{"id":1166,"date":"2003-05-22T20:40:38","date_gmt":"2003-05-23T00:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2003\/05\/22\/1166.html"},"modified":"2003-05-22T20:40:38","modified_gmt":"2003-05-23T00:40:38","slug":"a-book-for-consideration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2003\/05\/22\/a-book-for-consideration\/","title":{"rendered":"A book for consideration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your Humble Blogger recently came across Making Globalization Good - The Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism<\/a>, ed. John H. Dunning, Oxford University Press, 2003. I don't claim to have read all of any of the chapters, but I skimmed a few of them, and I find it really interesting reading, on a topic I find really confusing.\n\n

The question of globalization is a tricky one for me, not least because I find myself disagreeing, by instinct at least, with people whose judgment I usually trust. In short, I'm in favor of globalization, and most of the left appears to be against it. Or at least, most of the left appeared to be against it a couple of years ago, when it was in the headlines. Broadly, and if people want to talk about it, I'll try to be clearer, I think that globalization is good for the poorest in the world. I don't particularly believe in the nation-state, and in sovereignty, so those issues don't persuade me against globalization. And although I do worry about more power going into the hands of the big corporations, that power is (at least partially) being taken out of the hands of the Mugabes of the world, which is a trade-off that doesn't immediately scream out injustice.\n\n

However, I do sympathize with the idea that there even as globalization redresses, inevitably, certain injustices, it creates others. I am hopeful (ain't Your Humble always hopeful?) that something can be done about the new ones, and prefer that hope along with the marvelous mix of Stuff that globalization brings to insularity, isolationism, and protectionism. I don't want to bring laissez faire<\/i> capitalism to the developing world, but I do want to bring some wealth and comfort to the poorest nations. Can it be done?\n\n

And now a short circumambulation: There appears to be developing a substantial school of thought, not entirely distinct from Bob Putnam<\/a>'s work, that determines that democracy is not merely a matter of elections, but rather of a network of IVSR<\/a>s: Institutions, Values, Symbols, and Rituals. Fareed Zakaria<\/a> has been articulating it quite well, in regard to the long haul in Iraq. This school of thought says that there are things which may not appear to bear directly on matters of freedom, development, or the economy, but which, if lacking, make those things impossible.\n\n

This book (remember the book?) is a series of essays about, in large measure, what IVSRs are necessary and sufficient for globalization to be Good, in a moral or ethical sense. That is, how to derive the good, without adding in new evils that overwhelm it. It's an important issue, and a fascinating one.\n\n

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your Humble Blogger recently came across Making Globalization Good – The Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism, ed. John H. Dunning, Oxford University Press, 2003. I don’t claim to have read all of any of the chapters, but I skimmed a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}