Globalization – what are the values and the system and what is the effect?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     “Sink"Sink "Sink or swim.” “You’re on your own.” “If you don’t work you don’t eat.” In America, that last has the seeming force of Scripture behind it, as 2 Thessalonians 3:10 makes clear. Such views are simply not accepted in a society such as Finland’s or even Japan, where an individual is seen are part of a group, and  the concept of nation trumps that of the state. In those cultures, and to a certain extent also in Canada, if a person becomes an alcoholic, it is seen as a group failure, as well as an individual problem. It goes against social institutions and there are many societal agencies in place to offer help. The “we’re all in this together” communitarian ethic affects the way management and workers relate to each other, and even the relationship between universities and business. One of us remembers arriving not so long ago in Gothenburg, Sweden and being driven to the corporate headquarters by a senior manager. He looked troubled. He explained that his company was in the midst of corporate downsizing. What was intriguing was that before the people were dismissed, they had to discuss the list with the union: not something one would usually do in the U.K. or the U.S. But, then again, in Sweden social networking is different, because Sweden’s culture is different than what North Americans experienced as part of the growing up process.

Are we arguing that the Japanese, Germans, Swedes, and others are living in Utopia? Not at all! Diversity and respect for culture is our point. …We believe that there is much strength to the Globalization thesis, even if its cheerleaders may be describing the workings of globally-linked, turbocharged traditional capitalism. We can see that there are times in a nation’s life then it should take a second look and diversity its socialist principles. …  

American industry pulled out of the 1970s and early 1980s stagflation by becoming, once again, the economic wonder of the world. It dramatically changed course, initiated drastic cost-cutting measures, imposed salary cuts, swiftly remodernized even its rust bowl constituencies, automated, encouraged innovation, cut taxes, and give business a freer reform of inefficiencies and deadwood. It seems reasonable that countries unable to get launched economically should adopt some of these strengths, should continue on their course of reform of making work pay more than welfare for healthy adults, of putting their banking systems in order, of paying off long-standing government debt, reducing tax burdens that severely penalize innovation, and freeing up an economy for the competitive 21^st century.  

Chinese experience with building a competitive manufacturing system offers an example. Their rulers seem to be determined to repeat the mistakes of the polluters and slum landlords of Gilded Age America – already some one million people are said to have died through pollution. Yet China has never had anyone to articulate the commanding vision of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and the United States so far remains the only polity committed decree to securing such benefits for its people.    

The strength of America’s underlying Calvinist myth, the belief – and it is a belief – that in this bountiful United States, anyone can succeed; if they don’t, it is solely their fault. The very conservative American founding fathers had such respect for orderly society and its distinct institutions that it took the intervention of Benjamin Franklin to edit Thomas Jefferson’s noble phrase, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  The young Virginian had originally inscribed “life, liberty, and property.” In Europe, few people own much property in the sense of the wide open spaces that beckoned to Americans pushing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, guided by a vague sense of manifest destiny. This view that “anyone can make it” that the commonwealth is merely a state of nature where the strong will survive – this idea posses an amazing resilience in the United States. It explains the near-adulation for Gorbachev’s old dialogue partner, President Ronald Reagan (1981-89), in many circles. Reagan attempted to balance the budget by slashing the welfare roll (among other things), and lived to tell the tale.

                

Summarized and quoted from Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization p. 23

In Japan “a harsh downsizing proceeds, with estimates of millions of “over-employed” workers on firm payrolls. Some companies, such as Yokogawa Electric, are determined that the system of lifetime work in a firm can survive. They are introducing a merit system of promotion in which workers will compete against one another to improve quality. Unlike many North American CEOs, who believe that job security turns a good employee into a mediocre one, Yokogawa officials argue that, in Japan, it makes them more responsible. Toyota chairman Hiroshi Okuda, who also heads the Nikkeiren, or Japan Federation of Employer’s Associations, is also trying to defend the lifetime employment system. Deeming it “suitable for Japanese who highly value stability and teamwork”, and expressing doubt about whether the downsizing being attempted at Nissan would work in Japan, the attempt remains to be evaluated.

Job security? It is not the highest of American business values. “They’ve moved on”, became a cliché after the downsizing of the 1990s. Yet it is crucial to remember that the tradition of job security in Japan dates back over two centuries, when children began work as apprentices and were given over two centuries, when children began work as apprentices and were given an allowance when they retired. Again, culture. Close to a majority of companies plan to maintain the lifetime employment system, seeing in it a source of mental health and corporate loyalty. Firms approach American consultants to obtain advice on how to implement early retirement plans instead of layoffs. According to Kazuhiro Arai, Professor of Economics at Hitotsubashi University, American-style hire-and –fire- management is not an option for most Japanese, firms, for it runs deeply against the grain of Japanese culture: “the traditional value for Japanese is the spirit of wa (harmony)”, and the “lifetime employment system pulls out a co-operative attitude and loyalty among Japanese employees who originally have Japanese values”…Many workers have been trained to work only for their companies. Their specialty is loyal service to Toyota or Nissan, not as a mere cog in the wheel or transmission assembly plant. This makes it harder for them to take their skills with them to another firm or –heaven forbid- start their own business, as many would do in America or even Europe. In short, too much American-style job-cutting would be a social disaster in Japan.

Summarized and quoted from Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization p.223

The Japanese experience shows, once again, that markets alone often undermine social stability. “The economy is all of us.” It operates in societies where social, religious, and familial ties – the culture – dictate codes of honesty, trust, and cooperation, as well as competition. Such cultures create the very social order, that rule of law, without which markets could not function. In the end, the German social market and the Japanese Keiretsu may become more like the American model doubt play its own distinctive score, and the Japanese garden will prize harmony and inner calm above all, a useful counterpoint to American busily at work on constructing a “more level playing field.”

The architects of globalization – economic planners, CEOs, government officials – have a choice. It is a choice that was articulated in ancient China by the two very different thinkers. We met them in Chapter 8. Sun Tzu counselled, in effect, “Business is war by other means.” The alternative vision comes from the pen of E Yin, Prime Minister of China around 1750 BCE. “Do not slight the concerns of the people. Think of their difficulties…Be careful to think about the end at the beginning … When you hear words that agree with your own thinking, you must ask whether these words are not wrong.”

Summarized and quoted from Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization p. 224

What does globalization mean?

“The driving idea behind globalization is free-market capitalism-the more you let market forces rule and the more you open your economy to free trade and competition, the more efficient and flourishing your economy will be. Globalization means the spread of free-market capitalism to virtually every country in the world. Globalization also has its own set of economic rules - rules that revolve around opening, deregulation, and privatizing your economy… globalization has its own dominant culture, which is shy it tends to be homogenizing”

“another school of scholars and experts stress the social side of globalization – the dynamic interactions between societies and individuals…it can be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and ice versa… it does not simply refer to the objective process of increasing interconnectedness. It also refers to conscious and subjective matters, namely the scope and density of the consciousness of the world as a single place.”

Another view says “Globalization is what we in the Third World have for several centuries called colonization”

Summarized and quoted from Karl Moore and David Lewis, The Origins of Globalization Preface xiii