Globalization: Threat or Promise?

M.V. Naidu
GLOBALIZATION IS BEING presented as the process of enhancing
collective
measures to stop international violence and wars, to save global
environment, and to eliminate Third World poverty and economic
inequality
through developed communications, investments, trade, and aid.
Globalization implies that "bigger is better."
But the central question is: what caused these problems in the
first place?
Otherwise we end up with the logic of the tragedies caused by
drunk
driving. More policing, more fines, more punishment, while selling
more
liquor to the drivers, cannot end drunk driving. The solution lies in
going
to the root of drunkenness, that is, alcoholism! The root causes for
the
current global malaise are twofold: (a) massive and reckless
industrialization, and (b) dehumanization of science, technology,
and
industry.
By "massiveness" I mean mass production leading to mass
surpluses
necessitating mass distribution and mass consumption through
massive
technologicalization, capitalization, monopolization, and
governmentalization.
By dehumanization I mean total concentration of the industries on
commercial profit and economic power to a total exclusion of
concerns for
human health and happiness in terms of physical, intellectual, and

economic
well-being.
Massive industrialization necessitates massive supplies of raw
materials,
energy sources, capital, trade, and markets. The amassing of
these
ingredients in the initial stage of industrialization creates an
exploitative system within the society. I call it domestic
colonialism.1 As
industrialization becomes more and more massive, it leads to
reckless
expansion of colonialism abroad.2 Informal and defacto
colonialism is
neo-colonialism.
The oppression of the peoples in the colonies, the struggle to
maintain,
defend, or expand colonies, necessitate militarization, intercolonial
wars, and world wars.3
Goods produced have to be sold and consumed. Hence the rise of
the
revolutions in transportation and communications. While
development in
transportation helps move goods and travellers, it also helps in
the fast
moving of war machines and soldiers to every nook and corner of
the world.
The mass media of communications-from the printing press to
computer chips
and satellites-have become the instruments of propaganda,
thought control,
and brainwashing. The Time Magazine imperialism or CNN neocoloralism are
the examples.4 The globalized messages of racism, ethnicism,
sexism,

religionism, dogmatism, and jingoism flourished through the

media
imperialism. These narrow-minded messages, which are used to
boost
industrialization, have also caused communal antagonisms and
blood baths on
national and international levels.
Mass production built on the assembly line and automation makes
workers
redundant. Unemployed workers can create strains and stresses
on the
economic-political system. The Europe of the eighteenth and
nineteenth
centuries got rid of its surplus unwanted population by shipping
them out
to new continents. Today millions of descendants of European
ancestry are
spread around the world. Such emigration not only reduced
tensions within
Europe, but also created colonies that became the suppliers of
raw
materials, slave and cheap labour, captured markets, investment,
and
profit-making opportunities. Worse than that, the colonies
provided arms,
armies, and battlefields.5 This history cannot be repeated to help
the
industrialization of the Third-World countries.
Day one of the technological revolution in industry was also the
day one of
the revolution in arms manufacture. Every technological
improvement was
quickly translated into more and more destructive weaponry.6
This
"techno-industrial~military complex" also became the powerful
vehicle of

militarization, world wars, and colonialization.

This has been the legacy of globalization of massive
industrialization. Now
the contemporary advocates of globalization are sloganeering
that what is
good for the developed West is also good for the poor states. The
haunting
fact is that the United States, one country out of 185 in the world.
uses
up nearly 40 per cent of world resources.
The old imperialists now call themselves G7 or G8, the donor
nations, the
money-lenders to IMF and the World Bank. The old victims are
now called the
protectorates, the allies,the satellites, the recipients of aid, and so
on.
The proponents of globalization are pushing free trade treaties
and
Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI). They have formed
free trade
zones, NAFTA, ECM, WTO, etc. Free trade and investment are
undoubtedly
profitable for the developed countries, but its usefulness to the
Third
World is highly dubious.7 The recent sudden economic collapse of
Asia's
"minor dragons" betrayed the false bottom of the neo-colonial
dependent
economies. The collapse of these Asian countries is the
manifestation of
globalization that is being advocated by MNCs, the IMF, and the
World
Bank.8 In the immortal words of William Kaiser, "free trade is the
weapon
of the strong, protectionism is the shield of the weak."

Massive industrialization is impossible without globalized

colonialism and
colonialism is unavoidable for globalized industries. It is an
oxymoron to
argue that globalized poverty and economic inequalities can be
eliminated
by globalized industrialism and neo-colonialism. As long as
economic
inequalities exist in the world and as long as the rich and the
developed
states insist on improving and sustaining their own wealth and
well-being,
globalization of free trade and investment will never bring about
equitable
economic benefits to all the nations in the world. Some regions
and
nationalities, within and outside the state, will always end up as
the
victims of trade inequalities.
Another tragic consequence that is often played down by the
advocates of
massive industrialization is the fact that the more technological
and
industrialized an economy becomes, the more unemployment it
generates
through trade cycles of booms and bursts through redundancy.
Mechanization
displaces workers and automation makes workers redundant.
Advanced
industrialization, whether under capitalism, communism, or
fascism, becomes
dehumanized by focusing on productivity and competitiveness,
and on power
and profit, through increased automation and rationalization and
unemployment.
While proclaiming pious platitudes of humanitarianism, the

investors and
money-lenders from the rich countries work for their own
profitability. It
is like my banker who lends me money but seeks high interest
and a mortgage
on everything I own-from cuff links to cars-and is ever ready to
confiscate
them. When I fail to make the payments. Should this Shylock
banker, who
wants his pound of flesh, claim that he is doing me a favour?
Globalization of trade, investments, and banking can only mean
further
dictation and domination of the developed countries and further
indebtedness and impoverishment of the undeveloped or
developing countries.
The globalized Shylocks will undoubtedly demand their pound of
flesh!
In short, the answer to globalized militarization and wars, to
globalized
pollution and ecological disaster, and to globalized exploitation,
poverty,
and inequality, is not more globalization, but less of it, and its
eventual
elimination!
Small-scale and indigenized industries that are built upon national
self-reliance and self-sufficiency, with minimum surpluses, will
lead to
devolution and decentralization of economic productivity. Such
produdivity
will accordingly reduce science-technology to the level suitable to
small-scale industries, will reduce the need for raw materials,
energy and
pollution, and will reduce colonialization, militarization, militarism,
and
massive wars. Small economies will lead to the sheddingof the big

government and the big state. The appeals for globalized racism,
ethnicism,
religionism, and jingoism will become irrelevant. Conflicts that are
natural to human community may not be eliminated in the smallscale
political economy, but the variety of conflicts and their
internationalized
intensities would be enormously reduced. The global crises of our
time can
be handled at two levels-(a) certain stages and degrees of
deindustrialization through indigenization, devolution, and
decentralization of industrial capacities in the developed world;
and (b)
the rehumanization of all science-technology and industry. These
steps, of
course, imply paradigm shifts. While the Third World must reject
Western
models of development, the false gods, and should redefine
development in
terms of basic necessities of life, and higher emphasis on cultural
and
intellectual growth, the developed world must commit itself to
lessened
materialism, greed, and selfishness, and to enhanced spiritual
and
humanitarian dimensions.
Those who argue that such shifts are impractical are indeed
fatalists
believing in predestination like Augustine's original sin, or Herbert
Spencer's Social Darwinism, or Karl Marx's materialist
determinism, or the
evolution concept of unidirectional linear progression. Though
raised in
the name of realism, these concepts are unreal, negative,
pessimistic, and
cynical. The Gandhian formulation of "practical idealism" is the
panacea

for such fatalism. This formula focuses on struggle without

enslavement to
success. In contemporary version this means, "think globally, act
locally."
Some argue that science-technology and industrialization are not
inherently
immoral; it is their misuse that causes problems. My criticism is of
their
massiveness and dehumanization that transform their very
purpose (telos).
True, the sword by itself does not kill people; people using it kill
people. But in the human context, the very purpose for the
creation of the
sword is to inflict pain or death on human beings. This destructive
purpose
of the sword will not change until the sword, in Biblical terms, is
beaten
into ploughshare. When it becomes a ploughshare, then it is not a
sword by
definition and purpose. Thus ends and means should be
integrated, not
dichotomized.
In fin, globalization is not the panacea for the contemporary world
crises;
globalization is deepening these crises, the remedy lies in the
deglobalization of the dehumanized trade, investment, and aid
schemes. The
answer for the twenty-first century lies in the rehumanization of
science-technology and industry.

Notes and References

1. See M.V. Naidu, "Development and Peace: An Attempt at
ConceptuaIiLation of 'Initial Development'," in his edited volume
War,

Security, Peace (Oakville, Ontario: M.I.T.A. Press, 1996), p. 415-31.

2. By 1914 Britain captured 33.5 million sq. kms. of territory with
a
population of 384 million people. By 1917, the US acquired
730,000 sq. kms.
of land with 17.6 million people. By 1914 the Tsarist empire had
expanded
to 17.4 million sq. miles and 33.2 million people. See M.. Naidu,
Dimension
of Peace (Oakville, Ontario: M.I.T.A. Press, 1996), pp. 222-23.
Between the
1850s and the 1910s Western industrialization was helped with
huge supplies
of raw materials from the colonies. During this period world
production
of coal went up by 1320%, copper by 1834%, gold by 1218%, iron
ore by
1113%, cotton by 127~/~, wheat by 67% and rubber by 44%. See
M.V. Naidu,
"Western Models of Development," in Antony Copley and George
Paxton, eds,
Gandhi and Contemporary World (Chennai, India: Indo-British
Historical
Society, 1997), p. 84.
3.
Between 1750 and 1945 the United States, Britain,
Germany, and
Russia! Soviet Union were involved in thirty-six colonial wars and
two
world wars. Derived from Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago:
University
of Chicago Press, 1965), Second Edition, Tables 36-41.
4.
The developed world controls 60% of the world's
newspapers, 650/o
of the world's radios and 65"/, of the books published in the world.
See

Sean MacBride e~ _'!., Many Voices, One World (London: UNESCO

and Kogan
Press, 1980), p. 125.
5. During World War 1 1,800,000 soldiers and 400,000 labourers
were
recruited in India for the British armies overseas. To help the war
efforts, the British Viceroy of India "presented" to the British
monarch a
"gift" o $100 million. See R. Majumdar and H.S. Raichaudhry, The
Advanced
History of India (London: MacMillan, 1967).
6. Along with industrialization during the nineteenth century
military
manufacturers and sales also expanded. The American Remington
Rifles and
Colt revolvers, the British Dawson rifles, the Maxim machine-guns,
and
battleships, and the German Cannons were mass produced and
sold all over
the world. See M.V. Naidu, Dimensions of Peace, p. 227.
7. In 1965, 154 states exported goods worth $49 billion, while four
of
the industrialized states earned $66 billion. The per capita GDP in
North
America was $3,450 and in Europe was $1,600 while ~t was only
$510 in Utin
America and $170 in Africa. See World Statistics in Brief (New
York: United
Nations, 1979), p. 158 and 224. In 1975 the debt of the
underdeveloped
countries was $173 billion; the debt grew to $754 billion by 1985.
See Ruth
Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures 1993 (Washington,
D.C.:
World Priorities, 1993), p. 25.

8. Recently the economic troubles of Asia led to a bailout

programme
by World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Loans were
provided as
follows: Korea $57 billion; Indonesia $40 billion; and Thailand
$17.2
billion. Some of the conditions imposed were the firing of workers,
raising
of taxes and interest rates, reduction on social expenditures, and
so on.
See Winnipeg Free Press, 17 January 1998, p. B17.

Globalisasi adalah meningkatnya saling keterkaitan di antara berbagai

belahan dunia melalui terciptanya proses ekonomi, lingkungan, politik, dan
perubahan kebudayaan. Globalisasi merupakan salah satu hal yang harus
dihadapi oleh berbagai bangsa di dunia, termasuk Indonesia. Sebagai
anggota masyarakat dunia, Indonesia pasti tidak dapat dan tidak akan
menutupi diri dari pergaulan internasional, karena antara negara satu dan
negara lainnya pasti terjadi saling ketergantungan.
Adapun peristiwa-peristiwa dalam sejarah dunia yang meningkatkan proses
globalisasi antara lain:

Ekspansi negara-negara Eropa ke belahan dunia lain.

Munculnya kolonialisme dan imperialisme.

Revolusi industri yang dapat mendorong pencarian barang hasil

produksi.
Pertumbuhan kapitalisme, yaitu sistem dan paham ekonomi yang
modalnya bersumber dari modal pribadi atau modal perusahaan swasta

dengan ciri persaingan dalam pasaran bebas.

Meningkatnya telekomunikasi dan transportasi berkat ditemukannya
telepon genggam dan pesawat jet pasca Perang Dunia II.

Faktor-faktor pendorong globalisasi antara lain:

Kemajuan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi.

Diterapkannya perdagangan bebas.

Liberalisasi keuangan internasional.

Meningkatnya hubungan antar negara.

Tujuan globalisasi ada tiga macam, yaitu:

Mempercepat penyebaran informasi.

Mempermudah setiap orang memenuhi kebutuhan hidup.

Memberi kenyamanan dalam beraktifitas.

Globalisasi memiliki arti penting bagi bangsa Indonesia, yaitu kita dapat
mengambil manfaat dari globalisasi dan menerapkannya di Indonesia.
Manfaat globalisasi antara lain kemajuan ilmu pengetahuan dan teknologi,
mempermudah arus modal dari negara lain, dan meningkatkan perdagangan
internasional.
Globalisasi memiliki nilai-nilai positif namun juga memiliki nilai-nilai negatif.
Untuk menyaring nilai-nilai negatif maka kita harus berpedoman pada nilainilai Pancasila, karena nilai-nilai Pancasila sesuai dengan situasi dan kondisi

bangsa Indonesia. Jika kita mengambil nilai-nilai negatif globalisasi, maka

yang akan terjadi adalah kaburnya jati diri bangsa Indonesia dan masuknya
kebiasaan-kebiasaan yang buruk.
http://arisudev.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/pengertian-dan-pentingnyaglobalisasi-bagi-indonesia/