From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.com Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:32:27 +0100 Subject: The grand narrative of globalisation All After some thought and following on from some of the statements that have been made recently I thought it might be interesting to tentatively define the grand narrative of globalisation. The grand narrative of globalisation has been dominant in economic discourse for the past decade or so - I would mark the turning point as being the dominance of neo-liberal economics in the late 70s. The claims made for globalisation are that there has been a marked increase in international capitalism and that as a result national economies have evolved into a global economy which is defined by the global market. In this discourse the economic neo-liberals have remained dominant and have generally succeeded in arguing that public economic policy should continue to deregulate trade, investment and capital. Globalisation is seen as a positive element that will benefit all throughthe increases in the scale and efficiency of the market. National regulation is seen as a hindrence and welfare and worker's rights and protection is understood as being something that damages national competitiveness. These are simply incorrect assumptions - the economic liberal/conservative view is founded on incorrect claims and the policies it demands result in established rights and entitlements being sacrificed to enable market based increases in growth that never actually deliver. This leads to this fitting within the core notion of the grand narratives - that which states that the grand narrative is the legitmating force(s) that identify modernity. The core of Lyotards definition of post-modernity is defined through the end of the grand narratives and its not clear how it could be redefined to enable this new post-modern grand narrative to be accepted. In addition Lyotard states that a grand narrative is aterm "...which legitimates itself with reference to a discourse making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of spirit... the creation of wealth..." All of which seems to fit quite nicely globalisation as a GN. I'd ay that it directly fits within the first ideal type of GN... In addition I believe it can be considered as a grand narrative is because of the extent to which it has become a central descriptive concept - from management gurus, politicians and journalists through to philosophers and anti-capitalists it has become the central story which is used to define and describe our post-modrn world. It has become accepted that our world is increasingly defined through global processes. The national is supposedly dissolving - this is driven by the globalisation of the economy - as a result of which the grand narrative claims that national strategies of economic management are irrelevant. To re-work a reactionary grand narrative such as globalisation requires at least two approaches - firstly N&Hs Empire which broadly accepts the GN of globalisation and investigates it from a different angle and works on new forms of political and philosophical practice and - secondly the approach which denies that globalisation is a correct theorisation of the state of things and proposes alternative views of the international economy... regards sdv
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