MEETING: The Book Discussion Group will meet May 29, this Saturday, at 10am.
BOOK / (ARTICLE): "The End of Globalism", by John Ralston Saul, writing for
Harper's Magazine (March 2004)
Harper's does not archive their magazine on the internet, but fortunately
Financial Review does. The following article by Saul on the same subject
appeared in Financial Review - February 26, 2004
http://afr.com/articles/2004/02/19/1077072774981.html
If you have not done so already, for your convenience, I have saved you the
trouble of copying and pasting this article. (See attached MS Word document)
John Ralston Saul is the author of Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of
Reason in the West, Unconscious Civilisation and, most recently, On
Equilibrium: The Six Qualities of the New Humanism. ©2004 Harper's Magazine.
Distributed by Tribune Media Services International.
Comments by Molly Ivins, a syndicated columnist (from February 2004):
Edwards might want to take some text from an article in the current Harper's
magazine, "The Collapse of Globalism (and the rebirth of nationalism)" by
John Ralston Saul. Saul sees globalism as a failed theology that confuses
ethics with morality. "Ethics is the measurement of the public good.
Morality is the weapon of religious and social righteousness."
In addition to the abandonment of a broad sense of the public good, Saul
manages to tuck deregulation, debt and many other horrors into his
recounting of how globalization has played out. Those who dare to differ
with globalization (still pretty daring in the United States, not in the
rest of the world) are usually dismissed as protectionists.
Actually, I think the best argument against globalization is precisely that
it kills the goose that lays the golden egg -- capitalism. In case you
hadn't noticed, advanced, deregulated capitalism is rapidly producing a
world without competition. In one field after another, corporate gigantism
has reached such a berserk extent that it eliminates the competition that
keeps capitalism healthy. When one giant bank swallows another giant bank --
knocking out 10,000 jobs in the process -- what is the public good? Saul's
thesis is that globalization -- like the history it once claimed to have
ended -- is over. But it's a good news-bad news argument: The resurgent
nationalism he sees replacing it is certainly unattractive.
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Comments by by Rob Kall of OpEdNews.Com <http://www.OpEdNews.Com>
Membrane Economic Globalism; A Biotech Concept May Provide the Solution to
the Middle Class Disaster Unrestrained Globalism is producing.
Globablization is destroying too many American jobs, too many American
Industries. Thomas Friedman observing the effects of globalization
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/opinion/14FRIE.html> on business and
culture, referring to comments by Nandan Nilekani, the CEO of the Indian
company, Infosys, says.
"Infosys said all the walls have been blown away in the world, so now we, an
Indian software company, can use the Internet, fiber optic
telecommunications and e-mail to get superempowered and compete anywhere
that our smarts and energy can take us. And we can be part of a global
supply chain that produces profit for Indians, Americans and Asians.
"Al Qaeda said all the walls have been blown away in the world, thereby
threatening our Islamic culture and religious norms and humiliating some of
our people, who feel left behind. But we can use the Internet, fiber optic
telecommunications and e-mail to develop a global supply chain of angry
people that will superempower us and allow us to hit back at the Western
civilization that's now right in our face."
The walls are down. Our own government, our internet, satellite and other
technologies have blasted the walls to oblivion. We are exposed, naked and
sadly, particularly the middle class, suffering terribly as opportunistic
predators and competitors have raced in to make the most of the
opportunities. These include transnational corporations that have no loyalty
to any nation, only the dollar, or euro, dinar, ruble or rupee. Uninhibited
by rules or laws, these economic opportunists take advantage of the wide
open, unprotected prime markets, the wealthiest customers with the best
credit, our ideal laws that protect businesses and legal transactions,our
lenient tax laws.
Take the wall/ barrier metaphor a step further, imagine a child born without
a skin, or an adult who suddenly loses his skin-- to a fire, lets say.
Long-term survival would not be possible. That's what the long term
experiment of Globalization ( that's how the Harpers magazine cover article
The End of Globalism <http://afr.com/articles/2004/02/19/1077072774981.html>
by John Ralston Saul characterizes it) has done to the US-- flayed off our
skin, torn down our walls, leaving us totally exposed to economic infection
and bleeding to death. But it doesn't have to be that way. The alternative
tearing down the old protective walls-- the old way of thinking, does not
not require rebuilding of old walls. Instead of walls of protectionism, we
need a membrane.
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PLACE: University Unitarian Universalist Society, 11648 McCulloch Rd: From
Univ. Ave. go north on Rouse Rd. 1.0 mi; east on McCulloch Rd. 0.5 mi.
QUESTIONS?: Contact Steve Hall, Program Chairman, University UUS Home
Phone: 407-681-5066
Mr. Ralston Saul asserts that economic globalization is dead, and good riddance to it.
But what actually opened the door to Globalisation was the economic collapse of 1973 - the depression that never was. The reigning technocratic obsession with management and control meant that we all had to be reassured. So we were told that this was just another recession. Then there was another recession, then another, and on and on, always minimised, always about to be resolved. The social reformers, who dominated within almost all political parties and governments, denied themselves the right to stand back and deal with the situation as a whole. They had lost the intellectual breadth and the emotional balance to do this. And so they gradually lost the right to lead.
As for the new force or ideology that came forward to fill the vacuum, it involved an all-inclusive strategy called Globalisation - an approach that contained the answer to every one of our problems. It was delightfully seductive. It contained simple, sweeping solutions and, as with all successful religions, lodged ultimate responsibility in invisible untouchable hands. Thus Globalisation required no one to take responsibility for anything. Steve Hall |
