Frederick Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833452
- eISBN:
- 9781469604558
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807895344_baca.5
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses the two problems with the concept of globalization, first the “global,” and second the “-ization.” The implication of the first is that a system of connection has penetrated ...
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This chapter discusses the two problems with the concept of globalization, first the “global,” and second the “-ization.” The implication of the first is that a system of connection has penetrated the entire globe, and the implication of the second is that it is doing so now, that this is the global age. There are certainly those, not least of them the advocates of unrestricted capital flow, who claim that the world should be open to them, but that does not mean that they have got their way. Many critics of market tyranny, social democrats who lament the alleged decline of the nation-state, and people who see the eruption of particularism as a counter-reaction to market homogenization, give the boasts of the globalizers too much credibility. Crucial questions do not get asked: about the limits of interconnection, about the areas where capital cannot go, and about the specificity of the structures necessary to make connections work.Less
This chapter discusses the two problems with the concept of globalization, first the “global,” and second the “-ization.” The implication of the first is that a system of connection has penetrated the entire globe, and the implication of the second is that it is doing so now, that this is the global age. There are certainly those, not least of them the advocates of unrestricted capital flow, who claim that the world should be open to them, but that does not mean that they have got their way. Many critics of market tyranny, social democrats who lament the alleged decline of the nation-state, and people who see the eruption of particularism as a counter-reaction to market homogenization, give the boasts of the globalizers too much credibility. Crucial questions do not get asked: about the limits of interconnection, about the areas where capital cannot go, and about the specificity of the structures necessary to make connections work.
