Looking back at the history of human evolution and its associated socioeconomic obstacles, we can observe how to overcome the disparity between classes of communities. Despite all that, as of today, we are still contemplating what would be the most efficient way to homogenize the global socioeconomic status. Of course, some may see such homogeneity as the ultimate equality among the constituents, something that communism envisions with utter failure. But in reality, here within and after, what socioeconomic uniqueness stays creating options. It is about the free trade system between the various societies around the country or the world.
Socioeconomic uniformity is a rather novel phenomenon, and it is merely observed through the lens of what we realize today under the title of “socioeconomic Globalization.”
Socioeconomic Globalization; the Modern trend after the fall of the Communist Iron Wall
Globalization pertains to the method of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments globally. It has escalated since the 19th century due to advances in transportation and communication technology.
Socioeconomic globalization has produced an extension in international trade and the shift of ideas and cultures. Globalization is fundamentally an economical means of interaction and integration that is associated with social and cultural perspectives.
There are three principal dimensions of globalization, with economic globalization being one of the three. The two others are political globalization and cultural globalization.
Economic globalization regards the extensive international movement of goods, capital, services, technology, and information.
Globalization is the cause of increasing economic integration and reliance on national, regional, and local economies across the planet through an intensification of cross-border movement of goods, services, technologies, and capital.
Although the history of globalization dates back to World Ware I (WWI) era, nonetheless, it was only limited to the international trade treaties among countries until the fall of communist Russia.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the downfall of the Soviet Union flagged the end of the post-second-World-War bipolar system and transformed world order.
The 19th century delineates a time when socioeconomic globalization was envisioned through the lens of Maoist and Stalinist socialism. The Chinese and Soviet communist structure proposed the concept that globalization, particularly that of the economic globalization, only through the takeover of the socioeconomic affairs by the state.
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Free-market capitalism, on the other hand, visualizes the economy by decentralizing the system into smaller sovereign states. However, the destruction of the iron wall marked the beginning of the sweeping expansion of the Crony corporate capitalism beyond geopolitical borders, redefining socioeconomic and political globalization. Microsoft and google representing two of many examples of the latter trend.
Globalization is the Instrument of Corporate Expansion
Globalization, after the fall of the Soviet regime, increased the interconnectedness and interdependence of peoples and countries around the world. That led to the establishment of the G20, a global bloc composed by the governments and central bank authorities from 19 states and the European Union (EU) Established in 1999.
The G20 is composed of the most industrialized and developing economies that contribute to the decision making of the international economic and financial stability. Together, the G20 nations account for around 80% of global economic output, first 75% of all international trade, and about two-thirds of the world’s inhabitants.
G20 leaders get together every year in a summit to discuss and coordinate pressing global issues of “mutual interest.” Though economics and trade are the centerpieces of each summit’s agenda; major corporation executives hold a particular interest in those issues like climate change, migration policies, terrorism, the future of work, or global wealth. Hence, they have also become a recurring focus of the G20 summit.
The G20 leaders represent the “political core of the global financial architecture that curbs markets, strictly defined capital flows, and thresholds for countries with various needs.
The joint action of G20 leaders has placed trade barriers removal and the implementation of financial structure. Nonetheless, the G20 monetary and fiscal policies have been the source of tax evasion and corruption, which has proven to be among many downsides of contemporary globalization. As a result of this and other failures from the G20 in coordinating globalization, populists, as well as nationalist movements worldwide have been pushing countries to pursue their interests alone or form coalitions.
The Globalization reform of the post-communist 1990s shifted the power from political and socialist unionism into the hands of the already personified corporate cartel. With over two decades, companies such as Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and insurance industries have expanded their influence under the notion of global brotherhood, Philanthropism, and homogenizing the global economy.
Corporations have successfully maximized their influence on governments through lobbyism or directly extorting the leaders to enforce specific policies to their benefits.
Globalism, Nationalism, Individual Welfare, and Conflict of Interest
Although there is a significant discourse among nationalists and the neo-globalists, either concept significantly undermines individual welfare and autonomy. Because Globalism and Nationalism both favor the profile of a group of people or entities. In both scenarios, individuality is subdued by fascism. The proponents of globalism are typically in favor of diminishing international borders’ authority and the ability of nations to maintain them, to further facilitate uninhibited global political, economic, and cultural engagement. Although the end result of globalist doctrine often occurs out of public expose. However, specific public icons of particular sociopolitical profiles make are benefiting for its mission. Outspoken globalists such as George Soros, and Bill Gates align with the wealthy, yet leftist demographic. The latter is because globalism often achieves many neoliberal policies, such as reducing the barriers between opposing cultures and economic integration of underdeveloped nations, through collective approaches such as socialism and Neoliberalism.
On the other hand, the term “nationalism” has been subject to intensive public scrutiny, and in the eyes of many leftist media and political officials, it has almost become synonymous with hate, bigotry, and racism. This inaccurate pairing of words has been further facilitated by self-proclaimed right-wing nationalists who do not really understand the term but subsequently use it to pursue xenophobic agendas. At its core, nationalism refers merely to the prospect of prioritizing one’s particular nation before those of others and maintaining the sovereignty of a state’s own decisions and direction. But, dangerous elements of nationalism have perpetuated well into the current era and has taken severe problematic root in the United States. Ethnic nationalism had hostilely divided American society since before the dawn of the Civil War when Northern Republicans and Sothern Democrats bore arms over the role and status of African Americans.
The nationalist theory, at its most corrupted and immoral form, poses an equally challenging threat to the free liberties of individuals and groups as globalists. The direct aim of many radical self-proclaimed nationalists is the oppression, removal, or even outright genocide of entire groups of people, most commonly based solely on their demographic profile. That directly contradicts the fundamental rights of all humans, namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as famously posited by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
The Emergence of Populism on the era of Globalization
Jeffry A. Frieden, the Stanfield Professor of International Peace at Harvard University and specialist on the politics of international financial relations, said in an interview:
“The first age of globalization was the heyday of the classical gold standard. Governments largely gave priority to external balance and defending the gold parity (the exchange rate against gold), even if this meant imposing painful domestic austerity measures. Austerity was politically feasible because those who suffered most were politically powerless.”
The insult to the interest of the populace had a sparking effect on the rise of the populist movement. However, unlike the common understanding, the Populus movement is not particular to the right-wing nationalist, as we see in the United States, but also pertains to left-wing liberals in one way or another. Besides, left-wing liberal take the concept beyond national borders, hence called Neo-liberal Globalism.
There is a sharp contrast between the populist movements in the developed Western countries, those in European countries, and those in the developing world. In the majority of the developing world, religion plays a substantial role. But, focusing on the western hemisphere populism is likely to affect social and labor market policies. For instance, most populist movements in the European Union, whether of the Right or the Left, tend to support the maintenance of the welfare state. Also, the right-wing populists of the west typically push to restrict immigrants’ access to social benefits, which is often referred to as “welfare chauvinism.”
Economic Homogeneity, Economic Globalization, and the Free-Market Economy
Economic homogeneity is the ultimate rhetoric of the modern corporatists who also call themselves philanthropists. It sounds perfect and is perceived by any bystander as the system, which creates the opportunity for everyone. But realistically, that is far from the actuality.
The Socioeconomic Globalization of today may seem to intend to create homogeneity; nevertheless, even when it does, it will be through centralized over-regulation, monopoly, and Top-down implementation. That is, over time, tends to generate corruption and extortion, something that we see over and over with regards to the G20, corporatism, and political influence.
A globalized economy is a form of reformed “Command economy,” but only in this case, the corporations are the sole participants. In the free market economy, however, the law of supply and demand plays a central role rather than a central government regulating manufacturing and labor. Companies sell goods and services at the uppermost price that consumers are willing to pay as workers earn the most top wages companies are eager to pay for their services. Hence, A purely capitalist economy is a free market economy.
From Ethnocentric Friction to Socioeconomic Globalization
Based on what is discussed so far, Globalists define Economic homogeneity as created by a faction of corporate executives. In contrast, free-market capitalism (Not the corporate Crony Capitalism) observes homogeneity based on the transparency and equal opportunity to compete for service delivery or product.
Corporations like Globalization
With the advent of corporate personhood over a century ago and the more new establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Organizations such as the G20 as a global congress for the promulgation of multinational corporate interests, suggest that the corporate world is no longer merely a collection of separate entities; instead they are considered a corporate political culture. WTO and G20 are a global culture, identifiable mainly with the community of multinational corporations. The insinuation of this is the development of the city, political conjunction of artificial entities inventing global instruments and agencies through which they govern economic domination or the “corporate globalization.”
The global computer corporations, led by Bill Gates, many other corporate executives, and the Good club, are fighting for new rules incorporated into the WTO. The corporations want global provisions that will exclude government legislations from regulating e-commerce dealings. One of the rulebooks would prohibit a tax on e-commerce actions. For instance, if one buys a book from Amazon, there’d be no tax on it. Even though There’s no tax on it now, they want a global international treaty so that a tax can’t be introduced in the forthcoming.
The Clinton administration visibly influenced by the biotech, high-tech, computer industries and was eager to comply.
The instruments of economic globalization are causing potentially the most fundamental disruption of the planet’s social, political, and financial arrangements since the era of the Industrial Revolution. Globalization efforts produce a power shift of a humongous scale, moving really economic and political influence diverting from national, state, and local governments and communities. Instead, it presses the system toward global corporations, banks, and universal bureaucracies. That carries disastrous consequences for community control, democracy, national sovereignty, indigenous culture, and the economy, as well as the natural world.
Corporate-driven economic globalization is rooted in economic philosophy and now also in a process, both of which try to integrate and unify all commercial activity on the planet within one single, centralized supersystem.
Countries with different cultures and economic traditions such as India, Brazil, U.K., Kenya, China, and the United States; all meant to merge their financial actions within a single theoretical framework by creating a “monoculture.”
Racism, the Culture of Insecurity
The global homogenization of culture, economic practice, lifestyle, and ideology thru neo-liberal corporate support entails sacrificing local traditions, values, arts, and traditional small-scale commercial practices. For instance, the days when it was fun to travel to so-called exotic places on the globe are becoming extinct.
Through globalization, every place will look and feel the same, with the same restaurant franchises, the same chain hotels, the same clothes and malls and superstores, the same streets crowded with the same cars, the same high-rise architectural expressions, and increasingly the same television programs, music, and art.
Economic globalization actively undermines all values except economic values. It enshrines the global corporations as the engines and benefactors of the process.
Corporations are not the pro-Free Market
Clinging to the term “capitalism” may be one factor reinforcing the fusion of individualism and free-market capitalism with corporatist advocacy. Today, the explicit relationship between free markets and corporate power must be continually clarified. Because corporations do not prefer a free-market economy, not merely because they hate competition, but primarily since the decentralized system of the free market economy puts the corporate cartel logistically at a significant disadvantage.
The centralized government authority can render the corporate elite with cartel enforcement. For example, price-fixing and the legalization of kick-back practices agreements between corporations and governments are unstable on a free market, but well established in a centralized state. Because in a prearranged system such as a government-corporate alliance, all parties to the agreement have a collective interest in seeing the agreement generally hold, each has an individual interest in breaking the agreement by underselling the other parties to win away from their customers. The oligopolistic prices set between bureaucrats and corporate executives tend to attract new competitors into the market. Hence the advantage to the business of state-enforced cartelization.
The ability of giant firms to exploit economies of scale is also limited in a free market. Because, beyond a certain point the benefits of size get outweighed by diseconomies of scale unless the state enables them to socialize these costs by immunizing them from the competition, like by imposing fees, licensure requirements, capitalization requirements, and other regulatory burdens that disproportionately impact newer, weaker entrants as opposed to more vibrant, more established firms.
Corporate Globalization is the Neo-feudalism
The history of modern democracy, today is only appreciated within the context of shifting authority and the legislative process. That has been perpetually transiting starting from private ruling bodies to sovereign autocrats, and later to publicly culpable democracies. But today, after centuries of political reform, such a trend is being reversed. Western democratic states and the majority of the regimes across the world are not solely enfolding neoliberalism in the sense of deregulating the economy. Instead, Aristocracies are seeking something aptly described as a new form of Feudalism. Within the framework of what we call today, Neo-feudalism’s entire realms of public law, public property, due process, and citizen rights revert to unaccountable control corporations.
Trade law of today permits private benches to overturn or sidestep civil statute. Tech platform monopolies have created an exclusive regime where they can squash competitors and invade consumer privacy utilizing harsh terms, often buried in online “terms of service” provisions. Confidentiality agreements and abuses of patents have broken down the unity of joint scientific examination. Corporations claim the ownership of scientific knowledge in the name of patent and confidentiality agreement. Companies manipulating intellectual property and trade law, prevent small businesses from following the traditional practice of business. They do so under various monopolistic trade agreements, which represents, not deregulation or neoliberalism, but a legally sanctioned private jurisprudence or neo-feudalism.
In the traditional sense, Feudalism is a set of mutual legal and military obligations among the warrior aristocracy, encompassing three roles; lords, vassals, and fiefs. In general, a lord was a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the property by the lord, i.e., the fief. In exchange utility of the fief and protection by the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord, such as military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal over the fief were the feudal relationships. The peasants or the serfs were generally those who worked on the fiefs.
Today, Corporations have become the Neo-Lords, Governments, the Neo-Vassals, citizens the Neo-Serfs and countries and territories, the Neo-fiefs.
What makes the neo-feudalism different from its traditional definition is that the former is much more sophisticated. Corporate Feudalism has disrupted the conventional geographic borders and has set new feudal territories that are defined by the organizational business missions and strategies. Neo-feudalism is a globalist system, and if a government on the globe refuses to give in to the vassalage or serfdom of the corporate lordship, then they have to face the military action of the other vassals.
Neo-feudalism is the contemporary left-wing definition of how Globalists intend to bring homogeneity to the global economy.
Decentralization, Socioeconomic Economization, Free-Market, and Establishing Economic Homogeneity
Many theories exist as to how to establish a fair market. However, none has been proven to be the ultimate solution. Yet, what is shown is the reality; the bigger the regulation, requires broader government administration. And more extensive the administration, thus top-down bureaucracy, the lesser the flexibility, lower transparency, more centralization, and more corruption.
As mentioned earlier, the opponents of the free market mistakenly utter global economic failure by associating the free market system with corporate greed and monopoly. Although corporate cartel is, indeed, the major players in the global financial crisis, nonetheless, their relationship to the free market economy is erroneously perceived thus defined.
The free market may have its own flaws, as there is no perfection in any solution; however, it is by far the unsurpassed option, only if implemented right. To have an actual free market without a monopoly, we must first abolish the concept of corporate personhood. Then create a sovereign small community states through decentralization of operations, governance, technology, and businesses, while concomitantly create transparency and full accountability. Only when accomplishing the following criteria, then we produce a healthy economy through homogeneity of the opportunities for every individual.
