Globalization and the Problems Associated

¶ … globalization and the problems associated with it really clear, especially in the second paragraph under the sub-heading, "The Darkening Future of Democracy" (on page 6). In this paragraph, author Benjamin Barber points out the downsides of living in a "McWorld" clearly and concisely. He admits at the start of the passage that "McWorld does manage to look pretty seductive in a world obsessed with Jihad," and lists the benefits of globalization as "peace, prosperity, and relative unity." These things come at the cost, though, of personal liberty. He points out that order and tranquility are only things that a global market requires, as well as limited freedoms, most of them having to do with the freedom to buy things. It doesn't matter if people live in an incredibly repressive dictatorship, or even a regime that makes a habit of murdering its own populous, so long as there are enough people left to buy things and this regime doesn't disrupt other countries, which has the effect of limiting the market there.

The last sentence of this paragraph is especially foreboding given the article's content: "In trading partners, predictability is of more value than justice." This predictability is not and could never be a part of democracy; democracies must change with the will of the people, and so might have periods of instability. In fact, Berber notes, "Multinational corporations sometimes seem to prefer doing business with local oligarchs, inasmuch as they can take confidence from dealing with the boss on all crucial matters." Consistency and predictability are almost by definition easier to find in harsh dictatorships or oligarchies than democracies. The real danger I see in this is the possibility of a totalitarian state that looks like a democracy, such as the imagined by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World and which is every similar to the McWorld Barber sees us approaching. It might, in fact, already be happening, as warrant-less wiretapping becomes executive practice, and perhaps even more insidiously through the attempts of companies like Google to maintain huge databases of information about consumers. What's truly amazing is that this was written 16 years ago, and the problems have only gotten worse.