Back in the 14th century, poet Dante Alighieri made a remarkable statement. He said people need help in order to be good. “It’s too hard to live a moral life if we’re forced to live in evil conditions, surrounded by random violence and rank injustice.” 700 years later, world leaders have this figured out. That’s why we’re going through an important change. Globalization is part of it.
Nations have been exchanging goods for centuries and international tariffs have always been with us. In fact, tariffs were the original source of government income. But globalization isn’t just about free trade. It comes in three sections: political, social, and economic.
Political
Make no mistake, the world isn’t run by 35 people living inside a castle. It’s run by aristocrats, bureaucrats, and politicians. And they recognized early in the 1900s that mankind was in a race. A race between the good and civilized people we can become and the idiots we are born. Like it or not, humans come into this world pretty animal-like. We can then be civilized into wonderful citizens or left to live more like dogs. So the horrible truth is: if not for education and positive culture, we turn ignorant, selfish, horny, and crude. Not much different than an elk. Yes, most of our animal friends are fine creatures but many are miserable bullies that bite. And herein lies the problem. Nobody wants an unruly neighbour.
After surviving two world wars and the widespread threat of communism, it became apparent to the first world that democracy must be installed everywhere. Our planet is too unstable without it. So giving crazy-assed dictators the boot was priority number one, especially if they had money. Rogue nations were slated to be tamed and pushed towards democracy, which of course has three components: economic, educational, and infrastructure. You can’t just suggest it at a dinner party.
Economic
Once you remove natural resources from the equation, an economy is built on three things: hands, minds, and money. Hands represent simple (repetitive) manufacturing jobs, minds are those really cool brain jobs, and money is the investment necessary to get things going. Poorer nations have always had the hands—they just needed a push.
Students of Adam Smith will remember that capitalism requires everyone to act in their own best interest. That selfishness betters the welfare of all. Well, the business side of globalization works the same way. At least, the first parts:
- The first world needs new customers
- We can exploit cheap labour from developing nations to increase our standard of living
These are obviously selfish reasons. Coke gets to have more customers and Walmart buys easy-made products on the cheap. First world nations host additional head office jobs, while enjoying better profits and more competitive pricing. But these kinds of benefits didn’t require a concentrated effort—they would have happened anyway. Clearly, there’s more:
- Provide startup capital and know-how to get things going
- Become the large customer to ensure success
Things change dramatically when Reebok not only gives you the capital to start your business, they also guarantee the purchase of your product. That’s the concentrated effort that turned poorer countries into developing nations. As a result, economic globalization has lifted billions out of poverty and granted societies the ability to progress in many more ways.
Social
The last dimension is social support. From UNESCO to the World Bank to Doctors Without Borders, international institutions have been seeded and continue to grow, all in an effort to better the Third World.
From the Gates Foundation to U2’s Bono, thousands of organizations have helped better the living standards of the poor. No one is forced to eat American hot dogs or listen to Madonna sing, the plan is simply to better the health and education of all so people can progress. And no, it doesn’t include telling them how to live religiously. They’ll get there on their own.
Summary
The ugly truth is we’re not born that impressive. Humans arrive in this world sorta dumb and it requires a process to bring out our potential. We’re also born a little mean but again, given the proper teaching and decent living conditions, we can become civilized. At least, well enough to live together.
The first world didn’t care if certain nations lived down by the river among nature. Live how you wish as long as you don’t bother anyone. The problem came when some places were attracted to communism. Taking money from the rich seemed like an easy fix. Things intensified with the advent of nuclear weapons. Now any leader could build a way to threaten the world. So like it or not, selfish or not, politically correct or not, for the sake of security it was deemed that all people must be civilized according to first world standards.
And sure, there was a social cost to countries like ours. Giving away all those easy jobs left a number of people stranded. But nothing is easy, especially when tackling world peace. So stop thinking of globalization as a coup put on by business—it’s not. Globalization is a world system for people to live together. Everyone needs food, shelter, and health to be good, so grant them this. And though it may seem selfish of certain countries at first, I think Dante would be proud. (He was Italian, you know.)