tailieunhanh - An Outline of the history of economic thought - Chapter 12

12 A Post-Smithian Revolution? . Globalization Coined in 1983 by American journalist Theodore Levitt, and popularized in 1988 by the economist Kinichi Ohmae in his works on the global strategies of multinational companies, the term ‘globalization’ defines a worldwide process | 12 A Post-Smithian Revolution . At the Threshold of the Millennium . Globalization Coined in 1983 by American journalist Theodore Levitt and popularized in 1988 by the economist Kinichi Ohmae in his works on the global strategies of multinational companies the term globalization defines a worldwide process of intensification of the movement of goods information and production requirements especially capital and finance instruments. The process has been favoured by the breakdown of trade barriers in many countries the spread of neoliberalist ideologies and the adoption of laissez-faire policies by major international economic institutions as well as by governments and the central banks of leading capitalist countries. Globalization is a complex phenomenon and it is not therefore surprising that it has given rise to a wide range of interpretations and political attitudes. Globalization divides scholars and citizens as much and probably more than it unites them. The first dispute concerns the answer to the question is globalization an emerging novelty or simply magnification of a much older phenomenon the internationalization of economic activities Many are inclined to believe that globalization is merely an advanced stage of the development of capitalism. Supporters of this theory base their conviction on the observation that if one observes the world trade of goods and services and the volume of foreign investments during the period from 1880 to the outbreak of the First World War one sees that the flow of these movements in relation to production equals or even exceeds the present-day levels. Thus globalization is simply an intensification of a process which was already underway and which has been favoured by the use of new information and telematic technologies. This interpretation calls to mind the celebrated passage in Manifesto of 1848 in which K. Marx and F. Engels wrote The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a .