Improvements in communication and production will civilise the nations that accept bourgeois values as the bourgeoisie strives to create “a world after its own image” (16). Surprisingly, Marx and Engels wholeheartedly welcome the homogenising influence of globalisation because of their firm belief that it will eventually unite the workers of the world against capitalism. As Marx and Engels had correctly anticipated in their Manifesto, economic liberalisation and globalisation do not remain restricted to the world of international trade and commerce. They also bring the passions and aspirations of the new and the old into conflict, leading to complex dramas playing out in each context with its resolution still unknown to the players. According
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The complexities are manifold as the drama is still being played out in the multilayered human contexts leading to both “clashes of civilization and the homogenization of civilizations . . . environmental disasters and amazing environmental rescues . . . the triumph of liberal, free-market capitalism and a backlash against it” (Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree 19). Globalisation is a phenomenon that some people love to hate, despite its widespread and increasing acceptance, in many parts of the world, including the developed West. Friedman uses the metaphor of the Golden Straitjacket to describe the ambivalent attitude towards globalisation. Some of the nations and civilisations that have globalised feel “economically pinched by it” and fear that they lack the “knowledge, skills or resources” to take proper advantage of it (362). Some have also been vexed by the ever-widening income disparity between the rich minority and the poor majority. The working class in the developed world feel that their jobs are no longer secure due to the increased outsourcing in manufacturing and service activities enabled by the easier movement of goods, services and people across international …show more content…
There is hard evidence to prove that liberalisation and the opening up of the economy have helped new sectors like information technology to expand into new markets and flourish. It has fostered free enterprise that has helped to create millions of high paying jobs and hordes of first generation millionaires in urban centres like Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. Glossy volumes capturing the essence of a resurgent India abound in numbers and thickness. Such works celebrate globalisation as a revolution that has unshackled India from decades of deprivation and poverty, characteristic of the euphemistically termed developing world. In that throng, three works stand out prominently: The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat by Friedman and India Unbound by Das. The Lexus and the Olive Tree happens to be one among the first scholarly works that conceptualised and defined the global phenomenon. In this work, replete with stories from his extensive travels across the world, Friedman dramatises the conflict and captures the tension globalisation has been exerting on the culture and heritage of traditional societies and suggests ways to maintain the equilibrium between change and tradition. Friedman’s second major work on the same topic, The World is Flat is an update on globalisation’s positive virtues of mitigating poverty and leading to individual empowerment. It also deals with its adverse
The complexities are manifold as the drama is still being played out in the multilayered human contexts leading to both “clashes of civilization and the homogenization of civilizations . . . environmental disasters and amazing environmental rescues . . . the triumph of liberal, free-market capitalism and a backlash against it” (Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree 19). Globalisation is a phenomenon that some people love to hate, despite its widespread and increasing acceptance, in many parts of the world, including the developed West. Friedman uses the metaphor of the Golden Straitjacket to describe the ambivalent attitude towards globalisation. Some of the nations and civilisations that have globalised feel “economically pinched by it” and fear that they lack the “knowledge, skills or resources” to take proper advantage of it (362). Some have also been vexed by the ever-widening income disparity between the rich minority and the poor majority. The working class in the developed world feel that their jobs are no longer secure due to the increased outsourcing in manufacturing and service activities enabled by the easier movement of goods, services and people across international …show more content…
There is hard evidence to prove that liberalisation and the opening up of the economy have helped new sectors like information technology to expand into new markets and flourish. It has fostered free enterprise that has helped to create millions of high paying jobs and hordes of first generation millionaires in urban centres like Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Gurgaon. Glossy volumes capturing the essence of a resurgent India abound in numbers and thickness. Such works celebrate globalisation as a revolution that has unshackled India from decades of deprivation and poverty, characteristic of the euphemistically termed developing world. In that throng, three works stand out prominently: The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat by Friedman and India Unbound by Das. The Lexus and the Olive Tree happens to be one among the first scholarly works that conceptualised and defined the global phenomenon. In this work, replete with stories from his extensive travels across the world, Friedman dramatises the conflict and captures the tension globalisation has been exerting on the culture and heritage of traditional societies and suggests ways to maintain the equilibrium between change and tradition. Friedman’s second major work on the same topic, The World is Flat is an update on globalisation’s positive virtues of mitigating poverty and leading to individual empowerment. It also deals with its adverse