Globalization and Anti Globalization

Globalization is the principally new step in the development of the long-term process of internationalization (transnationalization) of the economic, political, cultural, legal and other aspects of the society’s life, at the point when interrelationships between the national socials have reached such a level, when some drastic changes within the entire world community gradually transforming into the integral society institute, became inevitable.

The level of economic, scientific, technological, legal and informational interrelationships of the national industries have reached a point, when at least three principally novel features are imminent. First, the world’s economic community, formerly seen as loosely connected multiple countries, is gradually transforming into the integral economic system, with national societies now representing the constituents of the integral world’s economic body.

Second, while conditions of globalization, national and global economic issues are swapping roles. With the development of international financial and other markets as well as production-sale structures, the global economic relationships more and more acquire the role of leading and governing structures. Even internal affairs of large and powerful countries, not to mention the remaining ones, are forced to adapt to the realities of the global economy.

Third, globalization process objectively leads to elimination and weakening of the regulatory functions of the national state, which is now not able to protect the national interests from the undesirable influence from the outside effectively. Neither various countries are able to regulate economic, social and cultural processes, which became more than narrow national issues and to a larger extent have transformed into rather independent and unmanageable ones.

During the second half of the 20th century, humans were confronted by previously unknown task – to discover the new tools that would regulate the global economy, environment and other aspects of modern life. Thus, the painful process of reconstruction of the previous national-state structure of the world, which evolved over millenium, into some novel shape, has started.

Uncertainty of the future and fear of the unknown, thoughtless reloading the responsibility for all the world’s problems on globalization itself born the entire surge of anti-globalization ideas and mass rallies. Starting December 1999, when the crowd of enraged opponents of liberalization of the international trade have almost succeeded in calling off the Seattle’s (USA) summit of the World Trade organization, all subsequent international meetings of the politicians, more or less related to globalization, are accompanied with the multi-thousand rallies of anti-globalization activists and havoc.

There are, at least, three main varieties of globalization negativism. The most radical and most vulgar attitude is the one that claims that all evil stems from the USA which, by means of the controlled institutions such as International Monetary Fund, World’s Bank, International Trade Organization etc. are gradually transforming the developing regions of the world into the neo-colonial estate, in order to exploit the natural and people’s resources. The other variant of anti-globalization ideology stems from the fact, that globalization is an objective process, justified by the technological advances, informational revolution, development of international industrial, trade and financial relationships. However, only highly developed western countries could benefit from this process, while the remaining countries of the world are destined to continuous lagging behind.

The third ideological paradigm of the antiglobalization activists is that the process itself is not only objective, but could be of benefit to all countries, though to a different degree. The developed western countries have the opportunity to utilize the globalization process entirely, while only scraps and pickings are left to others. Thus, it is necessary to force the West to shape the benefits of globalization with other regions in the world. However, since it would be rather impossible to do during the official summits, this should be performed by means of mass rallies.

One of the most trenchant issues, used by the entire range of antiglobalists as the primary bugbear, is the tremendous gap between the income of the wealthy “Northern” countries and poor countries of the “South”. This gap in income between the 20% of population of wealthy countries and the same part inhabiting poor countries has increased from 30-fold in 1960 to 74-fold in 1997.

Once started, technological-economic progress has quickly acquired all the characteristics of a chain-reaction. The breach between the advanced and poor counties is increasing fast. However, under globalization conditions, the developing