Bhagwati – In Defense of Globalization

Jagdish N. Bhagwati – “In Defense of Globalization: It Has a Human Face” In this essay Bhagwati considers how globalization can be used to advance the social agenda that it is so often accused of corrupting/harming.  The “social agenda” includes such things as a reduction of poverty and child labour, strong environmental standards, the proper exercise of national sovereignty, defense of local cultures, and the preservation and extension... Read More

Tomlinson – Globalization and Culture

John Tomlinson – Globalization and Culture T. starts by defining globalization as “a complex process because it involves rapid social change that is occurring simultaneously across a number of dimensions – in the world economy, in politics, in communications, in the physical environment and in culture – and each of these transformations interact with the others.”  Yet, after recognizing how complex the process is, T. then notes that what... Read More

Stiglitz – Globalism’s Discontents

Stiglitz, Joseph.  “Globalism’s Discontents.” The American Prospect 13.1.  2002. Stiglitz contends that in this piece he wants to discuss the different meanings of globalization; further, he also considers how globalization means different things in different places (and those different meanings bear attendant success/failure on how much the quality of life is improved in those places).  S. contends that countries that have managed globalization... Read More

Freeman – Designing Women: Corporate Discipline

Freeman, Carla. “Designing Women: Corporate Discipline and Barbados’s Off-Shore Pink-Collar Sector.” Cultural Anthropology 8.2 (1993): 169-186. Freeman’s article argues that the rapid changes in economies transitioning from industrial economies to the information age are reconfiguring labor and capital in ways that transcend international boundaries (169).  In this transition, symbolic-analytic work transforms into low-skilled,... Read More