Unit Ten
Reading Selection One:
Problematic or promising?
By Douglas Frank
Globalization evokes both the excitement of expanding opportunities and the fear of unregulated commerce. Newark's Richard Langhorne hopes his new book will help clean up some of the "muddle" and misperceptions surrounding our understanding of this phenomenon, which, he asserts, is "changing the way we live our lives." T
"To give an example," Langhorne writes, "views about globalization have moved within a few years from seeing it as an irresistible lava flow, to assessing it as only one among many features of the contemporary world, to dismissing it as 'globaloney,' yet still being capable of fearing it as  'globaphobia.'" T
Regardless of how we may feel about globalization, we don't have much choice in the matter, he suggests. "We have it; there is no way we are going to disinvent it.* That would be like disinventing the atom bomb," Langhorne believes.T
With that thought firmly in mind, Langhorne, a professor of political science and founding director of the Center for Global Change and Governance on the Newark campus, has written "The Coming of Globalization: Its Evolution and Contemporary Consequences" (Palgrave, 2001).T
In it, he describes globalization as "the latest stage in a long accumulation of technological advance which has given human beings the ability to conduct their affairs across the world without reference to nationality,* government authority, time of day or physical environment." He notes further that "these activities may be commercial, financial, religious, cultural, social or political; nothing is barred."T
All of this has been caused by a major revolution in the technology of communication, "a continuous history" from the invention of the steam locomotive to the Internet, according to Langhorne. This has led, finally, to "the creation of a self-propelled, continuous, global, computer-controlled information system that escaped from the purely military domain first into use by scientific research and thence into the hands of individual human beings. It is they and not their governments who have been empowered, and nothing has been the same since."T
Langhorne traces the evolutionary path back to the 19th century, first with the electric telegraph and steam railway, then the telephone and the radiotelephone, followed by a global cable system, which enabled everybody to communicate across the globe, although not very reliably. T
It wasn't until the past decade that true global communication became readily available. "What made it all happen was an alliance between rocket science, which made it possible to put up orbiting satellites, and a telephone system, controlled and managed by computers, that has actually produced the Internet and the enormous wealth of information that it has allowed to us all."T
The danger here is that rapid changes accompanying globalization are bringing serious risks of global economic chaos should uncontrolled markets suddenly fail.* In addition, the potential decay of political legitimacy in national governments may lead to equally serious risks of political and social disorder, Langhorne warns.T
An underlying theme of the book cautions that, at present, globalization appears to be more problematic than promising. "The problems that globalization has brought look more serious at present than the extraordinary economic prospects that also beckon. The risk of failure in the global markets, the rise of political and social violence in the face of uncontrolled power, weakened national governments and a globally unequal distribution of economic benefits are all deadly serious."T
Accordingly, Langhorne urges his readers to "reflect on how best we may handle the biggest single entity the human race has ever had in its hands before—because globalization really has delivered up the world—and share our reflections with as many other people as possible."* T
People, it seems, welcome globalization if they think they are going to benefit from it, but they are quick to complain when its perceived consequences seem less desirable.* Globalization, he points out, can have deleterious environmental consequences as major multinational companies operate in areas where local governments are weak; it can lead to a kind of global capitalism that widens the gap between rich and poor; and it tends to create cultural homogenization. Worst of all, globalization can result in political disengagement as citizens feel they are ceding local control to corporate giants.T
Political disengagement, Langhorne explains, is the sense that power has shifted from political institutions whose authority is regulated by elected representatives to amorphous global entities operating without any external constraints.T
"Most of the ways to make the exercise of power acceptable to us are related to democratic processes; those vertically constructed centers of power* were invented in order to control the exercise of power by the governments of states." T
But what happens, he asks, when whole areas of power and authority cease to be pyramidal or vertical and become horizontal, flow all over the world, are not territorial and are cut loose from the authority of state? "The democratic process," he notes, "was not designed to deal with horizontal deterritorialized areas of power.* The sooner we stop trying to adapt the democratic processes to the situation of globalization, the better." T
How to make the exercise of globally operating power acceptable to global populations is the problem we now face, Langhorne reminds us. But how do we get adequate public participation in the exercise of global power?T
Perhaps, Langhorne offers, this is going to come through such "influence-bearing groups" as environmental or humanitarian organizations that now have a global constituency and do not need to go to governments to get what they want.T
"The fact that they and only they have been able to make global companies and other global entities respond suggests that may be the route we have to go," he says. "What may be needed is some sort of regulatory mechanism in which people believe and to which they are prepared to grant legitimacy."T
evoke: 唤起；引起，招致 lava: 熔岩；火山岩
globaloney=global + colony
globaphobia=global + phobia
accumulation: 积累
alliance: 联合
legitimacy: 合法性
beckon: 有诱惑力
deleterious: harmful
homogenization: 同化
disengagement: 脱离；自由
cede: 让与
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