>oh, and one more thing that I just ran across, ethan kapstein's 1994 book,
>_governing the global economy_, which is also skeptical about claims about
>the death of the nation-state as an national or international regulatory
>agent.
many thanks again. the refs look good.
I'm skeptical about the announcement of the death of the nation-state as well, but not that it is being re-shaped, made stronger in some areas, incapable of enacting the same powers in others. I'm trying to disentangle the degrees or significance of globalisation in relation to three things specifically: national labour regulations (including immigration, laws covering temporary workers and refugees); national trade laws (such as import tariffs and restrictions); and national currency arrangements (money flows).
I know for instance that australia in the last decade has significantly pared back tariffs (but not completely, certain industries like textiles and car manufacturing are still protected, but much less so), that the national currency has been floated(still tied to the US dollar, but not entirely), and that national labour regulations have moved in the opposite direction (toward stricter controls, including the creation of a starving surplus population through the denial of welfare to immigrants in their first two years of residency, amongst other things).
so, I'm trying to see to what extent this is also the pattern of other countries' experiences of so-called globalisation.
Doug wrote:
>You could argue, as I do, that in many cases they
>measure a return to pre-1913 levels of "globalization" - this is true in
>the trade share figures (by that measure, Mexico was more "globalized" in
>1913 than it is today) and the foreign investment figures (British foreign
>assets in the late 19th century were much larger in relative terms than
>Japan's are today, U.S. industrialization was heavily financed on the
>London markets, etc.).
excellent point. so, by implication, the phrase 'national economy' only really comes into being in the twentieth century, and this within a US framework? reminds me to take another look at arrighi's work. (perhaps also US imperialism (hegemony) has something of a different structure to that of British imperialism, the latter took its cue from the more centrist, direct rule, of Spain I think. what next? - because there will be a next...)
>Most of the trade and capital flow action occurs
>among a rather small group of countries - the OECD countries and about 10
>"developing" ones. About 2/3-3/4 of foreign investment flows, for example,
>consist of one rich country investing in another. Most of Western Europe's
>trade - more than 70%, I think, but I'm doing this from memory - is
>intra-European; with EMU, Europe is evolving from a set of small, open
>economies to a large, closed one.
do you know offhand if this is also evident in terms of money and/or immigration? too early to tell I guess with the Euro... but anyone know of what's happening with the latter?
>My major problem with the globalization discourse is that it's conducted in
>such analytical isolation - that the word is often used as a misleading
>euphemism for capitalism and imperialism, which has the disarming effect of
>presenting social activities as inevitable forces of nature. And as John
>Forbes says in the poem that Meaghan Morris uses as the epigraph for
>"Ecstasy & Economics" necessity is often "what rich Americans want."
indeed, not to mention the sadistic threat that is implied in such 'necessity'. there's also another sense in which this discourse is crappy: it establishes the terms of an opposition as anti-globalism, with the consequences that unionists (and many workers) think it terms of 'nation versus globe', where 'globe' is perceived as the threat....
and thanks Doug for making the article available.
Angela --- rcollins at netlink.com.au