Some of my amateur thoughts on problems of globalization and the financial crisis.
We are bonded with one global net which involves an exchange of information, products and human resources and many more. Through this exchange we form advantages not only for our governments, companies, homes and ourselves but also we have learned to face the dependence from each others’ actions as a factor of invading a global territory.
A global territory: to whom does it belong? Some of us may think global territory is a general realm, a big tribune for anyone who wishes to say something, others claim it is ruled by the ones who are trying to establish a greater hegemony. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as always.
It’s certainly possible to extract some arguments from foreseeing the complex advancement of the global events. The current economic crisis has been foresee by many, but yet no one wanted to believe and to pull back from the game in time. As there was never any time…
Buy yourself happiness! It will cost you nothing, just take a credit!
Whatever the reality promises, the horns have been warning us about problems long time ago, recalling the previous crisis in the past. However the world have always been in evolution towards changes and the changes have never been about blockade existence, but against it.
In any globalization urge there has always been an ideology. People simply need to have a reasoning, in fact possibly just a formal one, for uniting. Ideology is what can awake a desire to form a coalition, because it promises a “better option”.
Better option is a basic need and it works depending on what is the current demand. Let’s take the famous pyramid of Maslow. According to the latter, we are growing in our needs as we find ourselves satisfies with the basic things like security and food. So, if, let’s say, people are in need of security, the ideology of unity will be built around securing the national borders, and if there is a demand for wealth, then ideology will penetrate straight into people’s homes, trying to make them need consumer products and luxury goods, drawing glossy picture of a posh and beautiful life.
The risks are not hard to identify. Too much of the security urge will cause a hegemony of arms and militarization, too much of capitalism worship will cause greed and fast money-making systems and schemes. Of corse, we can’t stop a demand that easily or refuse from our growing needs.
We have invented advanced surveillance systems, but we didn’t learn to be better.
We have created globalization and we have to make a use of it the best possible way. Globalization talks about being united and free but as we grow and adjust this world to our growing needs we become more and more dependent on each other. What’s the paradox? The answer I think lies in finding the independence within the system; not by disconnecting, but by identifying ourselves with our real needs and by working hard to reach the a human development which will correspond with our current technological and scientific progress.
This is not yet another call for social responsibility, but just an attempt for an analysis.
Our minds are constantly busy with fears: problems, issues, deadlines, schedules and so on. In a world where the life is timed and there is no time to waste, people lose their freedom to chose what they really want, they have to chose what’s immediately accessible, what’s on demand, what sells versus what’s sustainable.
Technological progress is a key factor of a greater accessibility across different platforms and individuals, but this is not helping us to be more free or better. As we step into corporate worlds our actions and behaviors draw the line of a distance, our conversations consist of formal exchange of information: everything to insure everyone is fully and overly busy at all time. But where is the time for our free choice?
People are using each other to fulfill the goals that are put in their heads by global demands and social fears. In a world of increasing information exchange, privacy invasion and all-time surveillance, it is not hard to put an idea in anybody’s mind and program a brain.
Be it pizza, a film or terrorism, if is packaged right, it sells.
Here I try to state about some of the icons of present economically globalized world, making my point that current global crisis is partly an explosion of many ideological and information bubbles that didn’t have any assurance and real value.
The ideological re-congestion of a permanent reorientation causes people want everything and right away, as they are too messed up about their real desires.
They are ready to go with any option that is ready for consumption, looks recognizable and is easy to access.
Apples and oranges
Such systems with people working hard for an immediate money under certain propaganda of global welfare are certainly problematic and dangerous.
Fast happiness equals easy an downfall. Let’s say the happiness is having lots of oranges. The givers of oranges are expecting big profits, but too much “giving” can eventually cause a lack of willingness of those people who own, to share with the ones who don’t. And then the givers are gone in a heartbeat, leaving the world in chaos to deal with its problems. Who are those givers? The top managers, brokers, private bankers, stock players, re-investors, different business dealers, the list goes on with all the money jugglers.
When there is no more money or oranges left to juggle, they juggle with apples, trying to sell them instead of oranges as the same value…
This is the underflow of the latest financial storm, which blew away not only the American stock and real estate markets, but economical stability of all the Globalized World.
Nothing comes and goes easily . Everything takes time… (Even the Crisis).
Victoria Aleksanyan
“Globalization and the economic crisis”.
An extract from a research.
January, 2010.
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