Is globalization really Westernization?

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Not really.

The Silk Road is over 2000 years old, rich people in Ireland and Scotland could purchase luxury items and raw materials from Africa, India or China quite easily. Until very recently every single blue in tapestry, painting or mosaic came out of a single lapis lazuli mine in Afghanistan and lapis lazuli from that mine was being worked in Egypt 6000 years ago.

Granted these ancient trade networks didn't include the Americas or Australia but as soon as they were discovered they were roped in, hence the slave trade to the cotton fields of the South to provide cotton, furs from Canada and precious metals and timbers that were sent back to Europe.

You said it. "Luxury items", and the raw materials to do them. Long-distance commerce was based mostly on spices, silk, gems, furs and other luxury items. However, five centuries ago, chances are I would have been a peasant. I would not have bought silk garments or lapis-lazuli. I would have sold grain to the city to pay my money rent; if I couldn't produce them myself, I might have bought some cheap stuff or fabric so my wife, who was born in a nearby village, could make clothes. That's it.

Historians love to talk of the Silk Road or about the spice trade and such because long-distance commerce is all shiny and because it generally creates wealthy, socially influential merchants and extant trade contracts (and also because it makes the long Middle Ages look more modern), but it was a drop in the ocean of world economy. Most commerce was simply trade within a city and its hinterland, or between neighbouring cities, but since this kind of trade involved less capital, little risk and small profit margins, it made few people truly rich and didn't require complex contracts. This kind of trade involved involved foodstuffs, salt, wool, a small amount of iron (granted, this traveled a lot, there aren't mine everywhere), etc., all sorts of basic or vital goods -- which today, you will notice, are traded on a global scale. Of course, especially after the 12th century, there was moderately long-distance trade for all of these, but still, not enough to talk of "globalization". In this case, "long-distance" means that Venice could buy grain from the Black Sea (but only to avoid famine in the city) or salt from anywhere in the Mediterranean (it doubles as ballast), and that Hanseatic merchants traveled the coast from the Baltic to Portugal. Saying this is "globalization" is far-fetched. It looks very much like "europeanization". Obviously, I know less about extra-european commerce, but it was the same thing: transport costs were too high too justify long-distance trade in most goods not intended for luxury consumption, especially over land. This is slowly changing as we approach the first era of colonialism, but this starts only after 1500, and especially after 1600. I didn't say "five centuries" at random.

Also, Canadian timber starts being a meaningful merchandise is the 19th century.

You won't win on commercial history.

Whether he was a genius is not evidence. Many geniuses have made glaring mistakes.



Again, you are committing the fallacy of authority. Credentials do not prove an argument.

An informant on what? Whether he predicted globalization is not evidence that his understandings of it are correct.

Ronald Reagan famously predicted the end of the Cold War on September 21, 1987. However, that does not mean that he caused the end of the Cold War.



There are some similarities with British imperialism. However, I prefer to restrict the term globalization for the U.S.-dominated system which developed after WW2.

We were the only major nation left with a pot to pee in after WW2. None of our cities were bombed, we suffered relatively small casualties and we ended up with most of the money after WW2. Lucky us. Then we squandered it on the Forever War.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 23 Aug 2012, 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So how do you explain things like the Vindolanda tablets at Hadrian's Wall?

We have written records of fort commanders on the then English/Scottish border ordering large quantities of wine from Sicily, Grain from what is now Libya etc etc basically supplies for the bog standard troops all over the Roman empire came from all over the Roman Empire.

How do explain the Bronze age?

Bronze is an alloy of tin and copper but easily accessible deposits of tin and copper are usually thousands of miles apart, so ingots of copper and tin were being traded all over the place travelling huge distances.

How do you explain the fact that we have records of black African landowners in Britain from 1560's?

Transport costs were not as high as you might think, modern ships don't actually travel that much faster than sailing ships, you might find this article interesting, modern cargo ships are now travelling at the same speed as sailing ships to save money on fuel costs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -emissions

Or how about the fact we have lots spices and pepper that we can prove was grown in India being traded across the Roman Empire?

The English aristocratic class has always been a few tens of thousands of families and the proportion of rich/poor was pretty similar all the way across Eurasia, that is a lot of people with a lot of disposable income to support international trade routes over vast distances.

Before we write off the ancient world, it is worth pointing out that today only 10% of the world's population have access to a computer, the majority of the world's population live in houses made of earth, 50% of people live on less than $2.50 a day and 80% of the world lives on less than $10 a day.

If you can't talk of globalisation because there were a lot of poor people 2000 years ago, how can we talk about it today and how can we talk about things like 'the digital age' when most of the world is too poor to play?

1) I guess you don't use the term inn sociology. An informant is the provider of a data.
2) This is fine. You have to cut it off somewhere or you end up talking about the columbian exchange.

Appart from exceptions of detail, are you denying that most trade was over very short distances then? And that this isn't so now?

Also, you should notice the difference between trade from one part of Europe to another and trade between one part of the world to another.

Obviously there were imported spices in the Roman Empire. Spices are light, valuable and keep well.


Modern ships are much larger than sailing ships, and probably more efficient manpower-wise. Speed has never been the issue. The major difference, however, is land transport. Before trains, it was too costly to trade anything but high value wares on land routes over long distances.


Obviously, I am talking from a priviledged Western point of view, but still. Most of us in the West have products made anywhere in the world. Here, even the poorest person has clothes made in Southern or Eastern Asia (they are, in fact the cheapest) and eats cheap food produced in distant countries. I imagine that the cheapest clothes and food here are probably also the cheapest in many poor country, but I can't say I know that.

+ 10 % is much more than the probably 2-3 % who wore silk clothes.

Exactly - on both points.

That is what I mean. I would not call what he did being an informant. Maybe a "futurist" would be accurate.

We seem to be constantly switching from micro to macro economics and back, using talk about about poor peasants to discredit international trade flows etc.

Little has changed fundamentally in this era of 'globalisation'.

The majority of money spent by a consumer today will be spent locally. Locally probably means the local supermarket instead of multiple independent butchers and bakers but the majority of trade transactions for the consumer are still taking place locally. If I want 5 kilo's of rice I will not travel to China to buy it but to my local supermarket.

We had supermarkets before 'globalisation'. The fact that Marco Polo style traders have been replaced by multinational corporations is immaterial, this happened long before 'globalisation', think East India Company etc.

If I want wood today to build a house with, I have choices.

I can source local timber from my nearest forest and arrange transport myself, this is cheapest.
I can source local timber from my local timberyard (less distance than my nearest forest), this is cheap.
I can source exotic woods from a large timber merchant, more distance and a lot more expense.
I can source exotic woods straight from a supplier in Brazil, this may or may not be cheaper than the timber merchant.

People just don't build their houses out of exotic wood like mahogany, it would be silly to go to that expense for a beam that will never be seen. People will go to that expense for a luxury item like a dining table if they have the available funds. In that sense nothing has changed for thousands of years, beads of things like Ivory and Ebony and Lapis Lazuli have been found all over the known world as it existed at the time. People didn't import vast quantities of wood at vast expense when there were plentiful supplies of suitable material closer to home and more cheaply available. Just like we don't bother to do so today.

Most consumer spending is still local, if I buy a car I will buy it locally from a local car dealer, I won't go to Japan to buy a Japanese car and the chances are the Hyundai that I'm buying was actually assembled in a factory about 50 miles from where I live.

Are you counting that as 'local spending' or 'globalised' spending?

If I buy a burger at McDonalds, all the ingredients will have been sourced fairly locally not flown in from the states. What does that count as?

The majority of trade is still local in this era of 'globalisation' I see nothing that has changed much that can't be explained as the inevitable outcome of increasing levels of wealth (more discretionary spending on luxury items obviously means goods will be travelling further) and mass production courtesy of the industrial revolution (means that factories replaced cottage industries)

The only revolutionary change in behaviour or trade I can see in modern times is the internet enabling me to sit at home and order a handmade piece of jewellery from a woman working in her cottage on the other side of the planet without any middle men being involved.




So why can't we call that globalisation?
2000 years ago there was trade right across the know the world, today it is the same, there is a lot more wealth, a lot more people and a lot more trade but how has this thing called 'globalisation' actually changed anything at all that can't be explained by more wealth and industrialisation?

If there are no real changes that can't be accounted for by increases in wealth thanks to industrialisation then surely we should be referring to this 'globalisation' stuff as just a continuation of the industrial revolution travelling around the world?



Trains are industrial revolution, the age of steam stuff, what has changed between the 'industrial age' and the globalisation' age?



And that hasn't changed for hundreds of years, which is why the Luddites were smashing looms.


I am not disputing the industrial revolution as a true revolutionary change, I am disputing the fact that 'globalisation' is some new and different thing invented in the last decade or two. What has changed?

It would be boring if the whole world was a hybrid of every single culture. Personally, I like the fact I can go to another country and be completely immersed in a foreign culture. If the whole world was well, like Toronto (don't get me wrong I love Toronto but yeah), I could never be in 'China', I could only visit an Americanized Chinatown.

I would say yes to your question and take it even further. Globalization is AMERICANization. It's the forcing of American culture and values on the rest of the world through the power of the free market.

This is where you get wrong. Marco Polo style traders were adventurers with profit. They were not standard traders. And I would have included the various India Companies as a first phase in globalization.


That's not what I am saying. I see globalization as a constant process started in the 16th-17th century, with long term, fundamental consequences. If we compare how people in one given region have exchanges with another given region, be they economic, cultural, etc., that has increased a lot since the 16th-17th century. It may be too long to be a "revolution", but it is certainly a fundamental evolution.

I think we are arguing past each other. I think we basically agree on all the facts, but not in their interpretation.

I can agree with that. The volumes may have increased a lot but trade volumes have been increasing exponentially for centuries, the arm twisting of nations may have changed from gun boats to the use of sanctions by the WTO, World Bank and IMF, technological progress may have made trade a bit easier and faster and advances like refrigeration may have opened up new markets for perishables but fundamentally I can't see a revolution in this thing called 'globalisation', it's just continuing industrialisation.

The volume of long-distance commerce has expanded faster than the volume of production since at least the 12th century, though (I have data on this somewhere, at least for the 18th-19th century). The definition of "long-distance" has changed as well -- today, trade between both halves of the Mediterranean is not thought of being particularly "long-distance". There was no direct link between Eastern Asia and Western Europe until the Portuguese conquest, and that was hardly meaningful in volume until the Dutch took over (the Portuguese network wasn't much more efficient than the concurrent Muslim-Venetian one, it only created competition). If we fast-forward to the 21st century, that has changed.

You will notice also that I said that globalisation is not a revolution. Actually, I think we agree completely, only I use globalisation for a long process starting in the 16th century and still ongoing, while you use it in the (more frequent) sense of a modern phenomenon.