Globalist: A Journey Towards (Political Geography)

In the early 20th century, several developments defined the shape of globalization.

Arabian Peninsula's liberation from Ottoman Empire led to formation of loose federation of small Arab states which were organized based on tribal affiliation although sectarian religious undercurrent was present.  The Russian revolution, on the other hand, created an opportunity for Stalin and Eastern European leaders to create tightly controlled state monopolies on all aspects of life which was in full swing by the end of WWII.

As WWII was ended, Western Europe, standing as a surrogate power for the US, stood in opposition to the Eastern European alliances. Before the end of 1940s, Mao consolidated its control of the vast Chinese territories. Soon, India led to by Gandhi’s peaceful movement began its decolonization process which turned into final separation of its territories as to what we know today as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

During 1950s a host of movements led to many African and Asian independence movements ending an era of colonization. In 1960s with the US involvement in the S.E. Asia, the political geography was redefined and new political alliances were shaped.              

During 1970s, Cold War was in full swing when many third world countries (little economic means and without any technology, social, or political infrastructure comparable to those of the Soviet Union or the US and its allies) aligned themselves to the Soviet bloc in many cases but were just pawns played in a well-crafted game between the Soviets and the US.

During 1980s, as the Soviet bloc fell and the Berlin Wall came down, the ideological battlegrounds of political differences gave way to economic rivalries. These changes gave rise to new economic opportunities to be exploited by international companies and shape the new face of globalization in the 21^st century.                       

Globalist: A Journey Towards (What is it?)

Various sources define globalization differently. Here, I have provided few resources that can help you investigate and form your own definition of globalization.

1. www.globalization101.org    for beginners
2. www.imf.org/external/np/exr/key/global.htm advanced macro economic analysis
3. http://youthink.worldbank.org/issues/ global issues from World Bank perspective
4. http://www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm an academic perspective of globalization
5. http://www.cato.org/globalization Cato Institute's perspective of globalization       

Globalist: A Journey Towards (Personal Cultural Pyramid)

Personal Cultural Pyramid

I have begun theorizing, although I have not had the opportunity to research or write about it, that individual cultural orientation is directly related to the individual accumulative experiences as manifested by upbringing, environment, exposure to diversity, relationship with others.

This view, while considers one's national cultural orientation as the basis, it builds on that with experiences which forms an individual cultural pyramid that is distinct from a vast regional, national, and sub-culture orientation despite their influences. Therefore, in a global environment, we face multitudes of individuals with different perspective of globalized world. 

I speculate that approaching diversity with personal cultural pyramid approach which is build on implicit knowledge rather than explicit description of one's culture as defined by anthropological observation of a nation, would be most fruitful in understanding an individual rather than trying to categorize many in one culture which can deprive us of valuable insight into how an individual perceives reality and reacts to it.

The debate then arises as to how do we negotiate business basis of a contract or personal relationship if parties are from two different countries or simply from two different regions of a same country?

Globalist: A Journey Towards

Providing social, economic, political, and ethical context of globalization, we will now address the cultural context. In addressing the topic, we will use Geert Hofestede's power distance as a starting point. Truly, it was a pleasure to meet such knowledgeable individual in one of the annual Academy of Management conferences and have the opportunity to chat with him for few minutes.

Hofestede's views on cultural differences is an excellent start by an academic leader but by no means comprehensive, complete, or portrays an accurate picture of cultural differences. For example, his views on Iran is inaccurate about the country before and after the 1979 revolution. Hofestede viewed Iran as one homogeneous country when articulating the power distance theory before the revolution and assumed is like an Arab nation after the revolution. However, Iran is neither homogeneous nor at any time like any other Arab or Muslim country. Therefore, if not for other countries, at the minimum his power distance theory has fundamental flows when addressing Iran and cannot be used to understand the true nature of global citizens' cultures. After all, Iran includes multitude of cultures (Turkmans, Uzbeks, Arabs, Azaris, and many more) where even Arabs from South West of Iran do not see themselves as a part of the Arab world.   

So, how as global citizens, can we understand and communicate with other global citizens to minimize misunderstanding, appreciate our sense of diversity, and build on a common ground to proceed. How should we approach culture to better understand others?

Globalist: A Journey Towards

globalist: Globalist: A Journey Towards: "As complex relationships between different economic and social classes was developed and political dynamic played a pivotal role in determin..."

Globalist: A Journey Towards

As complex relationships between different economic and social classes was developed and political dynamic played a pivotal role in determining the fate of classes with less economic clout, ethics became a force that legal system could use as a basis to dispense justice. Immanuel Kant, in his Ethical Philosophy described ethics as what ordinary citizen can experience through daily activity in distinguishing right and wrong. Kant advanced his idea of ethics in the German context in 1770-1780s; hence his view did not reflect a universal perspective of ethics nor did it address the complex notion of what ethical behavior should be in multicultural global world that we live in.

In the 1970s, rising from the French culture, Foucault in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, viewed ethics as the juxtaposition of the soul, the self, and the relentless desire of the state to force individuals to give up their rights to abide by political will which may not reflect the collective wisdom about right and wrong.  

With the evolution of the ethical perspective in our global environment and lack of sufficient independent secular ethicists who could articulate ethics in places like China and the Middle East, globalization through economic activities and inter-dependency continued to expand and manifest itself creating new complexities in defining ethics in socio-economic and political relations within each country and within the global community.    
       

Globalist: A Journey Towards

One of the early visionaries who merged social, economic, and political concerns in examining globalization was Karl Marx. He articulated that the dialectical nature of economic changes had given rise to socio-political forces, creating new socio-economic middle class facilitating new production and; hence, creating new changes that would have global impact. Therefore, it is important to unfold Marx's perspective in understanding the roots of globalization and how global economic activities can lead to social and political changes whose inertia, direction, and force cannot be controlled, although attempts will be made, by governments.    

Karl Marx explained how social structure has been and continues to be impacted by economic changes which in turn may create new political realities. Marx put forth few simple ideas:

1.      As new technologies are invented and trade between countries are expanded, new socio-economic class of citizens in each country is created that he called bourgeoisie that we know as middle class. Middle class worked as managers, supervisors, and essentially facilitators of production and movements of goods and services   

2.      New technologies, such as transportation and production, will help owners of capital to explore different countries for cheaper labor and raw material to help them improve their profit and expand their capital base.  

3.      The middle class will gradually become mere wage earners at the mercy of capital owners who control all the resources and become victims of the collective labor power in bargaining for taking away the profits from capital owners through asking for higher wages and more benefits.

4.      Eventually, middle class facilitative role will be replaced by mechanized new technologies and its economic importance will degraded due to social structural changes and mass production and distribution.

5.      At the end, the capital owners and laborers will emerge as two remaining socio-economic classes where each class will be determined to fight for the control of political power on global basis.

Marx provided a context for new globalization. He, essentially, provided a clear road map as to how and why globalization takes place. Therefore, it is important to delineate what impact, if any, Marx had on the way we should view ourselves as globalists, above and beyond national borders, as a member of human race.     

Globalist: A Journey Towards

We begin our journey by defining what we mean by being a globalist. Some, in the academia, have defined global as interaction between more than few countries. We define globalist as a person or people who transcend cultural, social, and economic orientation of a particular country to address the needs of humanity to move towards logical peaceful collaboration of all countries and all nationalities in creating sustainable life, appreciating the bio diversity, utilizing resources to maintain life, improve life for all races, nationalities, and hold all countries and citizens to the same ethical standards.

In the coming days, we will examine the historical context of globalization as articulated by philosophers, ethicist, leaders while we look forward to the future to determine our individual obligations in creating a new global world order to save humanity as citizens of earth rather than pinning one country against another to benefit for individual benefits.