Ask Auntie Pinko
April 17, 2003

Dear Auntie Pinko,

I have known since I was young that having an "international" view was considered liberal, and many liberals prided themselves on being "citizens of the world." We used to say "Think globally, act locally." But now it seems like the liberals are in the streets protesting against "globalization."

Am I not getting it?

Ricardo,
Evanston, IL

Dear Ricardo,

There is "thinking globally," and there is "globalization," and they aren't the same concept.

"Thinking globally" was an outgrowth of the same post-World War II impulse that created the United Nations. Let's call it "internationalism," for the purposes of this discussion, to distinguish it from the "globalism" we know today. It's a very old concept, and it has its roots in the notion that the national interests of any state can sometimes be better served in the long term by subordinating them to the broader interests of a group of states.

Some of the specific goals of internationalism were to promote methods of settling differences between nations without war, to establish certain minimum standards of human rights and dignity (and use the peer group to exert a continual gentle pressure to keep those standards moving in the direction of civilization,) and to address critical issues that arise irrespective of human geographical designations (environmental issues, disease, refugees, etc.)

Internationalism generally went hand-in-hand with a belief that allowing citizens of a state some level of political and social self-determination should be the standard. While political and social self-determination does not necessarily mean democracy as we understand it today, it did at least encourage states to strive for the appearance of some kind of consent of the governed.

But the central fulcrum of the concept was to keep nations in contact, talking instead of shooting, looking collectively for solutions to international problems rather than utterly ignoring the interests of their neighbors to pursue their own self-interests. Even a cursory review of human history will show what a tremendous challenge this represents, and how monumental even the smallest steps look against the larger background of human political and social evolution.

Those steps have been small. And nations bent on pursuing their own self-interest are often adept at subverting and co-opting the internationalist premise to serve their own ends, which is frustrating. Yet if we look at the record of internationalist accomplishments, both via the United Nations and by other internationalist constructs-the International Olympics, Medicins sans Frontiers, Greenpeace, the Geneva Convention, etc., the last hundred years have achieved miracles undreamed-of in human progress in social, cultural, scientific and political arenas of human endeavor.

Globalism, on the other hand, represents an outgrowth of a different, and even more venerable, human impulse-trade and economics. Economic incentives have played a powerful role in human progress, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong about developing new tools to enable economic progress on a level that transcends the self-interest of individual nations.

And many of the people involved in the current globalization movement are motivated by exactly that goal-they want to enable economic progress for any of the world's citizens, by addressing the barriers to that progress posed by national self-interest. Some of the issues are clearer-increasing the options for citizens of economically undeveloped areas to obtain credit or capitalization, for instance.

But a great many of the issues are problematic. For example, how long should a political jurisdiction be allowed to protect a developing industry with tariffs or other trade restraints, in order to grow that industry? At what point does nation A's incubation of its fledgling widget industry for the benefit of its own people become a serious problem to nation B's widget workers? Where are the balances, and who makes those decisions?

Creating global ways to address these issues, and getting nations to invest in solving some of these problems, started out as a project every bit as noble as the internationalist experiments.

So where is the problem? Why are we out in the streets protesting globalization?

Because large portions of the movement have been hijacked to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, at the expense of the neediest and most economically disadvantaged citizens of the world. By freeing corporations from even the modest constraints of national governance, we have loosed the monster of unregulated capitalism in its purest, most ugly form.

The excuse of "free trade" is now used to enable multinational corporations with net worths larger than most of the countries they do business in, to evade any and all constraints. Environmental protection, basic worker rights, taxes to support the infrastructure than enables them to do business - all can be evaded under treaties negotiated with pious lip service to global ideals, and (of course,) plenty of lubricating cash to the right government officials.

Auntie Pinko does actually believe in the power of private enterprise as an engine of human progress - but not without the utterly necessary restraint of governments dedicated to guarding the citizens' interests, rather than the stockholders.' I will always be an internationalist in the old sense of the concept, and I will always oppose globalization under the new and rapacious character it wears today.

Thanks, Ricardo, for asking Auntie Pinko!

P.S.: Auntie Pinko reminds all my friends with interesting questions to include your name and hometown with your question!

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