GLOBALISATION AND ECONOMICS/THE ECONOMY

1. SUMMARY SLIDE
• QUESTIONS WE CAN ASK CONCERNING GLOBALISATION
• HOW DO WE DEFINE GLOBALISATION?
• WHAT ARE THE TWO SCHOOLS OF GLOBALISATION – (Held & McGrew)?
• WHAT IS THE LINK BETWEEN ECONOMICS AND GLOBALISATION?
• GLOBALISATION, CONFLICT AND DISEASES AND THE ECONOMY- THE COVID-19
PANDEMIC AS A CASE STUDY

2. THE CONUNDRUM THAT IS GLOBALISATION

• How old is globalisation?
• What fuels globalisation?
• What are the consequences of globalisation?
• What are the positive consequences?
• Are there negative consequences, what ware they?
• Who are the beneficiaries globalisation?
• Is there a difference between globalisation and cultural imperialism and
westernisation?

3. DEFINITION
• “Globalization denotes the intensification of worldwide social relations & interactions
such that distant events acquire very localized impacts & vice versa. It involves
a rescaling of social relations, from the economic sphere to the security sphere, beyond
the national to the transnational, transcontinental & transworld” (Held & McGrew,
2007: 2).
• Giddens (1990: 64); globalisation implies the intensification of “worldwide social
relationships which link distinct localities in such a way that local happenings are
shaped by events occurring miles away and vice versa”. (my emphasis).
• Held (1999: 16); “a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in
the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their
extension, intensity, velocity & impact – generating transcontinental or interregional
flows & networks of activity”.

4. GLOBALISATION ENTAILS….
• The stretching of social, political & economic frontiers resulting in events, actions,
activities in distant localities having consequences for individuals & communities in
other regions (e.g. in Babel); that is Giddens’ argument
• Intensification of interconnectedness in all spheres of life; cultural, social,
economic; hence the emphasis on the Internet & ICTs in general
• Increased interconnectedness in transport & communication systems
• In essence the creation of a “global village” (McLuhan) in which our lives, livelihoods,
environments are increasingly dependent on each other
• Being interdependent is good but also bad:
• For instance, increased trade & faster more efficient sharing of knowledge &
technology has improved livelihoods for poorer regions of the world;

5. DEFINITION WRAP-UP SLIDE: GLOBALISATION IN SPATIAL & TEMPORAL TERMS

• In essence, globalisation must be understood in two ways

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 • Spatially and temporally;
• That is because it entails conquering space (distance) and time;
• Man began to globalise when he/she developed 1. means of transportation that made
it possible to move from one continent to another and
• 2. means of communication that made it possible to communicate across continents;
first the letter/books & then the telegraph, the telephone & where we are now

6. TWO SCHOOLS OF GLOBALISATION

• These are from David Held & Anthony McGrew in their book, Globalisation/Anti-
Globalisation
• As the titles sums up, the two schools are 1. globalists (those who believe globalisation
is indeed taking place and
• 2. anti-globalists, those who believe either a hoax or at the very least an excuse for
Americanisation & McDonaldisation, etc.

7. GLOBALISTS SCHOOL I
• Globalists can further be divided into two
• 1. The first group says yes, globalisation is happening & intensifying & it is a good
thing
• They point out benefits of globalisation; sharing cultures & values, trading, economic,
infrastructural & social development education & medicine
• If it is accepted & managed well, globalisation can benefit poor people & poor countries
to benefit from advancements made by some social classes & countries

8. GLOBALISTS SCHOOL II
• 2. the second group of ‘globalists’ acknowledge that globalisation is taking place but
view it as a negative process/phenomenon
• Globalisation benefits only a few big countries, & even there only a few big
industrialists & generally the 2% rich in a country like USA
• In rich countries like USA, politicians like Donald Trump complain that because of
globalisation, big companies in the manufacturing & clothing sector move production
factories to 3rd world countries where costs of labour & production are cheaper;
• The impact is felt by blue-collar workers with many cities like Detroit suffering
• In 3rd world countries, complaints that under globalisation, bigger economies like China
are flooding goods in some industries & killing local industries; textile industries in
Durban SA & Bulawayo Zimbabwe;

9. ANTI-GLOBALISATION SCHOOL
• Here globalisation is criticised & critiqued as a ‘catch-word’ used to explain complex &
mostly negative processes & make them appear to be something fancy and good
• What is called globalisation is in fact domination of poorer regions & countries by richer
ones;
• Economic, social & cultural domination
• There is a lot of what can be termed Westernisation or even Americanisation of our
cultures & tastes through for instance Hollywood & dominant American culture
industries in general

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 • The economic implications of that are masked, at best disguised; our own culture
industries suffer, artists cannot be rewarded as we use our money to imbibe Western
products
• Also domination in terms of media & ideas; global media dominate & foist their views
on us, western scholarship & ideas too;
• This school has somewhat found vindication in the failure of the highly globalised world
to fairly distribute COVID-19 vaccines

10. CONCLUSION ON THE SCHOOLS

• It is safe to say globalisation is taking place, has been for a long while & intensified
from the 1990s because of the development & quick spready of ICTs including the
Internet & mobile telephony
• Occasionally, the world can witness the same event such as the World Cup, the
Olympics etc. these may be occasional, but they point to much deeper
interconnectedness
• The impact of globalisation is complex but not all of it is negative;
• On the negative side because of our interconnectedness & the modes of transportation
that have been developed, we have burnt more fossil fuels in the past 50 years than
ever before, with devastating consequences
• 3rd world countries can also benefit if they have fair access to bigger markets, access
to education & new medicines & methods in health, new technologies;
• Jamaica for instance is a relatively tiny country, but its music, reggae has been truly
globalising & has made the world share Jamaican culture, world view & also
understand subjects like slavery & their aftermaths

11. CLASS GROUP DISCUSSION

• IN WHAT WAY/S HAS ESWATINI BENEFITTED FROM GLOBALISATION & IN WHAT
WAY/S HAS IT SUFFERED? IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE FOR US TO
BENEFIT & PROTECT OURSELVES FROM NEGATIVE IMPACTS?

12. GLOBALISATION & THE ECONOMY

• The film Babel demonstrates vividly some of the processes that fuel globalisation, or
are fuelled by it;
• At the very least, it shows us that globalisation is experienced through trade, through
communication, through transportation, & through interaction (or exhibition) of
different cultures.
• In the film we see the economic interdependence of countries;
• Weaker economies like Morocco rely on the tourism of richer ones like USA & Japan,
in the process friendships are forged & people get to know each other
• For instance, Emilia & migrant labour in general make life much cheaper & more
affordable to the middle class in the USA & other countries
• Closer home, the South African economy has benefitted similarly from migration for
close to 100 years now

13. GLOBALISATION & THE ECONOMY – II

• But we see also how porous borders (like USA-Mexico) are because of a more
globalised, fluid world

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 • Security, drugs, human trafficking & other ills stalk countries & communities because
a globalised world essentially means less control over our territories
• It means the govts we elect do not make many of the decisions that affect us & are
powerless to positively influence our lives
• More importantly, however, is to understand that we are not an economic island
• As a country we depend on balancing our imports & our exports (besides taxing the
local population)
• We need to produce but we also need to find external markets
• When these markets suffer; for instance the 2008 global financial crisis, we will also
feel it
• When there are conflicts such as Russia-Ukraine & Israel-Gaza we also feel the shocks;
• The size of some economies (USA) but also Ukraine-Russia (oil & grain respectively) &
the Gulf (oil) is such that when the sneeze, the whole world may catch a cold

14. GLOBALISATION & THE ECONOMY – III

• In the film Babel (& in the examples below), the claims that globalisation means that
‘distant events acquire very localized impacts & vice versa’ (Held & McGrew or
that it means that ‘local happenings are shaped by events occurring miles
away and vice versa’ (Giddens) are witnessed
• In the film, we can say there is a gun motif that runs through; the shooting incident
triggers a trail of events that makes us seat back & witness how the lives of the world
are intertwined
• It is also a dramatization, which we may apply to events in the world, that a crisis in
one country or region can have reverberating consequences in another country or
region;
• The USA financial crisis of 2008 caused crises in many economies, even the rand lost
significantly. In SA many jobs were lost
• In the development sector USAID, UKAID (UK International Dvt office) CIDA & many
donor agencies had to cut funding to charities & NGOs around the world, making those
beneficiary organisations less capable to do their work

15. COVID-19 CASE STUDY – I

• COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the two assertions by Held & McGrew, and Giddens
• Interconnectedness can be a double-edged sword
• A virus that could have been contained in China (maybe 30-50 years ago) spread
across the world undetected, such that by the time the alarm was raised around
February 2020, the horses had already bolted
• Because of fast means of travel, volume of traffic of humans & air traffic it was
impossible for many mechanisms subsequently put in place to work
• Also, China is the second biggest economy which even the most advanced economies
of the world are dependent on. Because of that, it took much longer to agree on travel
bans (excluding China completely) & later on lockdowns

16. COVID-19 CASE STUDY – II

• Modern, globalised economies do not work when we are locked down, so the lock-
downs themselves could not be complete
• More concerning however (from the debates above) was the lack of unity in the world

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 • All the promises of cooperation & the whole world developing went through the
window, as it became clear that pharmaceuticals (just like conglomerates in other
spheres) are effectively in charge.
• Govts from the developed world had to bow down to demands of their big pharma to
have vicines commercialised & to protect patents, instead of putting lives ahead of the
bottom line

17. REFERENCES
Held, D. and McGrew, A., 2007. Globalization/anti-globalization: Beyond the great divide.
Polity.
Kupe, T., 2013. “Globalization from my African corner”. Media, Culture & Society, 35(1),
pp.139-146.

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