Globalization and Neoliberalism

A Taxonomy and Some Implications for ‘Anti-Globalization’
Bowles, Paul. (2005). Canadian Journal of Development Studies. Vol. 26(1).

Bowles argues that neoliberalism is primarily an economic concept dedicated to ‘free markets’ based on privatization and deregulation and it takes various polities and identifies four different groups of views on globalization.

Group 1: globalization is an inevitable process driven by communication technology, thus weakening state power. Within this context, neolieralism is the 'rational' policy responding to the change and the roles of state should shrink to maximize the flow of technology and deregulate national trade policies at all levels. In this way, poor nations can be more benefited than others and 'economic convergence', in the term of economist, will occur. On this other hand, there is a school of thought that criticizes this neoliberal view. They argue that new forms of governance has to established in order to realize the immense productive potential of globalization. The current neoliberalism at both state and international levels just doesn't meet the condition.

Group 2: Globalization is a myth, as global worldwide trade is not new, and only serves as a tool for neoliberalists, thus ideology or globalism. "globalization is really a myth, an over-hyped idea designed to support the neoliberal agenda with its political redistribution of power to corporate and financial elites."

Group 3: "Globalization can be seen as a code word for the ascendancy of U.S. imperialism" (Petras & Veltmeyer, 2001). They also argue that globalization is a project to open up markets abroad as an exit from the crisis of profitability and therefore, neoliberalism joins this imperial impetus as the policy thrust to achieve the objectives, and nation-states play a more vigorous role to implement the policy.

Group 4: Globalization is in fact regionalism, as often expressed as "stumbling bloc" or "building bloc." Thus, regions are central to globalization and the way they are being structured is neolibral.

The author argues that anti-globalization is in fact anti-neoliberalism and looks for new governance forms at the global and local levels as an opposition to corporate power. He quotes David Held's position as an explanation of the local level: Held (1995) argues that at the local level, forms of participatory development and community-based organizations and institutions are seen as the governance structures necessary to empower the losers in the neoliberal globalization process and to democratize local processes (cited on p 22). [Democracy and Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. (1995)] In this movment, the author adds, 'global civil society' gets into the main stream and 'deradicalized' by taking 'well-worn footsteps' of gender and sustainability, thus 'global social justice' movement differentiates itself from the mainstream movement. Walden Bello, the author quotes, argues anti-globalization, which means deglobalization, aims decentralizing decision-making at the local, national and global levels. According to the author, the common central idea of global social justice movement is that local spaces are essential in order to resist corporate driven, or neoliberal, globalization as stated in group 1. There seem other movements correspondent to the other groups, but they are relatively insignificant.