics. The author, for example, had to refuse to participate four times in two and a half years in scientific events, the organizers of which accepted, sometimes with enthusiasm, his proposal to speak on the topic “The influence of globalization processes on the dynamics of the gravitational constant.” The second most common approach to defining globalization seems to be simply identifying it with specific sets of technical attributes (usually the Internet and, as a rule, global television) and anecdotes. For this approach, the classic definition of globalization is, for example: “this is when an English princess with her Arab lover in a German car with a Danish engine and a Spanish driver drunk on Scotch whiskey dies in Paris, fleeing from the Italian paparazzi.” Despite the frivolity of its form, this definition, concentrating attention on the Babylonian mixture of geographical and national characteristics, brings us close to the essence of globalization - integration.
At the same time, simple identification of these concepts seems illegitimate. Globalization represents a very special, modern and, in all likelihood, the highest stage of integration.
Despite the fashion, the concept of “globalization” has its own, defined and even the most widespread at present (although too often perceived and understood “by default”) meaning.
Globalizationis the process of formation and subsequent development of a single global financial and economic space based on new, mainly computer technologies.
The most obvious expression of the essence of this phenomenon is the publicly accessible possibility of instantly and practically free transfer of any amount of money from any one point in the world to any other, as well as equally instantaneous and practically free receipt of any information on any occasion.
It should be immediately warned that, despite the significant pace of development and worldwide scale, despite the depth and visibility of the transformations, globalization is still at the initial stage of its development. Not only has it not yet borne all its fruits, but these fruits, as a rule, are just beginning to ripen and are contained in today’s processes “in embryo.”
Therefore, many features of globalization (for example, “closing technologies” that provide a qualitative increase in efficiency and destroy traditional production) do not yet exist as a dominant feature, but only as an emerging trend, or even as an urgent need for social development. This work, trying to avoid slipping into the realm of fantasy, is limited only to those actual manifestations of globalization that have already acquired a significant character at the present time.
When getting to know them, as noted above, the greatest impression is made by such striking phenomena as global television, the “financial tsunami” of speculative capital, sweeping away and erecting national economies, the first crisis of the global economy of 1997-99, the rampant international terrorism that threatens to become an effective political and even economic tool, and, finally, the top of everything - the Internet, virtual reality, interactivity. However, the external attributes and tools of globalization should not obscure the main thing - the influence of new information technologies at the present stage of development on society and, more broadly, on humanity as a whole.
According to the general rule, a new technology opens a new stage in the development of mankind if and only if it is capable of qualitatively changing social relations. This is what distinguishes a steam engine from a dishwasher, a conveyor belt from a pipeline, and a personal computer from a mobile phone: their proliferation has forced huge masses of people to interact with each other in new ways that are qualitatively different from previous ones.
Thus, globalization can be recognized as a new stage in the development of humanity, and not a new name for integration and, accordingly, an ordinary manifestation of megalomania of our generation, only if it is established that its technological attributes have qualitatively changed the dominant social relations.
It appears that such a change has occurred.
The main technological attributes of globalization are the computer and the new information technologies generated by it. It was these technologies that united the developed part of the world into a single communication system, creating a single financial and information space, which is a criterion for globalization.
However, today it is clear: this criterion is only external, formal, quantitative. The influence of information technology on social relations manifested itself through the formation of a unified financial and information space only in the most visual, but by no means the most significant way.
The main thing in globalization is not the fireworks of discoveries and technologies that amaze the imagination (and, accordingly, the pockets of relaxed viewers), but change himself subject human labor. Modern information technologies have made the most profitable, the most commercially effective business not the transformation of the environment, of dead things, which remained the only way of action of humanity from the moment of its appearance (and thanks to which it, in fact, was formed as humanity), but the transformation of living human consciousness - both individual and collective.
Strictly speaking, the transformation of consciousness is not new. Propaganda has been used by almost all states of the world, and not only totalitarian ones, throughout the entire existence of mankind. It is a necessary and integral tool of the management process itself (including non-state).
However, due to the huge costs, as well as long and ambiguous payback, propaganda, like infrastructure investments (in this case, however, we are talking about the socio-psychological, forming the “spirit of the nation”, and not the transport or other material infrastructure of society), to the last time was strictly non-commercial in nature.
Modern information technologies have radically changed the situation. By combining advertising skills, the achievements of psychology, linguistics and mathematics with qualitatively new communication capabilities and a general increase in the impact on the human senses, they not only qualitatively increased the effectiveness of propaganda technologies, turning them into technologies for the formation of consciousness, but also reduced the cost and simplified them to such an extent that that they have become practically public.
As a result, if the primary formation of our consciousness is still carried out by “family and school” (that is, family and society), then its change turns out to be the work not of a national or even some sinister “world” government, but of almost every canned dog manufacturer.
After all, the entrepreneur, who never took up the task of shaping the consciousness of his consumers in the last 10-12 years, today, most likely, has already lost them. As a rule, he has long been forced out of business, in which there is simply nothing to do at all levels without the intensive use of effective and cheap technologies for the formation of consciousness. Traditional marketing, which tailors a product to consumer preferences, is extremely effectively complemented by these new technologies, which adapt consumers to an existing product.
Transforming the formation of consciousness into the most profitable business is by no means a private matter of commerce. Indeed, in the modern market world, making one or another type of publicly accessible activity the most commercially effective means making it the most widespread in the shortest possible time.
The rapid spread of modern information technologies has changed the very nature of human development and ensured a revolutionary reorientation of mankind's efforts: for the first time in its history, it began to focus ecologically on changing not the environment, but itself.
The most profound reason for this revolutionary reorientation, most likely, was the approach of the growing anthropogenic load on the biosphere to a certain critical level, which caused a spontaneous adjustment in the nature of human development - at the level not of itself, but of the entire planetary organism of the Earth.
Technologies with the help of which humanity changes itself, by analogy with traditional high technologies aimed at changing the environment, - high-techgot the name high-hume. Initially, they were used only to refer to technologies for the formation of consciousness, but the prospects of genetic engineering and biotechnology in general make it possible to interpret this category broadly, including all technologies for directly changing a person, including traditional ones - such as, for example, education, medicine, physical training and ordinary social technologies,,.
To summarize, the direct subject of the study of globalization as such, as an independent phenomenon, is the influence of the technologies that gave rise to and support it, at the present stage mainly information, on social relations, understood as relations within society and between different human societies.
2. Theoretical approaches to the problem of globalization
Depending on what is put at the forefront when explaining the process of globalization, we can distinguish different approaches to the study of this phenomenon.
Let's look at the most famous of them.
Thus, Arhuna Appadurai presented the process of globalization in the form of five “world cultural flows” or “spaces” - the media, the ethnofactor, the technofactor, the financial factor, and the ideological factor. It is important to note that each of them results in a weakening of the citizen’s ties with his state.
Media space is a sharp increase in humanity’s capabilities in terms of collecting, processing, storing and transmitting information; strengthening the impact of information technology on all spheres of human activity; the proliferation of streams and “landscapes” of electronic images that are the building blocks of behavior patterns, consumption and entertainment; the formation of a “commonality of transnational ideas and feelings” (world culture) based on the improvement of computer technology, the development of electronic media, information technologies, including Internet technologies.
Ethnospace - increasing the mobility of the ethnofactor and the surge of migration flows to the global level; these are tourists, immigrants, refugees, emigrants, foreign workers and other mobile people or groups of people. During the period from 1950 to 1998, Western Europe received more than 20 million immigrants, and the United States, Canada and Latin American countries received 34 million.
Technospace is the intensive movement of advanced and outdated information and mechanical technologies across state borders.
Financial space - strengthening economic exchanges (activities of TNCs, swelling of investments, transferring huge sums of money through foreign exchange markets, concluding transnational speculative transactions, exercising property rights outside “their” state; financial economics outstripping the real economy: the mass of foreign direct investment is growing three times faster than world trade, the volume of transactions in the foreign exchange and financial markets is approximately fifty times the volume of international trade, etc.
Ideological space - the creation of ideologies and counter-ideologies born from the meeting of Western values of the Enlightenment and “peripheral” cultures, the revival of a sense of ethnic identity, religious fundamentalism, the growth of nationalism, the strengthening of the role of “pan-ideological” flows, clashes based on religions, ideologies, languages, cultures , values; dissemination of Western (primarily American) standards of behavior, lifestyle, consumption, and leisure on a global scale; the formation of the ideology of “globalism”, which seeks to justify the inevitability of the changes taking place, their positive nature, as well as to ensure the consent of public opinion and the active participation of the broadest social and political forces in the formation of a new world order under the leadership of the West and with the leading role of the United States. As Alexey Bogaturov notes, “globalization is not only what actually exists, but also what people are asked to think and what they think about what is happening and its prospects.”
Speaking about global interaction in a broad sense, Joseph Nye and Robert Cohen note its manifestations in the movement of information, money, objects, people and other tangible and intangible objects across state borders.
At the same time, they identify four main types of global interaction:
) messages, movements of information, including the transmission of beliefs, ideas and doctrines;
) transport, movement of material objects, including weapons, private property and goods;
) finance, movement of money and loans;
) travel, movement of people
It is also justified to highlight the criminal type of global interaction (criminal space), manifested in the intensification of illegal transnational flows, the international nature of organized crime (international terrorism, all kinds of illegal trade, illegal migration, smuggling of drugs and weapons, radioactive and toxic waste, etc.) .
We spoke above about the growing permeability of interstate borders due to a fundamentally different information and technological level of world development. Although the issue of “transparency” of borders remains debatable, Peter Katzenstein, Robert Cohen, Stephen Krasner believe that the essence of globalization is the process of increasing levels of cross-border movements or increasing transparency of borders<#"justify">3. The contradictory nature of the globalization process
globalization regionalization convergence
Recently, an increasing number of researchers have emphasized that globalization is a complex process that represents the identity and difference of universalism and tendencies, manifestations of the opposite direction. These include:
“regionalism” - strengthening of intrastate regions;
“regionalization” - the emergence of dividing lines between regional groupings of states that are strengthening their positions in the context of globalization; separation of profitable and non-profitable zones that do not coincide with the geographical boundaries of national states; as a result, more and more power functions and powers from their governments are transferred to the authorities of trans- and subnational regions, which become the building material of a new political map of the world in the interests of global corporations.
“autonomization” - the revival of national, ethnic, local centers of gravity within countries, regions, civilizations;
“traditionalism” is the denial of the abstract concept of modernity; revival obscurantismAnd nationalism; glorification of archaism and forgotten cultural fetishes;
“particularism” - the displacement of the interests of civil society by the private interests of citizens, realized in artificially stimulated consumer behavior models; substitution of civic position with consumer forms of self-identification (B. Barber);
- “localization” - consolidation of ethnic and civilizational entities pursuing a policy of “cultural isolation”; the desire for self-preservation of various cultural areas with their “particularistic” value systems (tribalism, fundamentalism, nationalism, fascism, socialism, communism, communitarianism, feminism, environmentalism, etc.); cultural pluralism, constantly violated by claims to the exclusivity of certain forms of social identification, etc. <#"justify">Conclusion
Thus, in conclusion I would like to note the following.
As objective facts testify, the modern world has crossed the threshold of a new stage of its development. The concept of globalization began to be used to denote it, although almost immediately the majority of scientists who used it became clear about the very conditional nature of the correlation of this term with what actually happened and continues to happen on Earth.
The problem of globalization has come into the focus of attention of many researchers. Various justifications for the emergence and development of this process were given.
However, modern social scientists, and social science in general, were not ready for the necessary level of understanding of the changes that have taken place and continue to take place on a planetary and all-human scale. Scientists and science itself found themselves practically without any serious groundwork and developments that would allow them to more or less freely navigate the trends and priorities of a catastrophically rapidly changing world.
And yet, regardless of the point of view on the configuration of the modern world, most researchers emphasize that at the end of the twentieth century the world begins to experience a certain critical period, which is defined as bifurcation , transitional age , an era of turning point, uncertainty. G. Kissinger wrote in this regard that the world and its components have never before changed so quickly, globally and deeply.
Globalization of social life, according to researchers, is:
) the growth of interdependence of the world community in all spheres of life, primarily political, economic and cultural;
) the formation of a global structure of political, economic and cultural relations linking individual societies into a single system.
Manifestations of globalization: in the political sphere:
) the emergence of supranational units of various scales: political and military blocs (NATO), imperial spheres of influence (US sphere of influence), coalitions of ruling groups (G7), continental or regional associations (European Community), world international organizations (UN);
) the emergence of the contours of the future world government (European Parliament, Interpol);
) growing political homogeneity of the world community (democratization of socio-political life).
In the economic sphere:
) strengthening the importance of supranational coordination and integration (EU, OPEC), regional and world economic agreements;
) global division of labor;
) the increasing role of multinational and transnational corporations (TNCs) (“Nisan”, “Toyota”, “Pepsi-Cola”);
) the formation of a universal, unified economic mechanism covering the whole world;
) the lightning speed with which financial markets react to events in individual countries.
In the field of culture:
) the transformation of the planet into a “global village” (M. McLuhan), when millions of people, thanks to the media, almost instantly become witnesses to events taking place in different parts of the globe;
) introducing people living in different countries and on different continents to the same cultural experience (Olympiads, rock concerts);
) unification of tastes, perceptions, preferences (Coca-Cola, jeans, soap operas);
) direct acquaintance with the way of life, customs, norms of behavior in other countries (through tourism, work abroad, migration);
) the emergence of the language of international communication - English;
) widespread distribution of unified computer technologies, the Internet;
) “erosion” of local cultural traditions, their replacement by mass consumer culture of the Western type.
Literature
1. Bauman Z. Globalization. Consequences for man and society / Trans. from English M., 2004.
2. Beck U. What is globalization? Errors of globalism - responses to globalization / Transl. with him. A. Grigoriev and V. Sedelnik; General edition and afterword. A. Filippova. M., 2001.
3.B. Inozemtsev “Globalization of national economies and the modern economic crisis.” “Problems of theory and practice of management”, No. 3, 1999.
4.G. Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? M., "Ladomir", 2002.
5.Global community: Cartography of the post-modern world / Rep. ed. A.I. Neklessa. M., 2002.
6.Inozemtsev V.L. Modern post-industrial society: nature, contradictions, prospects: Textbook. manual for university students. M., 2000.
Lebedeva M.M. Global politics. M., 2003.
Nye JS, Cohen RO. Transnational relations and world politics // Theory of international relations: Reader / Comp., scientific. ed. and comment. P.A. Tsygankova. M., 2002.
Utkin A.I. Globalization: process and understanding. M., 2002.
Shenaev V.N. Globalization is an objective world process // Many-faced Europe: ways of development. M., 2002.
11. Shumilov M.M. Conceptual foundations of globalization // CREDO NEW theoretical journal, No. 1, 2005.
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Today it is difficult to find a more fashionable and controversial topic than globalization. Dozens of conferences and symposiums, hundreds of books, thousands of articles are dedicated to it. Scientists, politicians, businessmen, religious figures, artists, and journalists talk and argue about it. Literally everything is the subject of lively debate - what globalization is, when it began, how it relates to other processes in social life, what its immediate and long-term consequences are. However, the abundance of opinions, approaches and assessments does not mean that all aspects and aspects of this fundamental issue have been revealed and that it should not be studied further. Rather, on the contrary, it awaits thorough elaboration.
Today this is not only, and perhaps not so much, a fashionable topic, but a subject for deep and thorough reflection. It seems that the period of excessive admiration for avant-garde technologies and Internet culture has passed. The time has come to seriously understand the positive and negative aspects of the information age, to decide on the system of social and political coordinates that set the tone and rhythm of people’s daily lives, guide the course of history, and most importantly for us, the future of Russia, the vector of processes occurring in it, its place in the world community, role in integration processes that have covered literally all countries of the world.
Among scientists, both foreign and domestic, there is no final opinion whether globalization can be considered a continuation in other conditions of the previous stages of the development of civilization or whether there is a complete break with the past, that this is a fundamentally new starting point in the history of mankind, without precedent in history.
If globalization is a relatively recent formation, then in this case it should be spoken of as worldwide process. If we consider it an ancient phenomenon, then globalization is world historical process. Definition
“historical” refers to the chronological, or diachronic, component of the globalization process. The definition of “worldwide” shows, as it were, a horizontal slice of the problem, the synchronous spread of some quality to all or most of the elements of a given class.
The emergence of a globalist vision of the world, or, as it is also called, a world-historical vision, can more accurately indicate the time of the emergence of globalism as a special view of the world, a way of thinking, as a kind of algorithm with the help of which people previously tried and are now trying to solve vital problems. In this regard, it is advisable to distinguish between two sections, two understandings of globalism: globalism as ontological phenomenon, globalism as epistemological phenomenon. The rise of the globalist worldview was prepared not only by the internal logic of the development of science itself, but also by objective external events. The epistemological spectrum of globalism, gradually and over many centuries formed by theoretical thought, was combined with the ontological, meaning that the necessary institutional conditions have been created for globalism, that world society in practice is becoming or has already become global.
Globalization is a relatively new term that has become widespread in the scientific and political literature in the last decade. In the United States, globalization describes the process of intensification of economic, social, political and cultural relations unfolding across national borders 9 . Its result is a homogeneous world space that covers all or most countries. This space, perceived as a global stage, includes segments such as geoeconomics, geopolitics and geoculture. A special term has not yet been invented for social relations, apparently due to their heterogeneity. However, the term “global social inequality” is most often used in relation to them. He points out that globalization entails completely different consequences: some countries become richer, others become poorer.
Global society is a new alignment of social connections, cultural norms, psychological attitudes, spiritual values, individual behavior patterns, political regimes, economic institutions. Remaining cells of national organisms, people become citizens of the world. In the process of daily activities, they increasingly come into contact with foreigners and people of other faiths, learning to live and work in a world without borders.
Globalization is a historical trend of the modern era. Traditional boundaries are being erased, and societies are turning into one political system. This did not happen even in the recent past. At the same time, globalization also presents gigantic problems that individual countries cannot cope with and that affect all of humanity. These include, in particular, the threat of a thermonuclear catastrophe, which is closely related to the threat of nuclear war and man-made disasters. All this is complemented by the depletion of traditional sources of raw materials and the search for alternative types
9 Akindele S.T., Gidado T.O., Olaopo O.R. Globalisation, Its Implications and Consequences for Africa (2002). - http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/landow/post/africa/akindele lb. html.
energy. Failure to resolve this problem leads to an environmental disaster (depletion of natural resources, environmental pollution, food problems, lack of drinking water, etc.). The problem of climate change on the planet is acute, which can lead to catastrophic consequences. The environmental crisis, in turn, correlates with the demographic problem. The demographic problem is characterized by a deep contradiction: in developing countries the population is rapidly growing, while in developed countries there is a demographic decline, which creates enormous difficulties for economic and social development. At the same time, the North-South problem is worsening, i.e. contradictions between developed countries and developing countries of the third world are growing. The problems of protecting health and preventing the spread of AIDS and drug addiction are becoming increasingly important. The problem of reviving cultural and moral values is important. After the events in New York on September 11, 2001, the problem of combating international terrorism sharply worsened.
Today, UN experts have identified three priority global problems for all humanity:
♦ climate changes caused by human activity;
♦ extinction of biological species;
♦ continued growth in population and consumption.
The fourth global problem can be considered poverty. It is in poor countries that the population is growing fastest and food supplies are extremely limited; it is here that there is the least money for environmental protection; at the same time, it is the countries that are lagging behind in technical development that continue to intensively cut down forests and pollute the environment.
In the past, society was an extremely motley, heterogeneous mosaic made up of isolated social units, ranging from hordes, tribes, kingdoms, empires and ending with the relatively recent emergence of national states. Each of these units had an independent and self-sufficient economy and its own culture.
Today's society is completely different. In political terms, there are supranational units of various scales: political and military blocs (NATO), imperial spheres of influence (former socialist camp), coalitions of ruling groups (G7), continental associations (European Community), world international organizations (UN). The outlines of a world government in the form of the European Parliament and Interpol are already obvious. The importance of regional and global economic agreements is increasing. There is a global division of labor, the role of multinational and transnational corporations is growing, the income of which often exceeds the income of the average national state. Companies such as Toyota, McDonald's, Pepsi-Cola or General Motors have lost their national roots and operate throughout the world. Financial markets react to events with lightning speed.
The tendency towards uniformity becomes dominant in culture. The media are turning our planet into a “big village”.
Millions of people witness events that took place in different places, millions are exposed to the same cultural experiences (Olympiads, rock concerts), which unifies their tastes. The same consumer goods are in use everywhere. Migration, temporary work abroad, and tourism introduce people to the way of life and customs of other peoples. A single (or at least generally accepted) spoken language is being formed - English. Computer technology carries the same programs all over the world. Western mass culture is becoming universal, and local traditions are being eroded.
Since the middle of the 20th century. and especially in recent decades, the trend towards globalization has qualitatively affected society. National and regional histories become only an addition to the world one. In the globalized world, history proceeds differently; it has new priorities, driving forces, mechanisms and directions. Globalization is undermining the foundations of “island consciousness.” No matter how much you want in the modern world, you cannot isolate yourself from universal problems for long. If the world becomes interdependent, then it means that it is also mutually vulnerable.
In the modern world, products are produced and exchanged on a global scale, made possible by a truly global division of labor. However, most of the products consumed in the West are produced in other parts of the world and vice versa. There may be complexities between production processes in different parts of the world.
GENERAL THEORY OF GLOBALIZATION
“Peace for Russia:
what we need it for and what we can do with it”
(Summary of the open part of the analytical report)
September 1999
Summary................................................. ........................................................ ...............2
I. Dissemination of information technologies
- Information technology: money is losing its meaning...................................3
On the significance of differences in the speed of technological time......5
1.2. New resources for new technologies................................................... .......7
- Depreciation of “old” technologies................................................................. .............8
II. Some consequences of the globalization of markets
- Globalization of competition - globalization of monopolies....................................9
- “Euro”: silencing the threat and destructive selfishness.................................10
- Prospects for the globalization of financial competition:
slowdown in technological progress...................................................11
III. Global competition - global regulation
- What will unite the world into an “economic UN”?...................................................13
- New generation of TNCs: “wind of the gods”................................................. ..........14
- The price of global regulation................................................... ............15
Delyagin Mikhail Gennadievich, born 1968, Doctor of Economics.
In 1990-93 - expert of the B. Yeltsin Group of Experts, since 1994 - chief analyst of the Analytical Directorate of the President of Russia, since 1996 - assistant to the President of Russia. Since March 1997 - Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Internal Affairs, since June 1997 - Advisor to the First Deputy Prime Minister B. Nemtsov. After leaving the government the day before the events of August 17, he created the Institute of Globalization Problems. At the beginning of October 1998, after the arrival of the Primakov government, he was returned to active public service.
More than 300 publications (including in the USA, Germany, France, China, India, Egypt, etc.), 4 monographs, the last one - “The Economics of Non-Payments” - was published in 1996-97. 3 editions.
SUMMARY
1. The development of information technology has led to:
- the emergence of “meta-technologies”, the use of which makes it fundamentally impossible for the party using them to compete with the developer of these technologies;
- reorientation of technologies from the formation of the necessary material objects to the formation of the necessary type of consciousness and culture (the transition from “high-tech” to “high-hume”);
- accelerating the development of information technologies to such an extent that for the most advanced of them, “short”, speculative investments turn out to be productive;
- relative depreciation of traditional technologies;
- the emergence of an “information” society in which money is losing its importance to technology.
2. Main prospects for the technological development of mankind:
- deepening and becoming insurmountable gaps between developed and other countries, as well as developed countries creating new technologies and other developed countries;
- isolation of information technology workers into the internal “information community”, its concentration in developed countries; gradual concentration of the “information community” of the world, and with it world progress, in the “most developed” countries;
- cessation of progress outside developed countries; social and financial degradation of developing countries;
- a possible sharp slowdown in progress as a result of the global financial crisis and destructive competition between the United States and the European Monetary Union.
3. Global monopolies are being formed:
- in global markets for individual financial instruments;
- during the integration of these markets (reducing the “transition cost” between them to a negligible level) as information technology develops - in the form of the formation single global monopoly.
In the coming years, these processes will require the creation of a mechanism for supranational regulation of global monopolies, which will be painful.
The entire development of mankind, including in the field of economics, is determined today and will be determined in the next decade by the achievement of a new qualitative level by two fundamental processes at once: the development of new technologies, primarily information technologies, and the rapid globalization of competition based on it, primarily in financial ones. markets.
I. DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
1.1. Information technology: money is losing meaning
The development of technology led in the mid-90s to the actual creation by the most developed part of humanity of that very “information society”, which was talked about so much over the past decades that they stopped taking it seriously.
The realities of its functioning, cause-and-effect relationships and competitive potential, due to the intellectual and technological gap, are little accessible to perception by those who are outside its borders.
The most important manifestation of the qualitative technological breakthrough that led to the emergence of the information society, and at the same time one of its essential features, is the emergence and rapid spread of so-called “meta-technologies”.
The specificity of this type of technology is that the very fact of their use makes it fundamentally impossible for the party using them to have any serious competition with the developer of these technologies. This is a kind of admission fee to the higher efficiency provided by these technologies, previously found only in dealer and licensed systems. Modern advanced technologies explicitly or implicitly place the user in the position of a licensee.
The most obvious examples of meta-technologies:
- network computer: dispersing its memory in the network gives the developer all the user information and allows the former to interfere with the latter’s activities or even control them (the principle of external control of a computer connected to the network has already been implemented);
- modern communication technologies that make it possible to intercept all telephone messages throughout the world; in the near future it will become possible to fully computer process the entire volume of these messages and intercept all messages on the Internet;
- various organizational technologies ; their main subgroups:
- technologies management, including the organization of the corporation’s activities: focused on the culture and value system of the developing country, they reduce the competitiveness of corporations representing other cultures; It should be noted that in general the spread of an alien type of culture in society, not integrating with the culture of this society and therefore not so much enriching it as remaining separate from it, weakens the competitiveness of a given society ;
- technologies formation of mass consciousness: the constant adaptation of the latter to the forms of influence on it causes an objective need for the constant updating of these forms; Without receiving updated technologies, which appear first in the leading country, and only then are replicated in other countries, the mass consciousness of the societies that used these technologies to influence it will begin to go beyond the control of the state.
Today, these technologies have become dominant due to their greatest productivity. It is they, which have rapidly spread literally in recent years, that have become the technological component of the information society: speaking about it from the point of view of technology, we, perhaps, without realizing it and not knowing about their features, primarily mean meta-technologies.
It is quite natural that transition from the creation of new technologies to their dissemination and the emergence of the information society in this way was most concentratedly expressed by the leader of this process - W. Gates. He pointed out that the main factor in the development of information technologies, in contrast to the previous year, 1997, is not their own improvement, but the integrated use of existing technical solutions to ensure “information transparency” of all countries- “transparency,” as far as one can understand, is completely one-sided for countries creating meta-technologies and serves to ensure their global competitive advantages.
However, the significance of the spread of information technologies is by no means limited to the emergence of meta-technologies and the reliable provision of intellectual, psychological and technological leadership of their creators. Apart from ensuring global information transparency, the most important feature of information technology is opportunity(in 1999, probably still potential) deep and relatively arbitrary restructuring of mass consciousness .
The fact is that, unlike traditional “material” technologies, the product of which is a commodity, the product of information technology, willy-nilly, is a certain state of human consciousness, including mass consciousness. Moreover: a significant part of information technologies was originally intended precisely for such a restructuring of consciousness, having it as the main goal of influence.
Influencing consciousness turned out to be much more effective than influencing material. The technologies associated with this influence have already been called “high-hume” as opposed to the traditional “high-tech”. If earlier technologies were aimed at matter, now they are redirected towards public consciousness, public culture. In addition to the highest productivity, high-hume technologies are also characterized by the highest variability, that is, the maximum speed of progress.
Nowadays, the concept of “globalization” has become extremely popular. It has firmly taken its place in textbooks on international economic relations.
Globalization means a unified approach to developing the world market.
At the macroeconomic level, globalization refers to the general desire of countries to engage in economic activity beyond their borders (see Figure 39.1). At the microeconomic level, globalization refers to the expansion of firms' activities beyond the domestic market.
The material basis of the globalization process in the international economy is the internationalization of production and capital. Internationalization? this is the result of the development of the international division of labor, that is, the development of the social nature of production on an international scale. From the middle of the 20th century. The internationalization of exchange outgrows the internationalization of capital and production and receives a noticeable impetus in development under the influence of the scientific and technological revolution. At this time, there is a sharp increase in international specialization and cooperation in production, and the scope of domestic markets becomes increasingly tight for large-scale specialized production.
Rice. 39.1. Global economic problems
Internationalization and globalization of production create a situation where it is no longer profitable for almost any country to have only “its own production.” Individual national economies are becoming more and more integrated into the world economy and are striving to find their niche in it. The market for natural resources, the labor market, and the capital market are becoming increasingly international in nature. Thus, the globalization of world economic processes characterizes the growing interconnection and interdependence of individual national economic systems.
Globalization? is far from a new phenomenon. The process of globalization began to develop in the 16th–17th centuries, when the first colonial empires appeared: Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, etc. Thus, the reasons for the modern process of globalization must be sought in the colonial policy of the “great colonial powers”: Spain , Portugal, Holland, England, France, Italy, Germany, USA and Japan. After the dominance of the colonial empires ended in complete collapse, did the colonial countries disappear from the political map in 1961? A new stage in the colonization of liberated countries began. This stage was called “neocolonialism”. Although the word “colonialism” is the basis, since 1971 the word “colony” has not been used in international documents. Is a new classification being used? not political, but economic: 1) highly industrialized countries (USA, Canada, Western European countries, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, partly South Africa; 2) newly industrialized countries (Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, special economic zones of China; 3 ) countries with economies in transition (former socialist countries of Eastern Europe, CIS, Russia, China with its special socialist structure). All other countries? are these developing countries, or, as they said in the 70s,? Third World countries". Such countries? 40. Their population is 1.5 billion people, or a quarter of the world's inhabitants. Mostly? these are former colonies. They received political independence, but economically they are all dependent on their former metropolises.
If you look at relations between countries with modern eyes, you can highlight the following points:
1. Previously, commodity and financial flows moved mainly within the colonial empires and their zones of influence, and economic relations between them were of secondary importance, but now all independent states have become subjects of international economic relations.
2. The structure of commodity turnover has changed: the share of raw materials in it is decreasing due to an increase in the share of processed products and the rapid growth of trade in services; The volume of technology exchange is continuously expanding.
3. Although net capital flows remain below the level of the end of the 19th century, their gross volumes have increased: the number of investor countries has increased, and international financing is expanding. The sphere of investment of capital has also changed, an increasing part of which is flowing into the manufacturing industry and services.
4. The forms of trade have also changed: the share of transactions within transnational corporations (TNCs) has rapidly increased. This trade is to a certain extent autonomous in nature, since it develops in accordance with the general long-term strategy of the parent company, is carried out at designated prices and is therefore less susceptible to market changes.
Summarizing these features, we can distinguish two stages of globalization.
At the first stage, the processes of globalization in the world economic space occurred primarily within the confines of colonial empires and their zones of influence. At the second (current) stage of globalization, world economic ties are turning into the main factor in the expanded reproduction of both individual national economic complexes and the entire world economy as a whole. This stage was prepared by a number of new processes in the world economy. These include such as significant technological improvements in transport and communications, their reduction in cost, unification of legislation, especially tax legislation, elimination or weakening after the Cold War of political and economic barriers to international trade, reduction in the number of countries with non-convertible currencies due to an improvement in the situation in world economy since the second half of the 80s. XX century, steady reduction of customs tariffs. All these factors led to an increase in the value of world exports in 1990–2000. 2.5 times, and in total during the post-war period the volume of world trade increased 12 times.
At the turn of the two millennia, we can say that local systems, which previously developed as independent and self-sufficient systems, are leaving the economic scene. It is assumed that globalization is coming. It is based on internationalized production to solve global economic problems (see Figure 39.1).
Globalization in the 80–90s. XX century developed quite successfully. It is assumed that the unimpeded movement of goods, services and capital will lead to an increase in the efficiency of global production, including an increase in its technical and technological equipment, a reduction in the underutilization of material and human resources, as well as an increase and “modernization” of consumption. However, this is far from a straightforward process.
Pros and cons of globalization. As the process of globalization of the world economy develops and the interdependence of the economies of individual countries increases and the exchange of goods, services, capital, and information expands, new problems arise. According to the prevailing opinion, globalization primarily strengthens the positions of industrialized countries and gives them additional advantages. Real practice shows that the globalization of the world economy? This is an opportunity for highly developed countries, especially the United States, to benefit from globalization.
At the same time, a different attitude? towards globalization in the developing world. Not all countries can benefit from globalization. Many developing countries participate only to a very small extent in the processes of globalization, mainly indirectly, through the demonstration effect, information exchange, etc.
Of course, the globalization of the world economy creates certain prerequisites and gives a chance for those countries that are lagging behind in their development, but are full of desire to improve their situation, to join the achievements of civilization. However, the deployment of this process within the framework of the current international division of labor threatens to freeze the current position of poor and backward states, threatening further modernization and social change in most developing countries, especially in the Afro-Asian region. The fact is that globalization weakens the economic role of the nation state, and it cannot control the processes occurring outside its borders. It is responsible for promoting entrepreneurship, developing human resources and maintaining infrastructure. The result of this approach may be a weakening of the state’s influence on structural policy, sources of budget replenishment, capital export, employment, etc.
It should be noted that globalization is accompanied by the rise of neoliberal ideology with its standard set of slogans about the benefits of freedom. At the same time, freedom means the liberation of market relations from any shackles, including state regulation and even state borders, reducing the state to an apparatus serving private business. Is this the era of a neoliberal revival? ideology that says globalization? common good.
But in the East, traditionally the state has always been very strong, often to the detriment of other private institutions. And now it performs several important functions, for example, it regulates demographic growth and fights unemployment and poverty, ensures the interaction of various socio-economic structures to maintain its internal stability, and accelerates the adoption of scientific and technical progress achievements. The function of the state to restrain economic expansion from the outside is especially important, since globalization can forever turn these countries into objects of new neo-colonialism. Therefore, the weakening of the role of the state? not in the interests of developing countries.
Taking into account both the positive and negative aspects of globalization, it should be recognized that nevertheless the formation of a global economy? an inevitable process. A new structure and form of organization of the world economy is emerging before our eyes. The global international economy is becoming a new reality, subject to new patterns that must be studied and consciously used.
The position of such large countries as China, India, Brazil, etc. will apparently have an extremely strong influence on the course of globalization.
On the one hand, these countries are moderately developed, but on the other? claim (with certain grounds) the status of great powers. At the same time, they are trying to maintain a certain distance from the West. That is why they do not support all areas of globalization
