Globalization: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Rating:
Summary: Wrong Name: Should Be Called Anti-Globalization
Review: Manfred B. Steger fails at providing an introduction to the topic known as globalization. This book starts out looking like a basic explanation of what globlization is and why it is happening. However it quickly turns into a tirade about how "bad" globalization is and how it is a U.S. plot of some sort. I am disapointed with this book becuase I was looking for easy to read basic pro vs con explanation. Steger also discusses some advanced topics which he may not explain correctly or completely. All of his arguments or either anti-globlization or extreme anti-globlization. Steger goes as far to say what Bin Laden does is good becuase is slows the globilization process.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Brief Introduction to a Vast Topic
Review: Manfred Steger does an excellent job summing up the most important subtopics within the vast and complex field of Globalization. He also provides an excellent bibliography for further reading. This tiny book is a great jumping-off point for those looking to delve deeper into the subject as well as a great overview for those simply interested in the major pluses and minuses of the world's greatest social trend.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Brief Introduction to a Vast Topic
Review: Manfred Steger does an excellent job summing up the most important subtopics within the vast and complex field of Globalization. He also provides an excellent bibliography for further reading. This tiny book is a great jumping-off point for those looking to delve deeper into the subject as well as a great overview for those simply interested in the major pluses and minuses of the world's greatest social trend.

Rating:
Summary: Concise but not entirely convincing
Review: This book is a concise introduction to the phenomenon of globalization. It includes chapters on history, economics, politics, culture, ideology, challenges to globalization, and assessing the future. Annotated references are provided in a short section at the end, just before the index. The book includes a number of short focus boxes that highlight points in the text, as well as photographs, maps, tables, and diagrams.

I picked up this book with the hope of learning about the evils of globalization and why we should try to fight it. However, I still don't see the light, even after reading this book. The book takes a definite liberal stance against globalization, but I remain unconvinced. For example, in the chapter on culture, Steger reminds us about how American over-consume world resources. Suppose we fought globalization by cutting off all international trade and immigration in this country- -I strongly suspect that our taste for hyperconsumption would then bound even more out of control, without international opinion or labor competition to keep it somewhat in check. Or would the economy implode, as happened in the Soviet Union when similar constraints against foreign trade were in effect? Back in the chapter on history, Steger states that the calls for international class solidarity amongst working people in the global North (a globalistic movement) went unheeded in the face of nationalist theologies (which sure sounds like a counter-globalistic movement). But then he goes on to say "There is no question that interstate rivalries intensified at the outset of the 20th century as a result of mass migration, urbanization, competition, and the excessive liberalization of world trade." Whoa there! By brushing the issue under the carpet with his "there is no question" statement, Steger leaves me with unconvinced. I want to believe, but the argumentation just isn't there, perhaps because the book is so concise.

I see globalization as involving 2 main issues: marketing and labor. Marketing, whether explicit through advertisements, or implicit through entertainment media, is despicable since it encourages people to consume things that are harmful or that they don't need. Labor, on the hand, is an extremely complex issue. From the building of the US through the age of Industrialization, the US has always suffered from a labor shortage, relative to the rest of the world. Perhaps that's why so many of our inventors worked on labor-saving devices. As a result, American workers are amongst the most productive in the world. On the other hand, in a global market, American workers must compete with workers from all other countries. Workers in many other countries are paid much less than American workers. To be fair to the other workers and allow them to support their families, they should receive compensation equal to their productivity, or else they should at least be allowed to compete with American workers. If an American wants to remain employed while earning 10 times what a Chinese worker makes, the American must be 10 times more productive than the Chinese. Some people point out that many overseas workers are employed in sweatshops, and they try to avoid the products of sweatshop labor. But while living in Dubai, I had the opportunity to get know several Third World citizens who had worked in sweatshops themselves in Bangladesh and Qatar. These people were thankful for the jobs that they had had in the sweatshops, even though it meant working 72 hour weeks for a few dollars a day, sleeping on their worktables, and no bathing facilities. Incredibly, the sweatshops provided them safer working conditions and more reliable pay than traditional jobs in their own economies.

The phenomenon described in this book that disturbed me most was the fact that everywhere, the gap between the rich and poor is widening. To me, that's an indication of capitalism out of control. Even after reading this book, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories about globalization, or feel that picketing international trade meetings will do anything to help poor people anywhere. Globalization of information, science, and economics is a simple result of the current state of communications technology. What we need, however, is more government controls to curb the worst abuses of capitalism. In the field of labor for instance, perhaps we could require companies that want to sell goods in one country that were manufactured in a different country to meet the minimum labor protection laws of the importing country, on every point except wages themselves. But since money is power and power is money, the people who bought themselves a government post have very little incentive to do this. (And where Steger recommends forgiving Third World debt completely, I think it might be a little more effective to reassign the debt to the corrupt politicians who truly profited from the loans, and go after them instead, with the hope to at least discourage future corruption, if not recover the money to develop Third World infrastructure.)

Rating:
Summary: Concise but not entirely convincing
Review: This book is a concise introduction to the phenomenon of globalization. It includes chapters on history, economics, politics, culture, ideology, challenges to globalization, and assessing the future. Annotated references are provided in a short section at the end, just before the index. The book includes a number of short focus boxes that highlight points in the text, as well as photographs, maps, tables, and diagrams.

I picked up this book with the hope of learning about the evils of globalization and why we should try to fight it. However, I still don't see the light, even after reading this book. The book takes a definite liberal stance against globalization, but I remain unconvinced. For example, in the chapter on culture, Steger reminds us about how American over-consume world resources. Suppose we fought globalization by cutting off all international trade and immigration in this country- -I strongly suspect that our taste for hyperconsumption would then bound even more out of control, without international opinion or labor competition to keep it somewhat in check. Or would the economy implode, as happened in the Soviet Union when similar constraints against foreign trade were in effect? Back in the chapter on history, Steger states that the calls for international class solidarity amongst working people in the global North (a globalistic movement) went unheeded in the face of nationalist theologies (which sure sounds like a counter-globalistic movement). But then he goes on to say "There is no question that interstate rivalries intensified at the outset of the 20th century as a result of mass migration, urbanization, competition, and the excessive liberalization of world trade." Whoa there! By brushing the issue under the carpet with his "there is no question" statement, Steger leaves me with unconvinced. I want to believe, but the argumentation just isn't there, perhaps because the book is so concise.

I see globalization as involving 2 main issues: marketing and labor. Marketing, whether explicit through advertisements, or implicit through entertainment media, is despicable since it encourages people to consume things that are harmful or that they don't need. Labor, on the hand, is an extremely complex issue. From the building of the US through the age of Industrialization, the US has always suffered from a labor shortage, relative to the rest of the world. Perhaps that's why so many of our inventors worked on labor-saving devices. As a result, American workers are amongst the most productive in the world. On the other hand, in a global market, American workers must compete with workers from all other countries. Workers in many other countries are paid much less than American workers. To be fair to the other workers and allow them to support their families, they should receive compensation equal to their productivity, or else they should at least be allowed to compete with American workers. If an American wants to remain employed while earning 10 times what a Chinese worker makes, the American must be 10 times more productive than the Chinese. Some people point out that many overseas workers are employed in sweatshops, and they try to avoid the products of sweatshop labor. But while living in Dubai, I had the opportunity to get know several Third World citizens who had worked in sweatshops themselves in Bangladesh and Qatar. These people were thankful for the jobs that they had had in the sweatshops, even though it meant working 72 hour weeks for a few dollars a day, sleeping on their worktables, and no bathing facilities. Incredibly, the sweatshops provided them safer working conditions and more reliable pay than traditional jobs in their own economies.

The phenomenon described in this book that disturbed me most was the fact that everywhere, the gap between the rich and poor is widening. To me, that's an indication of capitalism out of control. Even after reading this book, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories about globalization, or feel that picketing international trade meetings will do anything to help poor people anywhere. Globalization of information, science, and economics is a simple result of the current state of communications technology. What we need, however, is more government controls to curb the worst abuses of capitalism. In the field of labor for instance, perhaps we could require companies that want to sell goods in one country that were manufactured in a different country to meet the minimum labor protection laws of the importing country, on every point except wages themselves. But since money is power and power is money, the people who bought themselves a government post have very little incentive to do this. (And where Steger recommends forgiving Third World debt completely, I think it might be a little more effective to reassign the debt to the corrupt politicians who truly profited from the loans, and go after them instead, with the hope to at least discourage future corruption, if not recover the money to develop Third World infrastructure.)

Rating:
Summary: Great Introduction to Globalization
Review: This may be the best introduction to globalization that I have yet read. Steger very helpfully boils down the essence of globalization in understandable ways without reducing it to just one dimension of the complex process that globalization is. He also really helps define some crucial terms that will help make future discussions of globalization more coherent and clear. Particularly helpful is his distinction between globalization (the process of the intesification and expansion of global interconnections), globality (the condition brought about by the process of globalization) and globalism (the ideology that underwrites and legitimizes the current form of globalization). Steger also takes a good look at the multidimensional nature of globalization, examining it's economic, political, cultural and ideological aspects.

For it's size, there simply doesn't seem to be a better introduction to globalization. All throughout, the book is clear, informative and replete with resources for further study. There are also countless charts, quotes and statistics that help to concretize the points that Steger makes. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the nature of the emerging global economy and how it is shaping our lives.

Rating:
Summary: A superb brief introduction to a complex issue
Review: This truly is a dazzling brief introduction to a subject that could not be covered even by a very long book. As Steger points out, the fact of globalization is the predominant issue of our time. Far too man, as he points out, tend to treat the subject in monolithic or simplistic fashion, focusing on merely one aspect of globalization, and assuming that that aspect defines all of globalization. Anyone familiar with Thomas Friedman's THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE (who is frequently described as a "hyper globalizer") will recognize one such very narrow approach. Despite his brief space, Steger wants to do justice to the complexity of the subject. For the past decade, most writers on globalization have focused on economic globalization, but Steger emphasizes that the process has political, economic, religious, cultural, environmental, and ideological conditions.

Many people who tackle the question of globalization seem to want to know, "Is this a good or bad thing?" Steger is anxious to emphasize that this does not admit of an easy answer. Clearly, the massive increase of economic inequality--which occurs both on international and national levels, e.g., wealth has more and more been concentrated in the industrial countries of the northern hemisphere, and within those countries, more and more in the hands of a small economic corporate and investing elite--is not a good thing, but that is not the only aspect of globalization. Steger seems to suggest that there are both significant advantages and some lamentable dangers in globalization.

The one aspect of globalization concerning which Steger is clearly and rightfully concerned is the promotion of globalization in the ideological terms of the Neoliberal project of promoting free markets over all other concerns. The term "Neoliberal" might throw some people, since the leading Neoliberal of recent decades would include Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and most members of the George W. Bush administration (though also many in the Clinton administration, including Clinton himself). Too many are unaware that Reagan and Bush are not conservatives by traditional understandings of the label: they both pushed for massive governmental intrusion into the markets, in taking an active role in eliminating regulation, and actively employing the government to control the economy, none of which are conservative projects. One reason that the Progressive movement gained so much steam during the McKinley, Roosevelt, and Wilson years was observing the extraordinary corruption and narrow concentration of wealth (and subsequent economic inequality) that resulted from an unregulated market economy. Steger, along with a host of others, points out that with the unfettered promotion of free market capitalism with little or no governmental regulatory control (Neoliberalism's big project) is once again resulting in extreme economic inequality. Numerous studies, to some of which he refers, have undermined one of the central claims of the Neoliberal project: that expanding world markets spreads wealth throughout the world; in fact, it actually shifts wealth into the hands of a very few, a trend that has been taking place not only on a global scale, but on the national level as well (e.g., according to Federal Reserve statistics, in 1979 1% of the population possessed 20% of the wealth in the U.S., while in 1997 the top 1% held 37%, a percentage that has surely exploded following the two massive Bush tax cuts). What I believe Steger could have emphasized even more is that economic inequality is likely going to be THE world issue in the decades to come, as it is likely to become the major issue in American politics as well (given a thirty year history of a massive shift of wealth from the middle class to a very small number of citizens).

My one complaint with the book is that many of the figures and graphs were close to unintelligible. Also, given the small format, sometimes the text and text boxes were laid out rather awkwardly. I found the annotated bibliography to be of great help in mapping out future reading (I sometimes wish that publishers would require all authors of academic books to provide either an annotated bibliography or a bibliographic essay; over the years I've probably learned of more good books to read in this fashion than in any other).

I have read several of the volumes in the Oxford University Press Very Short Introductions series, and this easily ranks as one of my favorites. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to gain a handle on one of the crucial issues of our time.