An Analysis of Globalization: Constructivism, Commercial Liberalism and Marxism Essay

area(prenominal)isation is perhaps the close defining characteristic of the 21st century. The Ameri tolerate impel for bump mercenaryise ideals, facilitated by the approaching of the Internet and other confabulation technologies, has led to the increased interaction and interrelatedness of people. Therefore, globalisation to a fault raises interest implications for the field of international relations. How can this monumental thus fart be study? Globalization and its consequences can be interpreted and dissected by dint of deuce-ace major(ip) schools of thought constructivism, commercial liberalism, and Marxism.A modified Marxist clear can cond mavin the starting ca mathematical functions of globalization but non innovative day ca employments, international liberalism can explain the resulting global macro mollification, and constructivism can explain counter-reactive micro struggles prevalent in the international sy stem. To begin, Marxism is based on a judge of detonating deviceism and normative commitment to communism. Marxism has various strains, but Marxism-Leninism and neo-Marxism deliver the near cogent analysis of globalization.Robert Gilpin, in his clause The Political Economy of supranational Relations identifies four components of Marxism-Leninism Marx conceived three of the points, and the final exam is Lenins own modification. outset is the police of disproportionality which attacks the idea of supply and demand. Since capitalists can produce goods easier than consumers can acquire them, free market economies allow for al instructions either over-produce certain goods. Next is the law of capital concentration. Since competition forces capitalists to produce efficiently or face extinction, capital eventually accumulates in the hands of a select few.This disparity will ultimately open fire the anger of the proletariat and lead to social revolution. trio is the law of falling profit rate. Marx predicted a complex chain r eaction, where labor-saving devices would fuel under-consumption, overproduction, and mass unemployment. However, when the social revolution did non occur in the post-World struggle I era, Lenin revamped Marxs communist political orientation with his fourth law, the law of funny revealment. Lenin asserts that the revolution failed to occur, because capitalists had employ imperialism as a metaphorical release valve. essential nations had managed to dump their goods and capital in coloniesand simultaneously acquire cheap knife wish hale materials. This outlet and source of inputs relieved the pressure on capitalist providence, allowing it to anticipate for the period being. The second variation of Marxism pertinent to globalization is neo-Marxism, specifically Wallersteins piece, core out and Periphery. Core fixs occupy power positions in the international system and can perpetuate a system where they go on in power over the periphery. Core states encounter two defi ning characteristics strong state machinery, linked with a national destination The periphery states are characteristically weak, and could even exist as merely a colony.They lack unity by means of a national ethnic and assimilate very weak state mechanisms either a corrupt and bloated bureaucracy or a near non-existent one. Wallerstein alleges that the current international system is one of core states exploiting periphery states. In the article, Globalization and the Trade in Human Body Parts, Harrison attributes the causes of globalization to a massive crisis of both capital accumulation and of state legitimacy in the 1970s. accord to him, capitalist states of the West set about an inability to produce the align quantity and distribution of goods, lucid with Marxism. Further more, the push for efficiency led to advent of labor-saving devices and the accumulation of capital in the hands of the few. All of these occurrences caused the high unemployment and pomposity chara cteristic of the mid-1970s. As goods and capital piled up with high takes of joblessness, compromises that had underpinned the post-welfare state gave way once more to contradict amidst labor and capital. This conflict embodies the final death rattle of capitalism before a revolution topples it. However, globalization utilized the Leninist release valve and stabilized the developed countries free market system. According to Harrison, cheap inputs and extensive new markets for consumption allowed Western nations to resolve its crises of capitalism and legitimacy. He specializes globalization as the establishment of knowledge base-wide exchanges in labour, raft, technology, and capital surrounded by nations possessing different sparing, military, and political powers. Since globalization has an inherent pro-liberal, capitalist bias, it bring into beings unfair exchanges. Harrison concludes that the market for human body parts follows this pattern and mimics other unsymmetr ical exchanges among developed and evolution countries. In this particular market, the organ donors tend to bob up from developing nations akin India, Argentina, and China. The recipients tend to live in developed nations, with the most transplants performed in the US with Europe closely behind. Harrison defines this bunk of organs and transplants as exploitation.All in all, the causes of globalization rest in capitalisms desperate bid for viability. However, Harrisons proposed causes for the start of globalization do non completely make sense. His explanation through the Marxist paradigm correctly pinpoints stintingal incentive as the overarching objective for globalization. Developed nations, full of goods and capital, ceaselessly search for outlets for their goods and for natural resource sources. This assumption totally underlies the hypothesis of the free market.However, Harrison ciphers to the 1970s, to the start of visible globalization, and links a crisis of cap ital accumulation to the sparing turbulence of the 1970s. But, from the perspective presented in Kirshners article Keynes, Legacies and Inquiries, the problems instead stem from supply-shocks, creating cost-push inflation and recession. A supply shock results in inadequate levels of union supply to meet aggregate demand. The OPEC oil embargo of the mid-1970s, starting in 1973, delivered this effect and caused the intense stagflation of the time.Therefore, macroeconomics is partially in conflict with the Marxist scenery of globalization. Developed nations did not face a crisis of capital accumulation instead, they faced a crisis of productive capabilities. Due to the lack of crude oil, producers could not create enough goods to meet the demand. Therefore it makes more sense that developed nations pushed for a global economy to secure cheap natural resources, rather than look for more sources of demand. The idea of capital accumulation crisis must be abandoned, along with the omino us predictions of gaga revolution.After such considerations, a theory of macroeconomic Marxism succinctly locates the starting origins of globalization. However, this explanation delivers an increasingly poor explanation for moderne day globalization and its progression past initial causes. The economies of developing nations have gone through a tertiarization process, defined as the transition of an economy into predominantly service-oriented jobs. This change has led to decreased manufacturing and decreased the Statesn exportations. Marxism offered a convincing line in the 1970s and early 1980s, when America had a large trade surplus and a minor trade famine.However, Americas trade deficit has ballooned to astronomical proportions as the shift forth from manufacturing has become more pronounced. Therefore, the idea of developed nations, or core states, exploiting and preying upon developing nations, or periphery states, for markets no long-lived makes sense. What can explai n globalization in the 1990s through the modern day? With the rise of eastside Asian NICs, as Steven Haggards article names them, and developing nations like India and China, wealthy nations have grown increasingly dependent on their cheap goods.As these poorer manufacturing-based powers rise, they hold much more power on the world stage. Huntington supports this assertion in his article, The Clash of Civilizations, stating that non-Western civilizations no longer remain the objects of historybut join the West as the movers and shapers of history. This non-Western empowerment deep contradicts all strains of Marxism, which contain some rich-poor exploitative element. Neo-Marxism and Harrisons fundamental argument places globalization in the context of wealthy nations using capitalism and unequal exchanges to take advantage of poorer nations.However, core states of economic power no longer completely dictate the rules of the game, and use periphery states as dumping reason for go ods. Instead, the opposite has occurred rising periphery states have begun to rapidly manufacture goods and export them to the core. This inversion of Marxism explains the continued push of globalization, now fueled by the flow of goods from developing to developed nations. This interaction can even be exploitative in the opposite direction. For example, America has accumulated an enormous trade deficit with China.This burgeoning trade deficit is very advantageous to China, strengthening the value of its currency. However, Kishner describes the foul effects of this occurrence in his article, stating that it forces the burden of international adjustments on deficit countries The disproportion similarly weakens the dollar and erodes confidence in its ability to store value. Gilpin also alludes to the positive and negative effects of a trade surplus in Politics of Transnational Economic Relations, mentioning how America tolerated the 1. 5 billion trade surplus that Japan enjoyed in t he 1970s.America has tried to use blandishment and hit it uplomacy to resolve this issue but does not dare to use any(prenominal) stronger tools due to its dependency on China as a trading partner. In this example, China gains economic power at the expense of the American dollar. Developing countries sometimes occupy the throne of power on key issues this reversal deeply contradicts Marxism. Finally, commercial liberalism can be used to understand the effects of globalization. According to commercial liberalist Richard Rosecrances article The hiking of the Trading State, trade, capitalism, and free markets are forces of peace.Commercial liberalists believe in the use of trade to forge communication and connections with other nations. Eventually, a net of economic interdependence will form, which discourages war. War in this environment destroys trade opportunities, and therefore, increases the political consequence of declaring war. These strains of thinkers in bite consider im perialist interests to be in utter conflict with trading interests. A country either chooses to hatch free markets and trade or impose heavy mercantilist restrictions.According to this theory, peace occurs when a country trades autonomy and the quest of national power for more extensive access to resources of the world. Markets further facilitate peace by allowing the open of nicety and understanding. This trading and cultural exchange eventually leads to a peace-loving world of trading states, rather than various imperialist nations competing for hegemony. In jihad vs. McWorld, neaten identifies two occurrences closely linked to globalization that ironically even out and engender each other simultaneously. First is the argument of a global macropeace, facilitated by global trade.Barber makes the argument that no nation is authentically independent, connected by everything from the environment to pandemics. Barber further postulates that positive economic forces that have gl obalism as their conscious object act to bind nations together. These forces have also deeply eroded national sovereignty as transnational corporations and international banking systems lack any national identity and do not reflect any particular nationhood. These global economic devices do not exist under the jurisdiction of any individual nation, which according to Barber, has re-create efforts for international peace through an international economy.Concurrently, this system has also glowering religion, culture, and ethnic identity into marginal elements of a working identity. This erosion of differences facilitates a peace throughout the world, with the pursuit of wealth undermining any war like tendencies. Furthermore, Barber talks about the mingling of culture as well as trade, describing this concept as a product of pop culture driven by expansionist commerce. The idea of globalization also refers to the cultural imperialism of the West.More youth around the world idoloi ze American pop culture figures, like Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga. Foreign children drink Coco-Cola and drool over Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Cadillac cars. American culture has permeated the entire world from pop icons to the favourable arches of McDonalds this fact is undeniable. This intermingling of culture again facilitates cooperation and understanding amongst nations, decreasing the incident of war. Barbers argument is a convincing argument of commercial liberalism. The essence of this paradigms argument is the idea of commerce conduct interdependence.This fact could not be clearer now, during the most devastating economic damp in over eighty years. As Eurozone nations flounder, the American stock markets dip and rise, based on news of their actions. This certainly smacks of a deep, systemic social organization in which consequences for one nation affect many other nations as well. In such a system, a broad scale war would be most disadvantageous, as damage to one nations economy would clashing the wholly. Furthermore, cultural exchanges between nations certainly seem to have brought people closer, as the world becomes an increasingly splendider place.This two-pronged event has created a world where all-out war between states is now politically unattractive and economically unfathomable. Barbers analysis explains both the market independence and the increased level of cultural mixing in the world it also explains why wars between two nations have grown rare in the post-Cold War era. Nevertheless, a significant counterargument can be made through to this idea. Many argue that although much of the conflict is not between states, war does still exist.The whole world has not entered Barbers future in bright pastels, a busy portraitwith fast music, fast computers, and fast forage Even more would argue that much of the world abhors the cultural charm of the US, citing it as immoral or hedonistic. Huntington mentions a return-to-roots sensati on among non-Western states, with states starting to turn in and focus on their own regional identities. With many nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran still practicing religious law passionately and pockets of ethnic war still existing in Africa, it sometimes seems counterintuitive to talk of a global peace.However, the identification of a counter-reaction to the globalization can explain all these seeming contradictions. Barber identifies this point through the use of constructivism. Constructivism makes the argument that association of the event does matter in truly understanding an international occurrence. In Henry Naus article, Why We Fight over Foreign Policy, he strongly focuses on the political, economic, social identity of a state or states when defining constructivism, emphasizing the ideas, norms, and valuesthat shape their discourse and identity. Constructivists believe that ideas and ideology drive nations to act in certain ways, often creating positive relationships w ith alike(p) countries and harboring hostility toward those different. Constructivism does have one major disadvantage it cannot make a policy prescription for a problem. However, it does often prove poignant in analysis of current events and in prediction of future events. This perspective is immensely effective in understanding Barbers argument and refuting the aforesaid(prenominal) criticism.His argument is bipartite after identifying the macropeace, he identifies a phenomenon that he nicknames jihad, referring to any frenzy motivated by dogmatic and violent particularism. This form of conflict relates to the construction of ones identity, whether by ethnicity, language, religion, etc. According to Barber, violence stems from people of differing identities resisting the homogenizing influence of globalization. It can be seen as a right event to the growing uniformity of the world to Western cultural norms and ideas, facilitated by the unification of national markets.This retu rn-to-roots search for identity eventually takes a violent form against those who have differing identities. This causes the various microwars, defined as most regional conflicts between two groups, rather than states. Barber cites examples of many people, fighting identity-based war on the pretext of self-determination, including Jews, Kurds, Arabs, and Ossetians. These conflicts are the essence of constructivism, isolating identity-based differences as a major source of international conflict. However, Barbers constructivist theory is not without detractors.Samuel Huntington, author of the Clash of Civilizations, has a different idea of the world. He describes vast swaths of land as individual civilizations and describes conflict on two levels the micro-level where small groups in different civilizations struggle and the macro-level where states from different civilizations for hegemony. He does not define terrorism as a reaction to American globalization and the erosion of Muslim identity, but instead as conflict between Islamic and Western civilizations.Barber contrastingly defines conflict as intracivilizational, rather than transcivilizational, between people without countries inhabiting nations that they just cannot call their own. Huntington also predicts that future conflict will grow bloodier, due to increasing awareness of civilizational divides and these conflicts will occur along the cultural fault lines separating civilizations. In opposition, Barber portends a future in which the macropeace will ultimately win out although, jihad will continue to be seen spontaneously.Despite the intuitive nature of Huntingtons theory and predictions, it is just too reductionist and parsimonious to adequately explain the complex world of international relations. He omits whole continents in his argument and completely assumes homogeneousness within civilizations. These criticisms are eloquently expressed in Katzensteins article A World of Plural and Pluralis tic Civilizations. He voices the same fundamental disagreement as Barber, that civilizations are not internally uniform. He describes them, not as simply larger nations, but as loosely conjugate and internally differentiated. This idea of differentiation supports Barbers assertions, agreeing with the idea of major clashes occurring within civilizations, rather than between civilizations. Katzenstein also references that this fact has been proven with both qualitative and statistical means. In this regard, Huntington seems rather flippant, disregarding empiricism for an intuitive, dim-witted theory. Despite a smooth and logical premise, Huntingtons opinions about the world can be quickly refuted. Huntingtons predictions about the future also seem less accurate than Barbers, because Huntington neglects an important facet of the world.Huntington does not mention economic interdependence at all in his piece, in spite of its overwhelming influence in every facet of life. Utilizing Ro secranes theory of trading states, economic self-interest will cause the macropeace to win out, consistent with Barber. Globalization is unavoidable. Its methods and consequences are ubiquitous, from the food one eats to the job prospects one faces. It has had both negative and positive effects on the world, facilitating both economic prosperity and global terrorism.The initial causes of globalization can be canvas with a modified Marxist viewpoint. However, as the phenomenon has progressed, Marxism no longer provides a convincing argument. The intricate economic web connecting the nations of the world through globalization can be understood through commercial liberalism. The contrasting sectary violence also resulting from globalization can be understood through constructivism. As globalization changes and as Americas role on the world stage grows, these analyses will mostly likely grow and develop as well.