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Group 1
Criticism of Globalization: Positive and Negative Aspects
Prof. Abdelhadi Boutaleb
(Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.)
Before defining globalization, it might be useful to start with
defining a concept that was used before globalization. This
concept is still used nowadays to denote a meaning different
from that of modern globalization, which has special
dimensions.
It was well known to ancient Greek logicians that defining
concepts or terms with their synonyms or antonyms is an
approach that is confirmed and recognized by the rules of
science and of logic. This is a scientific method to understand
the opposite or approximate concept. It helps fathom the concept
through comparing the points of divergence and similitude.
The concept that I will deal with very briefly is Universality.Universality means belonging to the world and opening it to
humans, their ideas and information and transferring their
practices, ideas and trends from their limited space (the
homeland, the birthplace or the place of residence) to a wider
space throughout which human-beings all human-beings as
well as all ideas, information, currents and creeds - move
without restrictions or borders whatsoever so that the human
thought becomes a factor that influences and is influenced by the
universal environment as a whole. Longing for universalitygrows into a dream of seeing this very universality substitute
citizenship, the single homeland, the nation-state and the
borders, a dream wherein the world becomes a large homeland
for human beings and an extended space for their work and
movement. This trend is now known as Universality.
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The tendency to generalize identification to the whole world is
called universalism. This concept has existed since the dawn of
time, as it emerged since the very beginning of the existence of
man, as humans were possessed by an instinct to fathom the
secrets of the world. This instinct was general amongst allhuman-beings to such an extent that man can be described as a
globe-trotter by nature, who hates to be confined in one
homeland without being able to move around the world to
discover it and draw lessons from this experience.
However, the longer man lives in his homeland, the more
attached to this homeland he grows and, hence, to himself in
view of the benefits that the homeland brings him and thememories man gathers in this homeland with the passing of
time.
Numerous are the phenomena that can be described as universal,
including trends, creeds and theories that were designed to be
spread and belong to the world as a whole.
Capitalism joins its former enemy communism in their shared
universal trend. Communism endeavored to spread its dominionover the world. And now capitalism is poised to be the sole
world order
However, universalism did not often stem from mans ambitions
of forcible expansion on others land, as was the case of ancient
emperors or modern colonizers, nor from mans tyrannical use
of indigenous populations to serve his own interests.
Universalism rather sought essentially to secure benefits and
foster exchange as changing environment entails morediversified and larger prospects to achieve individual and
collective purposes in wider and more favorable horizons.
In this open world, shared values were spread amongst
humankind, without being impeded by borders or stalled by any
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authority, blockade or restriction. These ideas, ethics, values,
principles, religions and theories were described as universal.
This universalism marked the religions that came to educate man
and enable him to spread good on earth. This is the origin of theprinciple of Gods assigning humankind, all humankind, to act
on His behalf on earth to build and wisely manage Gods
creatures on earth. This principle matches the human instinct,
which is marked by and built on universalism.
The Holy Koran incited human-beings to enlarge their
knowledge and thoughts through exploring earth without
restrictions: Go ye through the earth and see (Holy Koran,
surate Annaml, Al-Ankabout and Arroum).
The message of Islam is universal. God addressed Prophet
Mohammed saying in the Holy Koran: We sent thee but as a
mercy for all creatures (Holy Koran, Surate Al-Anbiaa 21,
Verse 107). God also said in Surate Sabaa 24, Verse 28 We
have not sent thee but as a universal (Messenger) to men.
Therefore, the Holy Koran addressed the entire humanity using
the expression O people, because the call of Islam is for all,i.e. universal. And God in Islam is the Lord of Alamine
(humanity) and not only the Lord of the people of the Arabian
Peninsula, where Islam was revealed.
This idea was embodied in what can be considered as Islams
first call ever for universal co-existence, well before the calls
made by nations and by international organizations. This came
in Surate Al-Imrane 3, Verse 64: Say: O People of the
Scripture! Come to an agreement between us and you: that weshall worship none but Allah, and that we shall ascribe no
partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords
beside Allah.
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This universal call was consecrated when Islam abolished
discrimination based on race, colour and sex, a custom that was
known to all pre-Islamic communities not only in the Arabian
Peninsula alone but in the world at large. God told humankind:
O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male anda female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may
know each other. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of
Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. (Surate Al-
Hujurate 49, Verse 13).
This verse brought in three principles whereupon the
universalism of Islam is founded: equality among people, their
inalienable right to difference as peoples and tribes (this pointsout to the types of legitimate differences), preserving the
existence of the other embodied in the difference of peculiarities
so that each race knows its sisterly race and, therefore,
promoting exchanges (to know one another, as seen in the afore-
mentioned verse of the holy Koran).
Equality in universalism, abolishing differences without
however canceling peculiarities and urging mankind to fathom
the secrets of these peculiarities as a means to better know eachother is a triangular relationship whereupon Islam founded its
universal call and message to achieve mutual respect among
humankind. Without this respect, no understanding nor
cooperation is possible among people.
Nevertheless, Islam did not impose this universalism (welded
around a unique universal community based on piety) by means
of force, occupation or tyranny. Islam rather disseminated its
message with wisdom, good advice and argumentation, far from
any constraints or any hegemonic ambition and without
exclusion of the Other. Moreover, Islam upheld its call in a
harmonious co-existence with the messages of the previous
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monotheist religions and on the basis of faith in their messengers
and revealed books.
In the light of universalism, refined by religion, piety and virtue,
the Arab and Muslim wise men were the first to lift barriershampering knowledge and wisdom. They promoted the motto
knowledge without borders and urged for the quest of
knowledge and science from the cradle to the grave and
everywhere in the world.
They effected this motto in the realms of scientific research and
in exchanging wisdom. Some of them achieved the miracle of
the greatest journeys around the globe at a time when it was
difficult to cross the world by land or sea. They made
discoveries, interacted culturally with the others and contributed,
hence, to the heritage of the universal civilization.
These globe trotters, including historians and geographers,
conveyed a clear, thorough and genuine image of the worlds
large nature, diversified environments, different races, and
remote areas with their human, architectural and cultural
peculiarities.
Civilizations, therefore, belong to all humankind or to the world
as a whole and in this global sense a universal content. These
civilizations are the product of distinguished ways of thinking
and practice and were shaped by a shared creativity that can be
described, without being mistaken, as universal.
The civilization that isolates itself is doomed to fall in decline
and oblivion, while open and inter-penetrated civilizationsflourish, develop and diversify their creativities and hence live
longer and spread all over the world.
Which civilization can rightfully claim to be the fruit of its own
sons and people alone? Werent the spiritual civilizations
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influenced by the materialism of the other civilizations? Werent
the civilization of materialistic societies influenced by the
spirituality of other civilizations? The western materialistic
civilization today says it is originally a Jewish-Christian
civilization.
Reference:
Retrieved from
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.p
hp
Retrieved on 23/12/10
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.php8/6/2019 Criticism of Globalization
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Group 2
Criticism of Globalization: Positive and Negative Aspects
Prof. Abdelhadi Boutaleb
(Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.)
What is Globalization?
Today and more than ever before, the world has become aglobal village with the expansion of the communication
networks, the rapid information exchange, the gradual shrink of
borders and of attachment to identities and citizenship, the lifting
of the barriers of visas and passports, the consecration of a new
era when national sovereignty and the authority of the nation-
state is fading away in favor of regional groupings, international
organizations and international legality and law. This means the
beginning of the return to the universal trend which is imposed by human instinct, but in a broader environment and in an
evident endeavor to dominate the world.
Todays universalism is marked by its reliance on sophisticated
and highly performing technology that was not available for the
old form of universalism.
The fact that the verb globalize and the noun globalization
-both require a subject and an object in the other languages fromwhich the world Awlama was translated into the Arabic
language- implies that the globalization process is not
spontaneous as it is implied by the word universalism.
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Globalization is an act by the subject, a globalizer, on an
object that has to accept the act thoroughly and in detail,
willingly or unwillingly.
Globalization is also an act and a practice. It is equally anintegrated system wherein the subject leaves no choice to the
object destined to be shaped up. That is why globalization
advocates describe it as inevitable for humanity, sooner or later.
The subject of this globalization is the United States regime
embodying the uni-polar system and seeking to spread this
system so that the world adopts the American system in politics,
economy, sociology, culture, way of thinking, behavior and
lifestyle. This will make the American system the unique
universal system. Such a situation prompted some circles to
describe globalization as Americanization.
The American globalization discourse was preceded by a call to
building a new world order made by former US President
George Bush after the Gulf world War. George Bush himself
was behind the holding of a summit of the United Nations
Security Council on January 3, 1992 to debate the foundations ofthe new order. However, the final communiqu of this summit
did not clearly lay out the traits of this order nor did it define its
objectives and limits nor the means to build it. The communiqu
only spoke in the customary way used by the international
political community which proclaims at the end of each world
war the birth of a new world order. It was quite normal that the
World Gulf War should be no exception to the pattern that
marked the end of the two world wars.
The First World War led to a new world order based on
consecrating the legitimacy of the occupation of the South by the
North, and dividing areas of dominion in the world by consensus
among the allies, winners of the war. This trend was reflected in
the Versailles Convention, which can be considered as a
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convention for the distribution of booty, and the Charter of the
League of Nations.
Likewise, the Second World War yielded the distribution of
dominion, decided at Yalta in 1945 between the United States ofAmerica and the Soviet Union in a consecration of bi-
polarisation between them, which made the Yalta Agreement, an
agreement for the distribution of booty among the winners of the
war.
After the Gulf War, the world experienced several events that
reshaped the political map, drawn by the two poles after the
Second World War, and replaced with a new map, where the
United States of America emerged as the single power that takes
hold of the booty, by controlling the oil-exporting Arab region
and deciding for its destiny and maps.
Globalization, which is designed to be the major trait of the new
World Order - that is poised to be an old one - has spread since
the beginning like an octopus in all fields. It uses its gains
through being attached to them and through consolidating them
as well as through enlarging its networks around the world totake more. This globalization octopus risks to go beyond all
obstacles and restrictions to swallow everything.
Since the 1980s, there was a succession of events that deeply
influenced the world, and contributed to reshaping the systems
of the world and unifying them in a new World order or a new
world. This situation heralded the fall of the Soviet Union pole
and the start of a uni-polar order, embodied in the United States
of America.
In 1985, the former Soviet President Michael Gorbatchev
declared a peaceful revolution to build a new order in the Soviet
Union, based on reform, or Perestroika, and transparency, or
Glasnost.
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In 1987, the World population increased strongly to stand at
more than five billion souls.
In 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. In
the Same year, Germany was reunified to become a capitalistdemocratic state.
In 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the United States of America
drummed up the support of its Western allies to the Desert
Storm war. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union stood as a sheer
spectator, signaling thus its withdrawal from the competition for
polarization. Former President Bush called, after victory, for
establishing a new world order.
On 3 January 1992, the Security Council positively responded to
the call of the President of the United States of America to
convene a summit that was crowned with a declaration that
served as the first international document that paved the way for
the specialized international organizations to devise regulations
and technology to come up with what it is today called the
strategy of globalization.
The present study will deal with the concept of globalization and
its evolution towards full domination of the world, as it has
become omnipresent in all fields. We will tackle the relationship
between economic globalization and capitalist liberalism in the
world, and survey the fields that are being globalized.
We will equally address the various types of discourse of
globalization and of anti-globalization as well as the movements
of resistance, that oppose globalization in a bid to safeguardtheir threatened peculiarities. We will highlight the positive
aspects of globalization and its negative consequences.
We will conclude with the following question: What kind of
world do we wish to build in the 21st century? We will try to
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answer in conclusion that we aspire to a globalized world, but
within some limits, a kind of fair globalization that rejects
opportunist gluttony. We dream of a world able to preserve the
diversified peculiarities and identities of its inhabitants, a unified
and diversified world at the same time.
What is the Fields of Action of Globalization?
Some claim that beginning with economic globalization was
meant to fulfill a universal comprehensive development and
reflect the world cooperation in economic fields as a starting
point for a global cooperation in all other realms.
Economic globalization appeared as an extension of the world
capitalist liberalization which seeks to enable strong capital to
achieve utmost benefits through liberalizing trade and
establishing free competition in trade exchanges. This is thesystem of free economy which is based on opening markets to
capital able to conquer them. In other words this is the market
economy.
Economic globalization thrived with the beginning of the 1990s
as a result of a well-organized interdependence between the
world capital and the goods and services markets, and also
thanks to the rush of countries which had not joined the GATTat that time, to adhere to the World Trade Organization after the
Second Uruguay Round and committing themselves to its world
conventions.
The provisions and covenants of the World Trade Organization
(WTO) came to confirm the principles of free competition of
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capital and the gradual lowering of barriers hampering the free
movement of capital and their flow onto markets. The WTO
principles and covenants also confirmed the freedom of
movement of national products in the world markets. Goods and
services, made in a local or national market, are distributed andconsumed in an international space, regardless of their origin. In
this way national economies are gradually integrated into the
world market part of what is called global economic openness.
No need to say that economic globalization requires states (or
the public sector) to give up their role in favor of the national or
foreign private sector. It equally requires the nation-state to
implement a policy of the public sector privatization, to lifthurdles on this privatization policy until the public sector is
deprived of all its previous prerogatives that used to entitle the
nation-state to playing the leading and major role in running the
national economy. All this is done in favor of the private sector
which has become an actor in the fields of employment, health,
education, environment protection, the management of some
utilities like water and electricity distribution and national firms.
Globalization assigns these fields to the private sector and tomultinational companies. According to statistics, the number of
these companies in the world rose from 100 in 1970 to nearly
50,000 now. Some 200 of these companies were categorized as
nation-states and multinationals given their importance. More
than 100 of these companies were multinationals, while the
nation-states accounted for less than 100.
This clearly indicates the rapid evolution of world economy as a
result of economic globalization, privatization and the reduction
of the role of the state. Moreover, this shows the long way that
economic globalization has covered in the process, as it
outclassed the liberal capitalism market, which progressed
slowly and timidly.
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Other telling figures show that multinational companies
contribute only 7 percent to employment in the world and pay
only 9 percent of taxes at the world scale, while controlling 80
percent of the world trade.
Reference:
Retrieved from
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.p
hp
Retrieved on 23/12/10
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.php8/6/2019 Criticism of Globalization
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Group 3
Criticism of Globalization: Positive and Negative Aspects
Prof. Abdelhadi Boutaleb
(Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.)
The Expansion of Globalization:
Globalization has gone beyond the economy to affect all walksof human life, defying their national and individual peculiarities
and challenging their own immunity.
Likewise, as the world stood by watching and as the
marginalized groups stood unaware, information, science,
technology, culture and intellectual property were globalized,
combined to the globalization of values, ethics, ways of life and
of thinking. Part of the all-out globalization, identities andspecificities are also set to be globalized, the objective being to
reach a single standardized humankind.
Globalization has political, economic, cultural and ideological
dimensions. The political dimension started when the world
adhered to the Western democratic system, whose
implementation became inevitable, leading to a globalization of
the system of government and of the ways of participation in
government. The mechanisms leading to the holding of soundpopular elections were also globalized.
International organizations took care of globalizing international
law, international legitimacy and human rights, their charters
globalized the rules of war and peace and the patterns of
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international cooperation. Therefore, politics was globalized in
the largest sense of the term, including the systems of
government and the conditions of international cooperation and
of international relations. The international community started to
perfectly command the details and the smallest components ofthis globalization up until the United Nations Organization and
its agencies and bodies, especially the Security Council.
In economic fields, economic globalization which we mentioned
earlier affected all aspects of humankinds living, from
production to consumption, going by distribution and exchange.
In the cultural field, globalization started to affect culture in its
general meaning, i.e. humankinds imagination, theories and
practices and even their feelings, freedom of thinking, of
enjoying specificity and inner dialogue as well as dialogue with
the Other.
Let us take a rapid look at the impact of globalization on the
fields to which we have just pointed out:
1- Globalization of Information:
Globalization of information is materialized through the
globalization of telecommunications and communication, i.e.
new information technologies, which are the communication
networks and satellite TV channels which convey information
across the planet, making the world a small village, as put by
Mac Luhan.
Humankind now lives in a world without borders where humansshare each others happiness and sadness in real time and have a
clear image everyday of their fellow human-beings everywhere.
The Internet today plays a key role within this globalization or
this universal revolution, led by multinational communication
companies within the framework of free competition.
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Most satellite TV channels - supported with multinational
advertising companies while backing and consecrating economic
globalization - at the same time strive to globalize thought and
standardize the way of life, using covert or overt, direct or
indirect advertisement as well as influential psychological stylesthrough inciting people to adhere to massive consumption and to
prefer western products, particularly American ones, be they
materials, thought or style.
It would be enough to know that the predominant language is
English which globalization seems to impose as the language of
the world.
Some 88 percent of data available on the Internet is in the
English language, against 9 percent in German, 2 percent in
French and 1 percent in the other languages.
The globalization of information is embodied in the shrink of
written literature and of the end of the civilization of paper with
the expansion of the new information technology and the
civilization of technological development.
Today, only four international news agencies monopolise
information and shape it in total freedom, namely the Associated
Press (USA)- the most important news agency, the United Press
(USA), Reuters (Great Britain) followed by Agence France
Presse (France).
Knowing that more than one fifth of the world population are
illiterate and the overwhelming majority are civilization-
illiterate, meaning that they know nothing of the evolution of thetechnological and information civilization, either because they
do not use it or because they use it to the minimum- shows that
the globalization of information benefits only a minority of
people who are able to acquire this technology. This is no source
of concern for globalization which is based on free competition
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and enabling the strongest and the fittest to win its challenge.
This is why some are calling globalization social Darwinism.
2- The Globalization of Science:
The greatness of nations is no longer measured by their
geographical size, their military influence, nor their possession
of advanced armament. It is rather evaluated by these very
nations ability to control and draw benefits from economic
networks, monitor information and communication channels and
possess scientific research and invention capabilities.
These capabilities are available to three groups of nations: North
America, and on top of it the United States of America, theEuropean Union and Japan.
According to statistics, research and development (R and D)
expenditure in the world stood at 25 billion US dollars in 1992.
These three groups accounted for 82.6 percent of this amount,
distributed as follows: the United States of America 38.5
percent, the European Union 28.3 percent, Japan 15.8 percent,
Asia 9.5 percent, Russia (former Soviet Union) 4 percent, LatinAmerica less than 1 percent and Africa 0.2 percent.
Technological development was instrumental in the
globalization of science, resulting in the unification of scientific
data and rules. However, the above-mentioned figures are clear
indications of who monitors the evolution of the globalization
of science, who benefits from it and who is leading the world
today.
3- Globalization of Culture:
The globalization of economy, politics, the systems of
government, information and technology inevitably leads to the
globalization of culture, as a unified pattern of thinking
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enshrined in the minds by TV channels, movies and ads which
are presented as a means of modern education. Most of this
globalization message is conveyed in the English language.
Most of todays culture consists of contents broadcast by theseinformation networks, including values and ethics, which are the
mere values and ethics of those controlling and monopolizing
these networks.
It is common knowledge that the predominant type of culture is
the American one. For instance, 80 percent of ticket sales in
British cinema are paid for US movies. The rate stands at 60
percent in France and 90 percent in three east European
countries: the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.
Figures also show that the US motion picture production
accounted for 60 percent of the world production in 1944 and 80
percent in 2000.
4- The Globalization of intellectual property:
The quest to globalize culture is also evident in the debates held
at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Americans
submitted for discussion a request that the holder of books,
songs and all types of intellectual production copyrights should
relinquish their rights in favor of large private groups. The
European Union countries opposed this type of globalization,
while Britain alone accepted it, creating a breach within the
Union. The firms meant by this request are only the strong
American enterprises, which are, alone, able to win the stake of
competition in this field too.
Europe, led by France, waged a campaign within international
specialized organizations, to grant (cultural exception) to the
audio-visual field and to cinematographic production. France
believes it invented cinema before Hollywood, and,
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consequently, has the right to request for its cinematographic
production in particular and culture, in general, an exceptional
treatment rather than dealing with it as a mere economic
commodity that the World Trade Convention no longer protects.
5- Globalization of Values and Ethics:
A heated debate is taking place on the globalization of values
and ethics, especially when new assessment elements are
integrated, challenging the universally-recognized and accepted
ethics and religions.
When I led the Moroccan delegation to the Beijing Conference
on Women, we were faced with difficulties resulting from theattempt of some non-governmental organizations to integrate the
right of what they called a third gender within human rights. It is
claimed that this third gender refuses to be a male or female. The
majority of delegations opposed this abnormal trend. There was
a heated debate between protagonists and antagonists of this
trend. Among the opponents, there were the Muslim world and
the Vatican.
The defenders of this third genders rights to marriage, to inherit
and to enjoy a separate identity failed to snatch a decision from
the Beijing Conference entitling them to rights different from
those of the two genders. They justified their standpoint by
arguing human rights should go global and divide human beings
into males and females and a third gender in between. They
argued that this third gender should be given equal rights as the
other two genders.
The management of Globalization :
Globalization is endowed with universal mechanisms that
manage it firmly and with scientific techniques. These
mechanisms are embodied in international specialized
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institutions that theorize and translate globalization into tangible
reality. The most important of these institutions are the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for
Cooperation and Economic Development, called the club of the
rich.
All these institutions adopt the American logic and draw their
theories from the successful American economic system that
enjoys large capital able to win international competition. This is
the administration that guides the globalization policy and puts
pressure on states to act according to their guidelines.
This leads us to the conclusion that the United States is well
qualified for taking the lead in the globalization system that the
world currently experiences. Only Canada in North America, the
European Union, the region of East and South-East Asia, which
includes Japan, China and the emerging dragons inspired by the
Japanese model, are the ones relatively able to compete with the
United States within this system.
Reference:
Retrieved from
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.p
hp
Retrieved on 23/12/10
http://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.phphttp://www.isesco.org.ma/english/publications/islamtoday/20/P1.php8/6/2019 Criticism of Globalization
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Group 4
Criticism of Globalization: Positive and Negative Aspects
Prof. Abdelhadi Boutaleb
(Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.)
The Discourse of Globalization :
After the decline of the ideologies opposing economic
liberalism, globalization addressed its discourse to the whole
world. According to the American perspective, globalization is
not a mere choice that can be accepted or rejected. It is rather an
inevitability of the new world order and the developing world is
only left with one alternative: to stay confined in its
backwardness.
According to the same discourse, globalization is the shortest
and most viable way for the developing world to achieve
political, social and intellectual modernity. Globalization is said
to be the best and most effective means for the developing world
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to achieve comprehensive development, because it is the sole
way to progress for this world economically, and therefore,
intellectually and socially. The same discourse even argues that
changing the world to the better is through applying
globalization. In this way, the American discourse becomes atype of aggression and sounds like a threat to gag the freedom of
choice. Globalization by virtue of this discourse, is the sole way
to develop a world without borders, a world where only the law
of the market prevails. According to the same standpoint,
globalization is the means to bridge the gap between the rich
and the poor and between economically developed communities
and those aspiring to development.
In its bid to prove the inevitability of globalization, the
American discourse says small states are no longer able to
exploit the divergences between the superpowers, as they used to
do during the cold war and that political openness the world has
reached is intrinsically linked to economic openness. They are
both essential for globalization . That is why the United States
established a close link between them and ties its cooperation
with other countries to the compliance with and commitment to
economic and political openness.
The Action of the Globalization Administration:
This methodological discourse is coupled with a technical
campaign conducted by international economic institutions
representing the administration of globalization , such as the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These
institutions back the American discourse with reports supported
with statistics on means to pull national economies out of their
stagnation and on the mechanisms that developing countries
should use to reach economic growth on the path towards a
comprehensive development. These means include structural
adjustment programs, an all-out privatization, restricting the role
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of the nation-state and relinquishing its financing of burdening
social services such as education, health, information,
environment and employment. They equally include relieving
the State from subsidizing prices through liberalizing them and
the laws of market supply and demand, reducing investmentcosts and adopting flexibility in matters of employment.
Therefore, globalization is, according to this discourse, a
dynamic promising a more prosperous future in which all parts
of the world will fulfil the long-cherished dream of change,
whose means were lacking before globalization. The addressees
of this globalization theory are the whole world, with special
emphasis on the peoples of its architects, in a bid to convincethem of the positive aspects of globalization. Former US
President Bill Clinton had said in a speech to the American
people: globalization will be Americas promising chance. It
will not be an obstacle to its development. Globalization will
build a world with new borders that should be expanded.
Globalization will be no threat to us -we Americans. On the
contrary, we will be among the first to reap its fruits.
Anti-Globalization Discourse and Efforts to PreserveIdentity:
Many are concerned over threats posed by sweeping
globalization to identity and peculiarity. They face the American
pro-globalization discourse by another, attacking the United
States and arguing that through the globalization of the world,
Washington only seeks to Americanize the globe and reshape it
according to its whims and wishes.
French intellectuals are at the forefront of the Europeans
reservations against rushed globalization and urge for protecting
peoples identity against the dangers of savage globalization.
Even French high-ranking government officials and decision-
makers share this view.
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Some of these personalities describe the American intellectual
invasion as a new empire expanding worldwide as a space
without borders.
France uses various approaches in its resistance to this invasion.The French government requires French TV channels to allocate
60 percent of their programs to European production to avert
American dominion. The French government also issued
instructions to stop financial and material assistance to French
cultural events that do not adopt the French language as the
official language. A growing trend in France calls for devising a
law compelling officials to use only French in public events.
Recently, France insisted that the new Secretary General of the
United Nations, after Boutros Boutros Ghali, should have full
command of the French language.
Frances defense of its identity and linguistic and cultural
specificity against rampant globalization has grown to become
an obsession and a concern of all intellectuals, thinkers and
politicians alike. The mobilization is so intense that one can say
that France is facing an identity crisis that some writersdescribed as a collective hysteria resulting from the
domination of the English-speaking American culture at the
expense of the French culture which is losing ground in the
world. The rich and the decision-makers in France now speak
only English, while French has become the language of the poor
and the common people, Michel Sires once wrote.
At the last French-Speaking Summit he attended, former French
President Francois Mitterrand called on the summiteers to helpFrance defend its language and identity against the US
intellectual invasion. However, the French-speaking countries
from which the former President sought help accounted only for
3 percent of the world population.
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The French Culture Minister, who represented his country at a
meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Mexico, waged a campaign
against the United States of America. I am amazed that the very
countries that taught the world a considerable amount offreedom and triggered revolution against tyrants, are now the
ones that seek to impose a totalitarian culture on the whole
world, he said. This is a type of financial and intellectual
imperialism that does not go through the occupation of land, but
rather through the confiscation of consciousness, the way of
thinking and of life, he added.
In his attempts to defend the French way of life, PresidentJacques Chirac opposed the opening of a Macdonalds restaurant
in the Tour Eiffel, so that this monument remains one of the
embodiments of the French way of life.
An undeclared war is currently waged worldwide for the
protection of national identity. The pro-globalization circles are
dealing blows to identity. Though not deadly, these blows
remain painful.
When it opposed the Maastricht Treaty, Norway was defending
its own identity against being integrated in the European
identity, although this Nordic country belongs to the European
space.
Singapore, a liberal and advanced nation, deals with reservation
with the Internet and fears that its Confucius values would fade
away and its specificity would be swept away.
In January 1997, South Korea was the scene of strikes and
upheavals to defend workers rights which were violated
because of economic globalization. Until then, South Korea was
a model of a great liberal capitalist country, open onto the world
market and a disciple of globalization. The January strikes were
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the first protest movement staged by a banned trade union to
demand social rights, whose preservation and defence seemed at
logger heads with the very principles of globalization. The
strikes in South Korea was described as a revolution against
liberal globalization.
Even in the United States, an intellectually-organized and
popular trend is growing, calling for the safeguard of the
American identity that has become under the threat of the influx
of immigrants from the whole world.
Reference:Retrieved from
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Group 5
Criticism of Globalization: Positive and Negative Aspects
Prof. Abdelhadi Boutaleb
(Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco.)
Globalizations Positive and Negative Aspects:
Globalization has positive and negative aspects. On top of its
positive aspects comes the tremendous development of new
information and communication technology. This progress
helped bring the various parts of the world closer and
disseminate knowledge particularly through the Internet which
created a new and open world, a world with unified feelings and
with increasingly closer cultures and interacting civilizations.However, globalization was planned in a rush. It is a momentous
phenomenon indeed. Was it acceptable to leave its handling to
large capital and international financial organizations, created to
serve capitalism and provide conditions for its limitless
movement around the world?
This has become a reality in which the shaping of globalization
is being dominated by the financial dimension. Even the
economic dimension was less important than the financial one.Political, cultural and intellectual considerations are subordinate
elements that will eventually melt down into the financial and
economic dimensions.
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All this raises fears that other decisive mutations will take place,
change the face of the world and severe all links with the past.
Modern states that have no ancient civilization, do not fear for
their identity nor for their civilization, because they are new
ones with no legacy, no heritage and no prosperous history to beproud of and to build on to engage in the future.
These fears are not specific to the South. Some countries of the
North, are also aware of such threats, based on their attachment
to the principles of homeland, borders, nationalism, the flag, the
national anthem, history and national sovereignty. These
countries fear is also nurtured by their pride of their nations
role and concern to see them swallowed by globalization, aglobalization whereby the strong dominates the weak.
Globalization might appear as premature for a majority of
countries, in the North and in the South, particularly in countries
where the Nation-State still plays the leadership in societies and
that are not up to the level of societies for which globalization
was tailor-made.
The societies that rightfully fear the negative aspects ofglobalization are those where national capitalism is unable to
spread its hegemony for the simple reason that either it does not
exist at all or that it is too weak. Such societies also cannot
relinquish their Nation-State that has not yet fulfilled its
objectives, and where civil society and the private sector are still
unable to take over the States authority and leading role,
particularly in social areas. Moreover, in those societies,
privatization is impossible because the private sector is unable to
replace the public sector, i.e. the societies where privatization is
a squandering of the States wealth and resources in favor of
foreign companies.
The fear of globalization goes as far as considering it as a system
that sweeps all the principles known to the civilized world,
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including the protection of the weak by a strong Nation-State
from exclusion, unemployment and poverty and the provision of
social security to its weakest citizens.
Some opponents of globalization see in its system a merereflection of the dominion of the social aspects by the financial
ones. They even consider it as a new form of occupation, not a
political or a military one, but rather a financial occupation that
imposes a uniform type of thinking and erases all national
historical heritage.
The opponents of globalization adopt various forms of
opposition. They did not restrict themselves to staging
demonstrations and other movements of protest, similar to the
first one held in Seattle. Experts and thinkers amongst these
opponents are now devising a social and economic counter-
project to outline new foundations for a fair, egalitarian and
human globalization based on a balanced world economy and
catering for the interests of developing countries. This new type
of globalization builds a new unified world where the plurality
of concepts, values, culture and specificities is not excluded.
This project adopts the positive aspects of globalization anddismisses the negative ones.
The theoreticians of the alternative globalization have already
started to declare the fundamental principles of this system that
they will present in the form of a charter to the United Nations to
give it an international legitimacy after being submitted for
debate at the world level. Globalization that was imposed on the
world as a fait accompli never proceeded in this way.
Nevertheless, globalization remains a complex and ambiguous
phenomenon for which analysts give different analyses.
Globalization architects say it means the generalization of
wealth and prosperity, as it targets the promotion of economic
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exchanges, the increase of foreign investments and the
development of modern technology that secures the
advancement of information and communication means.
Other analysts and experts among opponents believeglobalization is an excessive hegemony of capitalism, as it
enriches the rich and impoverishes the poor countries that are
called by euphemism developing nations, while some of them
head steadily towards more backwardness. Such a situation only
plunges the majority of the worlds population into yet more
exclusion and marginalization.
Therefore, globalization appears as a dual phenomenon with two
antagonistic dimensions.
Seen from one perspective, it looks like a system of wealth,
prosperity or even the promised heaven. From another, it
appears as a system of exclusion and marginalization. For some,
it is a merciful angel, while for others, it is Satan.
Looking at globalization from one single perspective is short-
sighted, because it has both positive and negative aspects.
In a speech to the General Conference of UNESCO on October
15, 2001, President Jacques Chirac of France said globalization
can be described neither as positive nor negative, for such a
judgment gives it a moral dimension that it does not have and
intentions that it does not pursue. Making a judgment of
globalization will ascribe to it unspecified and unclear social
projects, while globalization deals with material objects only. It
is these objects that we should judge as positive or negative andnot globalization itself.
We believe that the French Presidents statement is different
only in terms of methodology that does not rid globalization of
its negative aspects.
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