جهانی شدن اقتصاد جهان: منافع بالقوه و هزینه ها و ارزیابی شبکه

“Globalization” will be understood here to mean major increases in worldwide trade and exchanges in an increasingly open, integrated, and borderless international economy. There has been remarkable growth in such trade and exchanges, not only in traditional international trade in goods and services, but also in exchanges of currencies; in capital movements; in technology transfer; in people moving through international travel and migration; and in international flows of information and ideas. One measure of the extent of globalization is the volume of international financial transactions, with over $1.2 trillion flowing through New York currency markets each day, and with the volume of daily international stock market transactions exceeding this enormous amount.

Globalization is a powerful real aspect of the new world system, and it represents one of the most influential forces in determining the future course of the planet. It has manifold dimensions: economic, political, security, environmental, health, social, cultural, and others. The focus here will be on the concept of “globalization” as applied to the world economy. The term was coined in the 1980s, but the concept is an old one that has different interpretations to different people. Partly as a result of these different interpretations, there are very different reactions to “globalization,” with some policymakers, scholars, and activists seeing it as a force for advancing the world economy while others, again all three, seeing it as a serious danger to the world economic system. (For the former, supporting globalization, see Friedman, 2000, International Monetary Fund, 1997 and International Monetary Fund Staff, 2000; Micklethwait & Wooldridge, 2000; Ohmae, 1990 and World Bank, 2002. For the latter, opposing globalization, see Bauman, 2000, Bhagwati, 2001, Giddens, 2000, Gray, 2000, Greider, 1997 and Hertz, 2001; Hutton & Giddens, 2000; Rodrik, 1997, Stiglitz, 2002 and Sullivan, 2002.) There are three purposes of this paper. First, it will clarify the notion of “globalization” as applied to the world economy. Second, it will evaluate both the potential benefits and the potential costs stemming from globalization. Third, it will consider how the costs or dangers stemming from globalization could be offset through wider international cooperation and the development of new global institutions. (For a related perspective, see Bourguignon et al., 2002, Fischer, 2003 and Soros, 2002.) The view taken here, representing the thesis of this paper, is that there are both positive and negative aspects to globalization, that some of its positive features stem from the effects of competition that it entails, and that some of the negative aspects that could potentially lead to conflicts could be offset by international or global cooperation through agreements on policy or through the development of new international institutions. Thus, while globalization can cause international conflicts, it can also contribute to their containment through the beneficial effects of competition and the potential of global cooperation to treat economic and other threats facing the planet. 2. Globalization of the world economy: an interpretation “Globalization” will be understood here to mean major increases in worldwide trade and exchanges in an increasingly open, integrated, and borderless international economy. There has been remarkable growth in such trade and exchanges, not only in traditional international trade in goods and services, but also in exchanges of currencies; in capital movements; in technology transfer; in people moving through international travel and migration; and in international flows of information and ideas. One measure of the extent of globalization is the volume of international financial transactions, with over $1.2 trillion flowing through New York currency markets each day, and with the volume of daily international stock market transactions exceeding this enormous amount. Globalization has involved greater openness in the international economy, an integration of markets on a worldwide basis, and a movement toward a borderless world, all of which have led to increases in global flows. There are several sources of globalization over the last several decades. One such source has been technological advances that have significantly lowered the costs of transportation and communication and dramatically lowered the costs of data processing and information storage and retrieval. The latter stems from developments over the last few decades in electronics, especially the microchip and computer revolutions. Electronic mail, the Internet, and the World Wide Web are some of the manifestations of this new technology, where today’s $2,000 laptop computer is many times more powerful than a $10 million mainframe computer of a generation ago. A second source of globalization has been trade liberalization and other forms of economic liberalization that have led to reductions in trade protection and to a more liberal world trading system. This process of wider liberalization started in the last century, but the two World Wars and the Great Depression interrupted it. It resumed after World War II through the most-favored-nation approach to trade liberalization, as embodied in the 1946 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that evolved into the World Trade Organization (WTO). As a result, there have been significant reductions in tariffs and other barriers to trade in goods and services. Other aspects of liberalization have led to increases in the movement of capital and other factors of production. Some economists and historians have suggested that globalization is little more than a return to the world economy of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, of the century from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. At that time borders were relatively open and there were substantial international capital flows and migrations of people, when the major nations of Europe depended critically on international trade as part of the colonial system. This is particularly the view of some British scholars, looking back to that period of British imperial dominance of the world economy. While there are some similarities in terms of trade and capital movements, the period of a century ago did not have some of the major technological innovations that have led to a globalized world economy today that is qualitatively different from the international economy of the last century. A third source of globalization has been changes in institutions, where organizations have a wider reach, due, in part, to technological changes and to the more wide-ranging horizons of their managers, who have been empowered by advances in communications. Thus, corporations that had been mainly focused on a local market have extended their range in terms of markets and production facilities to a national, multinational, international, or even global reach. These changes in industrial structure have led to increases in the power, profits, and productivity of those firms that can choose among many nations for their sources of materials, production facilities, and markets, quickly adjusting to changing market conditions. Virtually every major national or international enterprise has such a structure or relies on subsidiaries or strategic alliances to obtain a comparable degree of influence and flexibility. As one measure of their scale, almost a third of total international trade now occurs solely within these multinational enterprises. With the advent of such global firms, international conflict has, to some extent, moved from nations to these firms, with the battle no longer among nations over territory but rather among firms over their share of world markets. These global firms are seen by some as a threat to the scope and autonomy of the state, but, while these firms are powerful, the nation state still retains its traditional and dominant role in the world economic and political system and is likely to remain in this role (Waltz, 1999). Non-government organizations, the NGO’s, have also taken a much broader perspective that, as in the case of the global firms, is often multinational or global. Even international organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and the World Trade Organization have new global roles. Overall, multinational enterprises and other such organizations, both private and public, have become the central agents of the new international globalized economy. A fourth reason for globalization has been the global agreement on ideology, with a convergence of beliefs in the value of a market economy and a free trading system. This process began with the political and economic changes that started in the 1978 reforms in China and then involved a “falling dominoes” series of revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe starting in 1989 and ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. This process led to a convergence of ideology, with the former division between market economies in the West and socialist economies in the East having been replaced by a near-universal reliance on the market system. This convergence of beliefs in the value of a market economy has led to a world that is no longer divided into market-oriented and socialist economies. A major aspect of this convergence of beliefs is the attempt of the former socialist states to make a transition to a market economy. These attempted transitions, especially those in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern and Central Europe have, however, been only partially successful. The nations involved and their supporters in international organizations and advanced western market economies have tended to focus on a three-part agenda for transition, involving: (1) stabilization of the macroeconomy, (2) liberalization of prices, and (3) privatization of state-owned enterprise. Unfortunately, this three-part agenda, sometimes referred to as the “Washington Consensus” and that I refer to elsewhere as the “SLP” approach to transition fails to appreciate the importance of (1) building market institutions, (2) establishing competition, and (3) providing for an appropriate role for the government in a modern mixed economy. I have referred to this alternative three-part agenda in other publications as the “ICG” approach to transition (Intriligator, 1993a, Intriligator, 1993b, Intriligator, 1996a, Intriligator, 1996b, Intriligator, 1997 and Intriligator, 1999). A fifth reason for globalization has been cultural developments, with a move to a globalized and homogenized media, the arts, and popular culture and with the widespread use of the English language for global communication. Partly as a result of these cultural developments, some, especially the French and some other continental Europeans, see globalization as an attempt at U.S. cultural as well as economic and political hegemony. In effect, they see globalization as a new form of imperialism or as a new stage of capitalism in the age of electronics. Some have even interpreted globalization as a new form of colonialism, seeing the U.S. as the new metropole power and most of the rest of the world as its colonies. In this view, the rest of the world supplies the U.S. not only with raw materials and markets on a global basis, as in earlier forms of European colonialization, but also with production facilities and labor, capital, and other inputs to the production process. Globalization is a powerful real aspect of the new world system, and it represents one of the most influential forces in determining the future course of the planet. It has manifold dimensions: economic, political, security, environmental, health, social, cultural, and others. The focus here will be on the concept of “globalization” as applied to the world economy. The term was coined in the 1980s, but the concept is an old one that has different interpretations to different people. Partly as a result of these different interpretations, there are very different reactions to “globalization,” with some policymakers, scholars, and activists seeing it as a force for advancing the world economy while others, again all three, seeing it as a serious danger to the world economic system. (For the former, supporting globalization, see Friedman, 2000, International Monetary Fund, 1997 and International Monetary Fund Staff, 2000; Micklethwait & Wooldridge, 2000; Ohmae, 1990 and World Bank, 2002. For the latter, opposing globalization, see Bauman, 2000, Bhagwati, 2001, Giddens, 2000, Gray, 2000, Greider, 1997 and Hertz, 2001; Hutton & Giddens, 2000; Rodrik, 1997, Stiglitz, 2002 and Sullivan, 2002.) There are three purposes of this paper. First, it will clarify the notion of “globalization” as applied to the world economy. Second, it will evaluate both the potential benefits and the potential costs stemming from globalization. Third, it will consider how the costs or dangers stemming from globalization could be offset through wider international cooperation and the development of new global institutions. (For a related perspective, see Bourguignon et al., 2002, Fischer, 2003 and Soros, 2002.) The view taken here, representing the thesis of this paper, is that there are both positive and negative aspects to globalization, that some of its positive features stem from the effects of competition that it entails, and that some of the negative aspects that could potentially lead to conflicts could be offset by international or global cooperation through agreements on policy or through the development of new international institutions. Thus, while globalization can cause international conflicts, it can also contribute to their containment through the beneficial effects of competition and the potential of global cooperation to treat economic and other threats facing the planet.