DEMOCRACY AND GLOBALIZATION ARE THEY REALLY COMPATIBLE?

By the mid of 1970’s it was very clear that closed barriers cannot boost the war trodden economy of Europe. So globalization was presented as a ray of hope for the survival of the capitalist economies of the west. AS Globalization means integration of economies and societies through trans-national flow of information, ideas, technology, goods, services, capital, finance and the people i.e., “a world in a nest”. In order to make it acceptable to countries with lesser degree of technological advancement and lower level of capital, the forerunners of globalization declared that GLOBALIZATTION is the only economical alternative for creating healthy Democracy. Is this true? Is globalization really based on truly DEMOCRATIC ETHICS? Can democracies flourish in the war fields of FREE MARKET ECONOMY? The paper presented here deals in these questions. In order to analyze impact of globalization, institutions of democracy will be examined simultaneously taking into account challenges or cooperation posed to them because of Globalization.

GLOBALIZATION AND NATION STATE SYSTEM

Democracy is about constantly choosing, finding, and developing practical options within the sphere of common good. Options, which may express common good in some comfortable way not in some grand way. For more than 250 years democracy was nurtured and reared up by the Nation State theoreticians. They provided a basis for bringing people closer so that they may create certain level of understanding in order to participate united in the process of decision-making. This is a crude fact that the only power structure where people do participate is the government.

Fore runners of Globalization propagated that it is in the well being of entire civilization that we may surrender the concept of Government. Revival of free market economy with the END OF GOVERNMENT is the slogan and motive of all pro globalization forces. This is the first blow to democracy by globalization. The people are being taken away from the entire process of decision-making and, a few non-elected people run the world economic order. Those who don’t have confidence of a few thousand are deciding fate of entire human civilization.

Globalization is being sold to us as something that is and will be inevitable. Answer to “WHAT IS GOOD?” is given as “GOOD IS BEING FREE.” What is FREE? Free is not having a government, it’s not having regulations. If you want to be protected it means you are cowardly and afraid of freedom.

But if you are removing the power from Nation and putting it in to a global arena without compensating for that power taken away from the nation, will the equivalent power for the citizen also be transferred to the international level. If you transfer the power without the power of the citizen, then you are not weakening the nation; in fact you are weakening Democracy.

In past few decades several treaties have been signed at trans-national levels but those, which are binding ones, are the economic ones. And while trying to make Democracy more and more stronger we are destroying it by reducing its real scope for scope of people’s participation.

Peace is needed for the flourishment and growth of democracy and democratic institutions. We have been continuously told by the lobbyists of Globalization that we are in need of globalization for peace, as trade will flourish in a scenario of complete peace. This is one of the greatest lies ever told to mankind. Because we know very clearly from our knowledge of past that most of the wars, if not all are fought for trade and business. Be it the Franco-German war, the British-American war, the British-Argentinean war or the latest GULF War. This fact is strengthened if we examine the modus operendi of evolution of the colonial empires. Everywhere the Europeans entered as traders and focused on trade till conditions were favorable for them to sustain. Once they felt that conditions were going to be hard for them, they changed the conditions by using the power of guns.

DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

We must never forget a fact that societies have shapes. A true democracy is Diamond shape. A few rich at top, a few very poor at bottom and most of people in the middle level with almost satisfactory living conditions and accumulation of wealth. Where as a real global economy is like a pyramid with a handful of people at top enjoying all the riches and wealth and most of the population at bottom (or base) forced to live in conditions of distress and misery. In such societies middle class acts as carrier. It carries orders to bottom and wealth to top.

Today it is a harsh reality that globalization is getting biggest challenges not from any other contemporary ideology but from its own contradictions. Globalization promises prosperity for all. But the path to prosperity goes through the bridges of monopoly and oligopoly. 51% of largest economies in the world are corporations and not countries. Canada ranks 8^th in that list and Australia is 15^th and WALL MART ranks 12^th in the list. Today top 200 companies share 28.3 % GDP of the world and these companies engage just 0.75% of work force of the world. The picture gets more horrible if we consider that 5 major companies of their respective fields control around 70% of business in there respective fields

Now this is a real horrible picture. Even if you are a hard core capitalist, than also you will feel horrified because if 99.25%are having share of 70% of worlds GDP than this means a decline in consumption level which will be fatal for the consumption based economic model. This means this economic rationalist model is a failure by its own definitions.

If we analyze the present methodology of lobbyists of globalization, they focus on two prime methods.

1. Cut the RED TAPE as soon as possible, & CUT TAXES as much as you can.

This is surprisingly same what individualist and capitalists demanded in the years of GREAT DEPRESSION.

EDUCATION AND GLOBALIZATION

Global societies put major emphasis on education, as we cannot achieve progress until we have a large number of educated people. But the educational system what globalization promotes is focused in making technocrats so that they get huge work force with technical abilities. Democracy also needs well-educated people for its growth. But Democratic societies flourish in a value based educational system and not a technology based system. The technology based educational system is result-oriented system and it has nothing to do with the values which human beings nurtured for generations so that they can live as human beings.

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS PHENOMENON

Our study shows that the forerunners of globalization, for its massive spread in democracies, adopted mainly two methods.

In democracies of third world, which are new and have lesser degree of accountable governments; methods of bribery and loot system were adopted by MNCs, in order to get established. By dealing in such ways MNCs get some illegal relaxations and manage to cut cost by getting cheapest labor and denying rules of pollution control etc.

In democracies, which are more established and transparent, MNCs change their techniques. By promising high taxes and employment to countrymen, they demand for special industrial estates or special economic zones. This is the biggest irony of Globalization. They demand tax relaxations in order to get established and they promise government to pay huge aid for fighting poverty, pollution and social evils like AIDS.

Fred Riggs in his paper “DEMOCRACIES CONFRONT GLOBALIZATION” calls these SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES or SPECIAL INDUSTRIAL ESTATES as the islands in the democracies that are going to control the real power of the upcoming world.

What I want to say at last is we need democracy because we want a world free of all kinds of exploitation. A world with prosperity and no epidemic. Globalization may help in this dream to fulfill, by creating a platform for certain level of cooperation at trans-national level. But if Globalization is treated as something mandatory for survival of democracies of world, than sooner or later we will be forced to forget the entire concept of public participation in the process of decision-making.