Doyle:
> Globalization means to me, a process of communications networks
unifying
> business forces across national boundaries through "conversational"
> structures. See Manuel Castells 3 volumes of sociology published by
U.C.
> Berkeley. Especially the first volume, "The Rise of the Network
Society"
> It is the sort of plan that one hears all the time from the
architectural
> planners of e-commerce in the main businesses. That is their vision.
They
> are very explicit about what their plan is. That has a very specific
> meaning about what they mean about globalization. They mean the whole
world
> is unified in a distributed computing environment.
All the above paragraph establishes is that there are a lot of business
plans out there around e-commerce and that it's possible with a little
academic energy to make them add up to a "vision."
> Colin Danby,
> It's also true that the word is often used as a euphemism for
capitalism
> or for imperialism. It is also a common euphemism for modernization.
> For some people it is an all-purpose evil force. I put it to the list
> that given this vast confusion, it is impossible to use
"globalization"
> in a sensible sentence.
>
> Castell, page 130,
> "This fraction of specialty labor does not add up to tens of millions
of
> people, but it is decisive for the performance of business networks,
of
> media networks, and of political networks, so that, overall, the
market for
> most valuable labor is indeed becoming globalized."
This Castell quote is a great example of my point. What does "becoming
globalized" add here? In one sense labor markets became globalized the
first time an artisan moved from one place to another -- thousands of
years ago. Or the first time that communications enabled a manager to
manage remotely. United Fruit Company operated internationally, with
its own system of radio communication, in the 1920s.
> page 386 (1996)
> Internet-mediated communication is too recent a social phenomenon to
have
> provided the opportunity for scholarly research to reach firm
conclusions on
> its social meaning.
An excellent scholarly hedge!
>
> Doyle: They don't envision ... They speculate ... They want ...
they want
> ... They are certainly planning this themselves. I wonder then how
you
> think they don't have clarity about their intent?
Nobody has said that these business plans don't exist. *Somebody* has
to separate investors from their money, and it takes a good story. Now
we know why English majors did so well in the recent tech boom.
> I mean how it is that we
> won't go that direction that they explicitly tell us they want to
follow?
Huh? This is utterly bizarre logic. Why *will* "we" obey "them"? Why
*will* the future correspond to business-plan hype? Business plans do
not always come true!
> Your comments reflect the similar recent remarks by Doug Henwood in
the SF
> Bay Guardian. This strikes me as the sort of after bubble de-bunking
mental
> process
Doug and I have been saying this for years (Doug, admittedly, to a
bigger audience). A search of pen-l archives will show this. Look for
"globaloney."
> that ignores the business plans and gives credence to the psychology
> of the bubble collapse
as opposed to the psychology of the bubble?
> rather than what businesses are actually doing.
The bubble collapse has a lot to do with people paying attention to what
businesses are actually doing i.e. not making profits. You can only run
on hype and science fiction for so long.
> Globalization is a specific process to these times just as the
expansion of
> transportation through the railroads in the 19th century was specific
to the
> development of the U.S.
If this means that the late 20th century saw a rapid development of
communications and computing, and that the late 19th century saw a rapid
development of railroad transport, the answer is well, yes, obviously.
But this is fine example of the illogic surrounding "globalization" --
the notion that we can somehow see in this specific set of events the
presence of some Great Force. "Globalization" adds no analysis, it
simply moves us to a sort of mythic dimension in which visible events
are attributed to powerful spirits.
> Doug Henwood,SF Bay Guardian, page 17
> ..."I don't think there is anything particularly newly international
about
> the political economy today."...
>
> ..."information and capital could only flow at the speed of
> weeks--transatlantic ocean voyages, for example--to the era of the
telegraph
> was a much bigger shift than anything we've seen today."...
>
> ..."Going from seconds to nanoseconds is faster, but is it really more
> radical or important than changes in the past?"
>
> Doyle: This question dismisses computing's affect to the present
economy.
No it doesn't. It just asks, soberly, what that effect is. There is a
serious debate on this.
> ...
>
> There was no sense as far as I can see in the nineteenth century of
the
> ability to unify and increase communications productivity like we have
now.
> Despite the technical shortcomings of digital tools (the fragility of
the
> processes).
There is plenty of sense to this. Think about communications
productivity (output per unit of input) in 1800, 1900, and 2000. There
was an enormous jump from 1800 to 1900 with the spread of telegraph and
telephone communication, plus trains and faster ships for mail.
Undersea telegraph cables were being laid in the 1850s. I haven't seem
any efforts to estimate figures, but it's quite possible that, given the
low base in 1800, communications productivity grew *more* over the 19th
century than over the 20th.
> Doug Henwood, SF Bay Guardian, page 17,
> "The whole "new economy" discourse of the last three or four years--
which
> may be fading now that the dot-com stocks have collapsed and the
economy is
> looking a little recessionish--holds that computer and communications
> technology have so turned the world upside down that all the the old
rules
> don't apply."
>
> Doyle: There has been a steady development in computing (starting at
> virtually zero) since the WWII period. Their estimate is as I say
above
> that they represent 800 billion dollars (see page 395 of Castell's
book on
> the first stage of this boom $US 400 billion) now and they expect to
expand
> to 10 trillion in 12 years. They expect a world wide system of
> communications,
There has been a worldwide system of communications for at least a
century. Yes, communications have gotten better, as have cars and
grocery stores, and there's a whacking great market in selling
communications services. Computing has gotten a lot cheaper too, and we
do have in the web a genuinely new medium, as is evidenced by the
existence of this discussion. Nobody is claiming that there have not
been qualitative changes in the goods and services that are produced.
Real U.S. per capita output has doubled in the last 40 years, and it
would be hard for that to happen *without* major qualitative shifts.
Best, Colin
