Globalization and Privatization – Study Material

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Globalization and Privatization – Study Material

Globalization

  • Globalization is the process of interaction and integration between people, companies, and governments worldwide. Globalization has grown due to advances in transportation and communication technology. With increased global interactions comes the growth of international trade, ideas, and culture. Globalization is primarily an economic process of interaction and integration that’s associated with social and cultural aspects. However, conflicts and diplomacy are also large parts of the history of globalization, and modern globalization.
  • Economically, globalization involves goods and services, and the economic resources of capital, technology, and data. The steam locomotive, steamship, jet engine, and container ships are some of the advances in the means of transport while the rise of the telegraph and its modern offspring, the Internet and mobile phones show development in telecommunications infrastructure. All of these improvements have been major factors in globalization and have generated further interdependence of economic and cultural activities around the globe.
  • Though many scholars place the origins of globalizationin modern times, others trace its history long before the European Age of Discovery and voyages to the New World, some even to the third millennium BC. Large-scale globalization began in the 1820s. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the connectivity of the world’s economies and cultures grew very quickly. The term globalization is recent, only establishing its current meaning in the 1970s.

Etymology and Usage :

  • The term globalization derives from the word globalize, which refers to the emergence of an international network of economic systems. One of the earliest known usages of the term as a noun was in a 1930 publication entitled Towards New Education, where it denoted a holistic view of human experience in education. The term ‘globalization’ had been used in its economic sense at least as early as 1981, and in other senses since at least as early as 1944. Theodore Levitt is credited with popularizing the term and bringing it into the mainstream business audience in the later half of the 1980s. Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations. Its antecedents date back to the great movements of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onward. Due to the complexity of the concept, various research projects, articles, and discussions often stay focused on a single aspect of globalization.
  • Sociologists Martin Albrow and Elizabeth King define globalization as “all those processes by which the people of the world are incorporated into a single world society. In The Consequences of Modernity, Anthony Giddens writes: “Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” In 1992, Roland Robertson, professor of sociology at the University of Aberdeen and an early writer in the field, described globalization as “the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole.

History :

There are both distal and proximate causes which can be traced in the historical factors affecting globalization. Large-scale globalization began in the 19th century.

Archaic :

  • Archaic globalization conventionally refers to a phase in the history of globalization including globalizing events and developments from the time of the earliest civilizations until roughly the 1600s. This term is used to describe the relationships between communities and states and how they were created by the geographical spread of ideas and social norms at both local and regional levels.
  • In this schema, three main prerequisites are posited for globalization to occur. The first is the idea of Eastern Origins, which shows how Western states have adapted and implemented learned principles from the East. Without the spread of traditional ideas from the East, Western globalization would not have emerged the way it did. The second is distance. The interactions of states were not on a global scale and most often were confined to Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and certain parts of Europe.
  • Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of civilizations from China, Indian subcontinent, Persia, Europe, and Arabia, opening long-distance political and economic interactions between them. Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, common goods such as salt and sugar were traded as well; and religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies, as well as diseases, also traveled along the Silk Routes. In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The movement of people, such as refugees, artists, craftsmen, missionaries, robbers, and envoys, resulted in the exchange of religions, art, languages, and new technologies.

Modern :

According to economic historians Kevin H. O’Rourke, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, and Guillaume Daudin, several factors promoted globalization in the period 1815-1870:

  • The conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars brought in an era of relative peace in Europe.
  • Innovations in transportation technology reduced trade costs substantially.
  • New industrial military technologies increased the power of European states and the United States, and allowed these powers to forcibly open up markets across the world and extend their empires.
  • A gradual move towards greater liberalization in European countries.
  • During the 19th century, globalization approached its form as a direct result of the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization allowed standardized production of household items using economies of scale while rapid population growth created sustained demand for commodities. In the 19th century, steamships reduced the cost of international transport significantly and railroads made inland transportation cheaper. The transport revolution occurred some time between 1820 and 1850. More nations embraced international trade.. Globalization in this period was decisively shaped by nineteenth-century imperialism such as in Africa and Asia. The invention of shipping containers in 1956 helped advance the globalization of commerce.
  • In the late 19th and early 20th century, the connectedness of the world’s economies and cultures grew very quickly. This slowed down from the 1910s onward due to the World Wars and the Cold War, but picked up again in the 1980s and 1990s The revolutions of 1989 and subsequent liberalization in many parts of the world resulted in a significant expansion of global inter connectedness. The migration and movement of people can also be highlighted as a prominent feature of the globalization process. In the period between 1965 and 1990, the proportion of the labor force migrating approximately doubled. Most migration occurred between the developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs). As economic integration intensified workers moved to areas with higher wages and most of the developing world oriented toward the international market economy. The collapse of the Soviet Union not only ended the Cold War’s division of the world- it also left the United States its sole policeman and an unfettered advocate of free market. It also resulted in the growing prominence of attention focused on the movement of diseases, the proliferation of popular culture and consumer values, the growing prominence of international institutions like the UN, and concerted international action on such issues as the environment and human rights.

Cultural Globalization :

Cultural globalization refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings, and values around the world in such a way as to extend and intensify social relations. This process is marked by the common consumption of cultures that have been diffused by the Internet, popular culture media, and international travel. This has added to processes of commodity exchange and colonization which have a longer history of carrying cultural meaning around the globe. The circulation of cultures enables individuals to partake in extended social relations that cross national and regional borders. The creation and expansion of such social relations is not merely observed on a material level. Cultural globalization involves the formation of shared norms and knowledge with which people associate their individual and collective cultural identities. It brings increasing inter connectedness among different populations and cultures.

Privatization :

Privatization  can mean different things including moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when a heavily regulated private company or industry becomes less regulated. Government functions and services may also be privatized; in this case, private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or performance of government services that had previously been the purview of state-run agencies. Some examples include revenue collection, law enforcement, and prison management.

Etimology :

The Economist magazine introduced the term “privatization” (alternatively “privatisation” or “reprivatization” after the German “Reprivatisierung”) during the 1930s when it covered Nazi Germany’s economic policy.

Definition :

  • The word privatization may mean different things depending on the context in which it is used. It can mean moving something from the public sphere into the private sphere, but it may also be used to describe something that was always private, but heavily regulated, which becomes less regulated through a process of deregulation. The term may also be used descriptively for something that has always been private, but could be public in other jurisdictions.
  • There are also private entities that may perform public functions. These entities could also be described as privatized. Privatization may mean the government sells state-owned businesses to private interests, but it may also be discussed in the context of the privatization of services or government functions, where private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or performance of government services. Gillian E. Metzger has written that: “Private entities [in the US] provide a vast array of social services for the government; administer core aspects of government programs; and perform tasks that appear quintessentially governmental, such as promulgating standards or regulating third-party activities.” Metzger mentions an expansion of privatization that includes health and welfare programs, public education, and prisons.

History :

Pre-20th Century :

  • The history of privatization dates from Ancient Greece, when governments contracted out almost everything to the private sector. In the Roman Republic private individuals and companies performed the majority of services including tax collection (tax farming), army supplies (military contractors), religious sacrifices and construction. However, the Roman Empire also created state-owned enterprises—for example, much of the grain was eventually produced on estates owned by the Emperor. Some scholars suggest that the cost of bureaucracy was one of the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire.
  • Perhaps one of the first ideological movements towards privatization came during China’s golden age of the Han Dynasty. Taoism came into prominence for the first time at a state level, and it advocated the laissez-faire principle of Wu wei , literally meaning “do nothing”. The rulers were counseled by the Taoist clergy that a strong ruler was virtually invisible.

20th Century Onwards 

  • The first mass privatization of state property occurred in Nazi Germany between 1933-37: “It is a fact that the government of the National Socialist Party sold off public ownership in several state-owned firms in the middle of the 1930s. The firms belonged to a wide range of sectors: steel, mining, banking, local public utilities, shipyard, ship-lines, railways, etc. In addition to this, delivery of some public services produced by public administrations prior to the 1930s, especially social services and services related to work, was transferred to the private sector, mainly to several organizations within the Nazi Party.”
  • Great Britain privatized its steel industry in the 1950s, and the West German government embarked on large-scale privatization, including sale of the majority stake in Volkswagen to small investors in public share offerings in 1961. However, it was in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States that privatization gained worldwide momentum. Notable privatization attempts in the UK included privatization of Britoil (1982), Amersham International PLC (1982), British Telecom(1984), Sealink ferries (1984), British Petroleum (gradually privatized between 1979 and 1987), British Aerospace (1985 to 1987), British Gas (1986), Rolls-Royce (1987), Rover Group (formerly British Leyland, 1988), British Steel Corporation (1988), and the regional water authorities (mostly in 1989). After 1979, council house tenants in the UK were given the right to buy their homes (at a heavily discounted rate). One million purchased their residences by 1986.
  • Privatization in Latin America flourished in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of a Western liberal economic policy. Companies providing public services such as water management, transportation, and telecommunication were rapidly sold off to the private sector. In the 1990s, privatization revenue from 18 Latin American countries totaled 6% of gross domestic product.Private investment in infrastructure from 1990 and 2001 reached $360.5 billion, $150 billion more than in the next emerging economy.
  • While economists generally give favorable evaluations of the impact of privatization in Latin America, opinion polls and public protests across the countries suggest that a large segment of the public is dissatisfied with or have negative views of privatization in the region.
  • In the 1990s, the governments in Eastern and Central Europe engaged in extensive privatization of state-owned enterprises in Eastern and Central Europe and Russia, with assistance from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the German Treuhand, and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations.

Medicare and Medicaid Managed Card :

n the United States, under the Medicare managed care the government pays a managed care organization (MCO) a fixed amount called the “capitated rate” for all medical services received by a beneficiary in a given period. Enrollment in the programs has increased substantially since 1990; in 2002 60% of Medicaid beneficiaries and 12% of Medicare beneficiaries were being treated by MCOs. Private sector involvement in Medicare and Medicaid is not limited to MCOs; private doctors, hospitals, nursing homes provide medical care; reimbursement claims are processed by private intermediaries; and peer review organizations, utilization review committees and accreditation organizations like JCAHO are staffed by private medical personnel.

Welfare Privatization  :

Homeless shelters and food banks are run by private organizations, who also provide treatment services, operate Head Start programs and work with child welfare agencies. Privatization of welfare system expanded in 1996, when the Aid to Families with Dependent Child (AFDC) program was replaced with the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program. Welfare services that are often privatized include workforce development, job training and job placement are often privatized.

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