Globalization

So looking at Kofi Annan quote again, " if we argue against globalization are we arguing against gravity. " Is there an inevitability about it or can it be stopped in its tracts?
Can the nationalist argument for greater protectionism be a sensible solution or simply throwing chaff to the wind?

What I would like to argue is that globalization is indeed at this point inevitable, that nation states standing alone cannot hope to win against this powerful force but that through cooperation and world wide agreements, nation states can mitigate its worse excesses in order to protect its citizens and environment.

The European Union and Paris Agreement are just two examples of this cooperation.

isabella yes much of my studies in the past have looked at the effects of globalisation, or in those days it was called capitalism on such continents as Africa and Asia. Some of it is so disastrous it takes your breath away.

Yes globalisation can and may well be stopped in its tracks. A natural cataclysmic event or something like plague perhaps?

I suppose an enormous natural disaster like Tambora, would do it?

I'm not sure about that. When major disasters happen it's now a given that aid will be flown in from around the world thanks to technology, transport infrastructure and logistics. However something truly and globally cataclysmic would stop everything in its tracks.
I'm concerned that huge international concerns like Nestle can effectively buy up a water source and deprive a community of its supplies while selling over-priced bottled water to anyone daft enough to buy it.

Remember the much-hyped Millennium Bug threat at the end of 1999? Now that would have been a disaster if it had happened...

Nestle is big in America and to continue to extract water to bottle in times of severe drought is incredibly controversial, but I would argue that the American voter is in a much better situation to resist this compared to say someone in Mexico or India or an African country.

The American voter is now too inward-looking to care I suspect.

That's my argument * lucky* that trying to tackle or turning your back on globalization can't be done long term by a single nation state - it needs cooperation and agreements.

What if a global operation is dependent on some basic procedure which is vulnerable to failure or sabotage? There needs to be duplication and quadruplication (if that is a word!)

That Millenium Bug didn't happen as feared, because companies whose operations depended on their computers NOT getting their knickers in a twist over date being exact took the precaution of getting their software checked line by line searching that 31/11/99 had been changed everywhere to 31/11/1999, and would be followed by 01/01/2001, not 01/01/00. DH had eighteen months of work prior to 2000 doing just that for a major company.

Chaos would indeed had happened, as among other things the automatic supplies of water, gas and electricity would have shut down, and the bills of their customers been either astronomical or non-existent.

Because it didn't happen, there was a lot of jeering at the scaredy-cats who had prophecied doom, but it was much the same as an industrial accident not happening because a firm cheked and rechecked safety precautions and put right any faults. No-one jeers at them for their careful checking.

That wasn't a groundless panic. There was software still in common use which had been designed years before that, when computers had a timy amount of storage and working space which would not have coped with a hundred times the number of possible dates. It had not been expected that the software would still be in use.

And the date wasn't used just to put at the top of a bill - the programmes check that all is well with the computer by frequently comparing the exact time and date that the computer thinks it is and the same for what the programme thinks it is. If they find a discrepancy they shut down the computer with an error message. (Programming buffs may not approve of that explanation, but it'll do for us non-nerds)

Should have put 01/01/2000 not 01/01/2001 - just as well I wasn't doing the checking.

Exactly, Elegran, and some did take the threat extremely seriously - there was much talk of bunker-type stocking up and huge supplies of bottled water were sold in the run-up to the changeover from 1999 to 2000.

I have a feeling that we will soon be seeing again a lot of bunker-type stocking up of food, bottled water and essentials, and a lot of buying of camping stoves and cylinders of Calor Gas.

That reminds me, I have a camping stove and Calor Gas for it, but no regulator to fit between the two . . .

Not sure what it has to do with globalization though

More to be affected by any central failure? No going round to the country next door to borrow a cup of electricity if theirs has failed too?

Well yes I suppose a computer system can be global, but it doesn't have anything to do with the central premise of my argument, not that it matters as global computerisation is quite important

Are you in favour of one world one goverment, whitewave?

ankers Blimey how on earth did you arrive at that question, haven't you read this thread?!

You havent answered the question.

It is more a case of where I will go with it, than how I arrived at it, iyswim

Well the answer is contained within this thread- it is there for you to read. I can't understand why you asked it. I will be more than happy to discuss my conclusions though

I cant see it, so I will have to guess.

I guess that you are in favour of it.

In which case, dosent that involve complete globalization?

Where on earth did that come from?? Ww has said nothing advocating one world government!

Then you guess wrong I am afraid.

If you read the thread my argument is that globalisation in all its faces is a fact. That it brings huge challenges and that trying to fight it as a single nation state, where often the global enterprise has more wealth and power than the nation itself, requires cooperation between Nations like the Paris Agreement in order to mitigate against any damage to the environment or harm to its citizens.

Globalisation is a made up word and it's mute.