The merits or otherwise of globalization is one of the great issues of the day. Perhaps, together with that of ecological degradation, which includes global warming, it is one of the two greatest issues. In the eyes of some, the pair cannot even be separated. From Seattle to Prague, protesters insist that globalization is the supreme evil, and that environmental catastrophe is the price we will all have to pay for it.
This book is an unabashed argument for the merits of globalization. It is not possible in the space of a review to offer a final judgment on the merits or otherwise of the thing itself -- to settle such a contention would be to decide on something the world itself cannot decide on. What follows, therefore, is something of the book's thesis, especially as it relates to Asia, and an assessment of its distinctive qualities. How you finally judge its claims is another matter.
But whether or not you agree with its arguments, it has to be said first and foremost that this is an outstandingly fine book. It is well written, very well argued, and well researched. The authors, both writers on The Economist, are masters of eloquence and lucidity. They are, moreover, young and enthusiastic. And they have the great virtue of confronting criticisms head on. These are not bull-headed financiers trumpeting the virtues of profit at whatever cost. They are educated, well-intentioned and fair-minded thinkers, who put what feels like the best possible case for globalization, a case that seems all the stronger because they express the arguments against their case with such apparent sympathy.
Consider these things, they argue. A Boeing 757 contains parts from nearly forty different countries. A British premier league soccer team typically contains players from all over the world. Multichannel TV has spawned not only CNN and MTV but countless small community stations as well. Coca-Cola has to adjust its formula in different parts of Japan to satisfy varying local tastes.
Does globalization lead to the destruction of the Amazon? Did it lead to the collapse of GDP in Indonesia in the 1990s to a quarter of what it was previously? Does it increase inequality, forcing Bangladeshi children to stitch trainers for the benefit of Beverly Hills brats, paying workers in fast-foot outlets a pittance to serve bad food to gullible customers? Yes, these authors reply. But the gains nevertheless far outweigh the disadvantages, and the culprit is frequently not globalization itself, but tyranny, corruption and inequality at a local level.
Behind globalization lie the ideals of classical Western nineteenth century liberalism, they claim, and its associated ideal of the liberty of the individual. Asian leaders, men like Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Kwan Yew, have often been shocked by the implications of this, and have developed counter-ideologies stressing so-called "Asian values." But the Asian young have almost routinely rejected this, and instead gone along with the international trend.
The authors see no cause for complacency, however. Globalization was in place once before, approximately from 1890 to 1913, with England occupying the commanding position the US occupies today. Two world wars, plus the rise of communism and fascism, intervened, but now we are once again on the same road. Similar catastrophes, however, could still bring the whole edifice crashing down.
Not only that. The post-war resurgence of countries like Japan, Germany and South Korea was in large part led by their governments keeping a hold on what Lenin was the first to call the "commanding heights" of their economies. A belief in letting business have an almost totally free rein only really took hold in the 1980s under politicians like Reagan and Thatcher. Success, in other words, has by no means always followed only the path now being pursued.
Asia unsurprisingly occupies a prominent place in the book. Taiwan's Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park is discussed in a chapter on off-shoots of Silicon Valley. There, engineers at Taiwan Semiconductor are quoted as being able to earn US$500,000 per year (and janitors US$50,000). Acer boss Stan Shih also gets a mention. And Taiwan itself is credited with making nearly all the world's hand-held scanners, two thirds of the world's computer mice, and around half of its monitors and modems.
Also offered as an example of the strength of international trade and a worldwide standard of computer technology is Malaysia's planned expenditure of US$20 billion to create, in a space the size of Chicago, a new Multimedia Super Corridor that will include a specialist information-technology city, to be called Cyberjaya, employing some 100,000 people.
That technology is freedom is one of the authors' main arguments. China's leaders cannot control the information explosion offered by the Internet. Arthur C. Clarke once said that people exaggerate the effects of technological change in the short term and underestimate them in the long-term. It happened with electricity a hundred years ago and it will happen with the Internet in our own era, say the authors. Even so, they also believe that "China could yet produce a disaster that would make the Asian crisis look like a tea party." There are some astonishing facts. The biggest center for the production of sex videos in Europe is now Budapest. There are 110 professional opera companies in the US, of which 34 were founded since 1980 (used as an argument against the dumbing-down effect of Hollywood). More than 40 percent of American fourth graders cannot pass a basic reading test, and 42 million American adults are functionally illiterate. And there are many more.
So does globalization necessitate a winner-takes-all society? Is it a polite word for Americanization? Is the environment the inevitable loser? These and many other issues are discussed, and the authors, though convinced of the movement's basic logic, are by no means blind partisans. They even end with a quotation from Marx, the crux of which is that the seeds of capitalism's demise are contained within the very characteristics of its success.
This is in the end a very English book, the creation of two London journalists who have spent a good part of their working lives in the US. And at best it represents the best of both cultures. But the many enemies of what the book stands to defend will naturally see it otherwise.
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