The private sector thus becomes the most important factor in the decision making process. Unfortunately, as bad as it sounds the fact that states are losing their powers in front of the private sector, globalization has proved to work, at least in the more developed countries. The weakness of a state is the price to pay for a prosper society.
It is true that globalization weakens the state, but this must not necessarily be seen as a bad thing. More important than a powerful government is a powerful economy, which gives people better lives. States that have adopted the rules of international capital market have known economic growth, at various levels. The price that must be paid is that multinational corporations have the power to dictate policies that are in their own interest and not necessarily in the interest of citizens.
However, when speaking of a state in its cultural dimension, the effect of globalization can be even more tragic, resulting in the loss of national identities. While economic globalization seems to be the best alternative for economic growth, cultural globalization is not met with the same indulgence.
The conclusion of this paper is that globalization seems to work only for already developed countries, even though all countries that agree to the global capital market agree to the rules of globalization. The fact that globalization empowers the private sector is the main argument that globalization weakens the state. However, globalization also brings about economic prosperity, which is anyway preferable to poverty, be it with state control or not.
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Tomlinson, J., Globalization and cultural identity, 2003, available at http://www.polity.co.uk/global/pdf/GTReader2eTomlinson.pdf;
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Stiglitz, J.E., "Globalism's discontents," the American Prospect, Volume 13, No.1: January 2002;
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