Is globalization really Westernization?

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Would a degree of westernization, or as I prefer to view it export of values be a bad thing?

Indeed, and that dates more to the Neoliberal Era in particular the second decade of that era (1990s)... it was then when it became a buzzword.

Globalization is also islamization.

It seems like America, China, the EU and Islam are all vying for their ideology to dominate the future world state, doesn't it?

QFT

Globalization is when Your Gang or Tribe tries to impose its will on the entire world.

What was it that the Nazis used to say? Heute Deutschland. Morgen dem Weldt. Today Germany, tomorrow the world.

Please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNMVMNmrqJE

What 5 seconds to skip the ad.

ruveyn

Where is ET when we need him ?

Luckily a combo of America and the EU > authoritarians.

America and the EU are authoritarians.

The idea that globalization=westernization is fundamentally flawed because it assumes suits and skyscrapers are western culture.

Are they?

Skyscrapers are built because they are efficient for business. Suits are worn because they are a status symbol. What happened to the architectural styles developed in greece and rome? The intricate patterns developed by the celts? The decorative styles of victorian USA? The various artistic styles of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s? All gone. None of these cultural symbols have any place in a society to afraid of being "weird" that it has allowed itself to become boring. An American who wears a cowboy hat and duster is in just as much danger of being labeled a backwards barbarian as a Japanese immigrant who wears a kimono. Probably more, actually.

The real problem is a conformist mentality that spreads from nation to nation like a pox.

We were not the instigators.

We were the first victims.

I know ... I'm bumping an old thread again but I think that there is one question that must be asked if economic debates go any further.

Does capitalism really become less brutal if capitalist countries cannot trade with each other?

Corporate dominance in commerce is NOT propaganda. It is is real as rain. And there is a good reason for it. The corporations offer economies of scale that smaller firms cannot.

When Rockerfeller achieved dominance of oil production in the U.S. the price of kerosine (at that time the most in demand distillate) went down by 90 percent. And for good reason. The low price lead to large scale purchase which produced mammoth profits for Standard Oil. Big Bad Capitalist. That S.O.B. made kerosine affordable to even the poor peasants.

ruveyn

Wouldn't that cause more enviornmental damage from the negative externalities of the kerosine?

At that time, no one was worrying about the environment.

There were capitalists the were offering electric cars (late 19 th century, early 20 th century) but they were outcompeted by the capitalists who made petrol powered cars.

However to return to the point, the corporate dominance of certain industries actually led to a reduction in prices (due to a reduction in the cost of extraction or manufacture) and a consequential increase in the number of people who could afford to pay. Back in the 30's and 40's A & P worked on the principle of volume. The eliminated the middleman and priced one or two percent over cost to produce a mammoth volume of purchases. By the way, the compaints against A & P were almost verbetim the same as the complaints against Wal-Mart. There was pissing and moaning about the demise of Ma and Pa grocery stores that could not match A & P prices.

Corporations dominate the production and distribution of food. The U.S has a problem with obesity and Americans pay the lowest percentage of any nation for their food. Medical care may come dear, but food in the U.S. is as cheap as borscht.

ruveyn

Here's the main reason I bumped this thread: I'm sick of the argument that says "Children in poor countries make stuff in sweatshops for American companies so globalization must be bad."

Sweatshops are an unavoidable part of capitalism. If they weren't in the third world then they would be in America and England. Isn't that what happened in Victorian England? You can't get rid of the have-nots by moving them.

"The crucial thing for most of the left now, is what goes under the name of "anti-globalization". A sort of primitive, I would say non-Marxist form of anti-capitalism."
- Christopher Hitchens

Sweatshops were mostly abolished in the U.S. by 1930. States passed health and safety laws so there would not be another Triangle Shirt Factory holocaust.

By then most states had child labor laws restricting the condition under which a person 14 years old or less could be employed.

ruveyn