Globalisation?
"Anti-globalization activists... have a point: The post-Cold War world is an increasingly dangerous place in which to live, in part because of the dark side of globalization," writes the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. "Rather than capitalists and corporate power, national governments are to blame... Globalization's reputed villains respond to the incentives and constraints that national governments create for them."
This is a valid -- if obvious -- point. There's a lot of people in the world who oppose various forms of globalisation, or its impacts, and many of them do have a good case. However, as the editorial goes onto argue, the problems with globalisation are the flip-side of declining US dominance in a post-Cold War world. Corporations are profit-maximisers, whereas governments are meant to be social utility-maximisers. Internal constraints (budgets, politics, etc) mean it can't police everything in the world, and the 'public good' of solid regulation everywhere is somewhat unattainable. Nevertheless, there's still an opportunity for Washington and Beijing to work together to secure a better outcome from globalisation for the world. Idealistic? Yes. Worth trying for? Definately. Protests are essentially a way of communicating an argument, and work best when directed at the source of the problem and those who can change things.
This is a valid -- if obvious -- point. There's a lot of people in the world who oppose various forms of globalisation, or its impacts, and many of them do have a good case. However, as the editorial goes onto argue, the problems with globalisation are the flip-side of declining US dominance in a post-Cold War world. Corporations are profit-maximisers, whereas governments are meant to be social utility-maximisers. Internal constraints (budgets, politics, etc) mean it can't police everything in the world, and the 'public good' of solid regulation everywhere is somewhat unattainable. Nevertheless, there's still an opportunity for Washington and Beijing to work together to secure a better outcome from globalisation for the world. Idealistic? Yes. Worth trying for? Definately. Protests are essentially a way of communicating an argument, and work best when directed at the source of the problem and those who can change things.