The UN has been promoting internationalism since its creation to strengthen international relations, good governance, maintaining peace and law & order. It is the best agenda for mutual cooperation between nation states and humanism. But the recent rise of globalism with its appreciation of wealth-based governance has become the voices of elites not the voices of people, morality and integrity has sidelined the ideal concept of internationalism. In recent decades the influence of the globalists which grew exponentially in partnerships with the superstars of internet technology and social media has further degenerated traditional international cooperation and internationalism. It has also become the main cause of wars and conflicts globally based on resource exploitation and political domination on ideology resembling the colonial past. The globalists have shredded the international relations, good governance and internationalism to us vs. them.
It started well
No one can deny that globalisation has contributed substantially in human welfare. No one can put monetary value on the positive contribution of globalisation. Globalisation contributed to connecting people and countries across all cultures globally through the spread of trade, finance and transportation and more recently through communications technology. Globalisation of trade which started during 15th century with the silk road trading in goods and raw materials followed by trading in spices and tea has taken a very different shape by the late 20th century. But unfortunately, globalisation has now consumed the economy and political ideology undermining the national sovereignty and national interest of independent states. The globalists believe that one particular socio-economic policy and one particular political ideology is the answer to humanity's problem - a path to utopia! It has become just another form of dictatorship. During the past forty years the profits derived out of globalisation have blinded the elitists. The globalists have ignored all negative consequences of globalisation with potential catastrophe. What will be the outcome of this globalist policy in the next forty years, if it survives that long, is anyone's guess.
Centrifuge machines for cash
Human history has experienced peaks of empires and colonialism lasting from several decades to more than a millennium. Both of these collapsed caused by three main factors - brutish behaviour of the elitists, excessive accumulation of wealth by the elites and the lack of cohesion between the elites and the general population who generates the wealth for the elites. We are witnessing today a faint silhouette of what the world experienced during these empires and colonialism. The globalists are enjoying much more than their share of the public goods pushing the rest to the brink, all in the name of free trade, competition and individual rights. Elitists appear to be in a state of denial of the fact that all is not well in our socio-economic paradigm, globally including in wealthy countries.
Big companies have been in a spree of acquisition for decades in the name of free trade; for example, sixty pharmaceutical companies merged into 10 'Big Pharms' between 1995-2015. This is not a competition; it is actually killing competition. The end result is monopoly in the market price of drugs. Drugs are lifesaving; yet pricing of drugs has become like pricing of cosmetics, driven by the market. The markets work for biggies like a centrifuge machine in concentrating cash at the center in the interest of the shareholders. Competition and collaboration have turned into corruption and coercion by abusing the system.
The elitists today have accumulated much more wealth in the past forty years than what the colonialists did in centuries. According to Inequality inc. If the top five wealthiest globalists spend one million $ individually every day, it will take them 476 years to exhaust their accumulated wealth. This is happening while the governments are mounting debts to provide basic needs of people such as food, medicine and education. Human civilisation is now led by commerce and militarism not by civic consciousness and unity between people. Any sense of countries trying to disengage from globalists are considered rogue states. There are few countries which resisted the suggestions of globalists such as Malaysia, and persisted well. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed to the IMF's suggestion to Malaysia during the 1997 financial crisis 'you must be more tolerant of the stupidity of Malaysia. Why not leave us to do the wrong things we want to do'? But not many countries have leaders who could take such a position against the globalists.
A wrong turn?
Until about forty years ago or so there was good diversity in governance and financial systems with local and regional trade based on countries' traditions. As the governance and economy began to be influenced by the 'West' centric approach promoted by the World Bank and IMF in the name of development, the private sector led by the globalists effectively became the democratic dictator. It brought back some form of neocolonial link between the low- and mid-income countries with the globalists perpetuating economic imbalance as the rules disfavours the recipient countries. There is no one to restrain the globalists as they have become the backseat driver in global governance. Ironically when a globalist bankrupts, the state rescues them with taxpayer's funds. Can there be a bigger contradiction? Capitalism and technology led by the globalists have become an unrecognised sombre destabilising factor in governance, economy and democracy almost everywhere.
Globalism is not a political system
Under the influence of globalists, governments and people are totally hung up with the economy at all levels forgetting that capitalism is not a political system and the globalists are not politicians. The globalists through investment have taken control of the political economy of countries which have disadvantaged the majority of people. The efficiency and expertise promised by the globalists have become a scourge for many low- and mid-income countries. The idea of independence, which means countries to be able to govern with their way and policy without interference is just an illusion. The globalists with firm control over the media have become the kingmakers everywhere. The policies that come out of institutions like the World Economic Forum, which invites a few selected leaders from mid-income countries as a showcase are forced to be applied universally as the gold standard; all that glitters is not gold.
Nearing the end?
The structural problem of globalisation is the root cause of the prevailing social and economic inequality; few people have realised but not fully internalised. It is also becoming clear that the governments are not able to manage the globalists as the politicians have become subservient to the globalists despite the fact that globalism is causing serious harm to the majority. To break this hegemony of the globalists, governments need to take back its role of governance. That is exactly what Vietnam and China with state capitalism is doing. How long will the general public endure apathy of the government? How long the globalists can continue to pretend that all is well. Never before the fate of so many are at the whims of so few – the globalists.
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Nicely said!
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