Globalization: Focus on Central Europe:

 

Standing at the Crossroads:

The Future of Central Europe in the Face of Globalization

Professor Milos Dokulil
Masaryk University

Brno, Czech Republic

 

For two millennia Central Europe has stood as the traditional crossroads between the East and the West as Europe’s Gateway to Asia; released from the grip of Communism, Central Europe today finds itself at a crossroads not only in the literal term of its geographic position but also in terms of its entire future. How will the continuing march of globalization affect this region and what steps can Central Europe take in order to achieve prosperity during this latest economic and cultural upheaval? From a historical perspective, Professor Milos Dokulil of the Czech Republic’s Masaryk University examines Central Europe’s dilemma in terms of immigration, economic development, and political challenges in this region’s struggle for place within the third millennium.

 

Introduction

The way by which one asks questions and what problems and methods he or she chooses as the leading ones predetermine substantially the results thus reached. The used terms often are a seed-bed only for preconceived or subconscious conceptions hindering an adequate analysis. Sometimes we encounter ourselves in a position where our new experience surpasses our previous imaginations and securities. All the three “Popperian worlds” are in constant motion; thus, there are no material or ideal constants where to start a final and absolute verdict from.

 

(1a) Some Suggestive Inspirations Induced by the Expected Turning Point  

There is a certain predilection for some numbers and their mysterious force or expected mystical mission. The round numbers when connected with the calendar entice us to make balances, either accompanied with hopes or with uneasiness and concern, to say nothing of anxiety or hysteria. The end of the first millennium was considered by some as the final time of this earth coupled with the necessity to prepare oneself for the Last Judgment. Compared with this the time immediately preceding the 20th century was only felt as a “fin de siècle”, as an approaching end of a certain tradition and a certain stability.

 

The 19th century also bore “modern” nationalism and a new, and ultimately politically-conscious, working class in Europe. The year 2000 numerically represented the change of all the four numerals. It seems more than ever that such a singular change must symbolize something more fundamental and remarkable in our life. The end of the 20th century brought us not only the first features of globalization and a vision of a new information age, but also new and unexpected waves of nationalism, fundamentalism, organized crime, environmental risks and, evidently, a no-work culture, and has shaken many important traditional values (e.g., of life, family, trust, sex, entertainment, information...).

 

Let us have a short look at the previous “turning point”. Chekhov wrote his best known plays then. In “Three Sisters” (1900) he expressed the contradiction between the tragic nature of his contemporaneity and the beauty of a sunny life. Coronel Vershinin, Irena and Olga were sure that humans would—in 200, 300 years, or later—begin to see a new and happy life. In “Cherry Orchard” (1903) Chekhov again finds a hope, through Trofimov’s mouth, that humankind has been orientated to pursuing the way toward a higher truth and higher happiness. At this time that rather utopian outlook also looks back and names the culpable: the rich ones who live on society’s credit. (If you wish you can, in another disguise, find a similar tendency in Dostoyevski.)

 

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, we could probably be interested in an articulated fictitious retrospection of our contemporaneity in “Looking Backward: From 2000 to 1887” by Edward Bellamy. Immediately in its first chapter, this Utopia, in an impressive metaphor of the 19th-century society, is described as a “prodigious coach” harnessed, and hungry, masses dragging its noble passengers. The society of the year 2000 appears as “rationally” (i.e., from above) organizing its production and the producing people (grouping them in accord with each one’s performance). It shows a program not dissimilar with a Marxist one spread then already for nearly four decennia, and also with no view to the influence of market economy and—in Bellamy’s case—ignoring culture. (As a cataclysmic alternative oriented towards the glorified “Golden”—and agrarian—past we can find Ignatius Donnelly’s “Caesar’s Column” of 1890. In accord with that message “the next generation will be simply barbarians.” Another interesting, though very pessimistic, view presents William Morris’“News From Nowhere“, also of 1890 and with Marxist overtones.)

 

As an “additional” feature of the fin-de-siècle climate we should not forget to mention the intoxicating development of science and technology. A Central-European intellectual (and high-school professor qualified in mathematics and physics, untimely pensioned), Jakub Hron, saw the solution of all the contemporary problems in science (and reason), exaggerating and deforming this tendency to caricature. Karel Èapek characterized him as a “Don Quixote of the nineteenth century” whose Dulcinea was his longed-for science.

 

As another indication of a braking new time the Encyclical Letter “Rerum Novarum” by Pope Leo XIII. (1891) may be seen. Mentioning the “passion for revolutionary change” and “anxious expectation” in men’s minds, the text speaks on behalf of the “great majority” who “live undeservedly in miserable and wretched conditions” whereas “exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke... on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers” (see §§1-6). (Twenty years later G. K. Chesterton in “What’s Wrong with the World” writes of, among other topics, the necessity of idealism in the time as “fiddling while Rome is burning”, in the situation where “there is no such thing as fighting on the winning side.” His advice is: “The only step forward is the step backward.” [See the third “Note” at the end of the treatise.] One hundred years later an-other pope,  John Paul II, will link up with all that heritage.)

 

At least two commentaries from a later period should be added. Stephan Zweig in a newspaper column (1925) writes about his time as a “monotonization of the world”, “in accord with a single scheme”, as “mechanization of existence” going on in two phases, the Great War and Americanization. The author’s solution is a “flight into ourselves.” Some time later, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932) shares with the 19th century the insecurity concerning the leading values of a future society. In his novel he depicts such a notion of it where technology dominates, where no emotional relations are formed and where no cultural or transcendental incentives exist. Even science could be, in such a society, dangerous. All values are determined by the state. Men are produced in a central “hatchery” in accordance with the present needs of that society. It seems that, with the triumphs of biotechnology at the end of the 20th century, Huxley’s utopia finds a new imperative cogency.

 

(1b) Do We, as Humankind, Encounter Ourselves on a Similar Verge?

We are still in the early years of the 21st century. Imagine only some of the last half-century’s inventions, as nanotechnologies (now reaching the unimaginable dimensions of 10-6mm!), computer and information technologies (together with artificial intelligence), the internet, cloning, geo-stationary satellites (and the already forgotten-era of the first men on the moon), laser and inkjet printers, liquid crystal displays, e-mail and modems, digital versatile discs (DVD) and CD players, nuclear magnetic resonance, atomic clocks, barcodes, xerocopy, in vitro fertilizations, cardiac pacemakers, the pill, pampers, broad spectrum antibiotics, credit cards, polio and the hepatitis-B vaccine, taped text phonetically read...

 

And let us not forget (from the Euro-American perspective!) that one hundred years ago the “working class” was rising in number, although at that time the highest percentage of the population (throughout the world) was engaged in agriculture (and even servants—incredibly, for us today —were more numerous than factory workers). Up until the middle of the 20th century the “working class” and social problems connected therewith imprinted that period with a special flavor. By the mid-century servants disappeared as a class and, as a result of the Second World War, women were massively incorporated into the production process. At the end of the 1960’s a movement, to be later termed “post-modernism”, began criticizing civilization, its political arrangement and its values. At the end of the century (but preliminarily only in the more advanced economies) we cannot find peasants as a large and important social class any more. At first, white collar workers appeared to replace the blue collars, but the mechanization of labor has already ceded to automata in many fields and computerization has been a further step reserved only for the qualified. There is now a terribly widening gap between the developed and undeveloped countries in the spectrum and technical levels of production, in hygiene and health, in birth and death rates. The wealthy countries are dying off while, on the other hand, life expectancy in these countries is incomparably more promising (with the accompanying problem of how to finance it). The family as a social institution gradually loses its previous and traditional links, form and values. (And although the so-called “Third World” presents many difficulties and tensions, no one yet cares duly to prevent them. Social position of women there remains very low.)

 

Central Europe shares this Euro-American development. In 1992 F. Fukuyama published a much-discussed book about the “end of history”. He conceived “history” as an effort at founding a rather stable political system, and as such he detected a “liberal” one. In a later book (1995) he characterized a stable family as the inevitable basis of a “trustful” society. Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical “Tertio Millennio Adveniente” (1994), articulated the then-upcoming year 2000 as the “Great Jubilee” (§16, commemorating thus 2000 years since the birth of Christ) not forgetting to mention the Encyclical “Rerum Novarum” of one hundred years ago (§13) and stressing that “the world needs purification” (§18). The Czech President V. Havel also foresaw in the year 2000 a “big turnover of ages” (Jan. 1, 2000), at the same time, among others, as an exhortation to “change the political culture”.

 

(2a) Central Europe, Are You Coming Back Into Europe?

After 1989 Central Europe, often still referred to as “Eastern Europe,” visibly attempted to return to (“Western”) Europe. “Central Europe” is not a geographical concept. As a term, it is not always well definable. As a four-dimensional unit it is not stable, either. Specific roles of Germany and Poland in this region cannot be overestimated. Let us now quickly describe the dynamic situation in Central Europe during the last two centuries:

(A) During the last third of the 18th century the center of Europe was gravely weakened by the liquidation of Poland. Russia thus and for the first time in its history comes into contact with Central Europe (specifically with Prussia and Austria). The West was not engaged in this process.

(B) The French Revolution means a social exhortation not only for Western Europe. During the Napoleonic Wars, France (“from the West”) neutralizes Austria and Prussia (the “center” of Europe) and transforms them as its military and political satellites. (In 1812 French soldiers reached Moscow.)

(C) After 1815 (with Russian soldiers in Paris) the two then-solely existing Central-European states (Austria and Prussia) were fully restored. Afterwards England, for a period one hundred years, disregards the Central-European space. In “Congress Poland” rule the Romanovs, and so Russia remains until the First World War in Central Europe.

(D) In between, the influence of Russia steadily weakens, England is concentrated on its global interests, and after 1871 the role of united Germany in Europe obviously increases. Austria was modified into Austria-Hungary.

(E1) In the First World War Germany was challenged by a war on two fronts, the Western and the Eastern. Austria-Hungary as the second Central-European state (as there was no “third” state there) bordered, among others, with Russia and Turkey; after the war it disintegrated (within seven different territories).

(E2) Owing to the Russian “October” Revolution the Soviet Russia found itself outside any world military power-play, but its export of revolutionary ideas, especially into Central Europe, should not be underestimated. Between the World Wars Central Europe became, and remained, a power vacuum. The USA entering into the First World War remained outside its European peace. France was present in Czechoslovakia (“ÈSR”) only symbolically. When ÈSR could not find closer relations with Poland, Dr. Bene succeeded with the so-called “Little Entente” (with Yugoslavia and Rumania as its other members). His plans covered a project of a political “bridge” between the West and the East.

(F) The Second World War started with the smashing of Central Europe (i.e., Austria, ÈSR, Poland) by a Central-European power (i.e., Germany), helped by the USSR (annexing what was then the Eastern part of Poland) whereby another “Russian” call-up in the direction of Central Europe (for the first time practiced at the end of the 18th century) was somehow started again.

(G1) In the Second World War one Central-European state, Hitler’s Germany, represented nearly all of Europe. Czechoslovak-Polish relations during the war were soon hampered by USSR.

(G2) From an original ally of Germany in 1939, the USSR emerged as one of the conquerors of

Germany in 1945. Poland started its post-war life within the West shifted territory (on Germany’s credit) militarily controlled, owing to the after-war allied regulations, by the USSR. The USSR, for the first time in its history, neighbors on ÈSR and even Hungary. After the Second World War the USA remained in Europe, but resigned on a restitution of democracy in the states under Soviet influence. Germany was left divided, and Central Europe ceased to exist for more than forty years.

(H) After the reunification (1990), Germany is again a Central-European state. Shortly after that the USSR was reorganized and the successive Russia has also inherited new neighbors in the form of its former member states in the West (from the three renewed Baltic states in the North to Ukraine in the South) thereby again geographically receding to the East. The Central-European states are persistently called “East-European”. For some years to come Central Europe, paradoxically, represents a certain power vacuum.

(J) In the second half of the 1990’s the US presence in Europe remarkably increases. Russia sees in NATO a Trojan horse; the admission of Poland into the Alliance was interpreted in Moscow as a possible threat to Russian security.

(K) Except for the European security (and peace without national frictions) under the patronage of the US, grows the interest in a whole-European economic integration with the dominant economic influence of Germany. At the end of March 2000 the European Union’s ambitious economic plan to catch up with the US within 10 years is surely a significant incentive for the populations of the contemporary member states. It may also be a threat to those hitherto Central-European states who aspire to be integrated as members of this economic-political association, for they may be unable to jump over the ever-widening efficiency gap between their nations and those of the EU.

 

(2b) Even the Central-European “Bridge” Has Totally Changed

Let us not forget: Central Europe has sometimes not really existed (as, e.g., before 1815, after 1939, or after 1945), or it has existed under variable if not mutable constellations. For at least 130 years Germany, though with brakes, is a continuing constant in this area, and now more than ever—as hegemony, and not only in this small area after 1990. The role of Poland as the second most important state in Central Europe (in terms of having a large territory, location, half the population of Germany; but a still quite inefficient agriculture) remains underestimated.

 

The ÈSR after 1918, in socially-destabilized conditions, tried to practice a policy of developing a certain West-East political and security “bridge” (the three-state treaty of 1920). Bene’s optimism rose in 1935 after a higher level of diplomatic relations between ÈSR and the USSR (on contract combined with France) had been installed. After Munich (September 1938) that “bridge” ceased to exist. After the communist takeover in 1948 and in the climate of a potential Third World War, the ÈSR could serve as an assembly area for a military attack on the West. The so-called “Prague Spring” led to a “temporary” occupation of the country by the Warsaw Pact Forces. That marked the end of a traditionally warm relation-ship towards the Russians.

After 1989 a new political life began; within competent political circles it was immediately predicted that privatization would take place. Legally, this process was not sufficiently treated. After three years of “liberty”, the Federation was split into two parts; in this manner Slovakia began its independent statehood.

 

In the Czech Republic there are now many problems due to the realization of the banking principles (owing to the “siphoning-off” of several banks), no financial reserves in industry (resulting in late payments), low salaries in health services and schools, and a critical situation in some areas due to unemployment. Within the past sixty years the nation’s traditional knowledge of German has all but disappeared. Culturally, television production shows all too often American serial films. The traditional Czech relationship with the Slovaks has lost many direct opportunities to develop further. Slovakia has similar problems, and, moreover, not being a member of NATO and being slower in its preparedness for the entrance into EU.

 

The so-called “market economy” often but falsely—and as another media and party mythology slogan— characterized as “liberalism”, has not yet been taken seriously as an exhortation to look for an efficient and respectful solution of economic problems in a period of transition where no final and ready-made solutions are to be found.

 

(3a) Are There Any Values on the Agenda?

Generally taken: can we be optimists? Or pessimists? Or must we somehow be both? The problems connected with the deteriorating global life environment are alarming. So are the specific problems in the “third” (or already “fourth”?) world, with continuous famine and lack of opportunity to work, to say nothing of repeated bloodshed and a low life-expectancy. On the other hand, the inspiring results in science and technology are a vertigious fantasy of the developed world. Still it is a civilization of only some 10% unemployment (except within the United States, of course). So if we have work, let us divert ourselves. And moreover, entertainment richly pays those who are engaged in it (particularly in sports and popular music). Let us not reflect on it, please, and let us not strive for more...

 

In the Czech Republic (“ÈR”) the general rather safe pattern now described has been copied. The influence of television on the lifestyle and cultural requirements of the majority is not easy to overlook. Gymnastics in broad masses was very popular between 1918-38 (the “Sokol” organization); now sports mostly serves as a source of much money for its peak practitioners in football, hockey, or tennis, and as an audience entertainment for the others. Popular music groups also can earn good money, as can popular entertainers. One has become accustomed to mass crime, drugs, corruption, bribery (if one has not yet become a victim). The regular course may be interrupted by an unexpected flood, loss of money in a siphoned-off bank, delayed pay of wages (a rather new feature in ÈR), discontinued transportation, or problems in interpersonal or family relations. If it is not the case, one even does not take into consideration that, technically and scientifically, we live on a towering exponential... and one consumes a good meal (we like to eat well!) and looks for some not all too exacting daily entertainment.

 

The restructuration problem in ÈR has been discussed for the last ten years with not too promising results. State financial injections into the banking sector have already reached 250 milliard (in Kè, Czech crowns), which is half the amount of the money the state received from the first wave of privatization. Politics has been much discredited by the exhibitionism of numerous Czech politicians, either in Parliament or on the screen. In the still rather centralized state it is difficult to create a climate of a civic society. And illegal immigrants, mostly from the East, either illegally work here or, worse, begin the enterprise of criminal activity; additionally, the intent of others is to cross the frontier into Germany. Others are coming from Ukraine or Rumania, others even from Sri Lanka or Afghanistan.

 

(3b) Thus, Is a Bridge Here Again, or Only an Insecure Crossing – Or Both?

The Czech Republic is a small Central-European state with only 10 million inhabitants. Since January 1, 1993 there has emerged a rather new state frontier on the White Carpathians (between ÈR and Slovakia [“SR”]). Something similar, though somewhat loose, officially existed between 1867 and 1918. We must now say that ÈR and SR have only two common neighbors, which means that Hungarian/Hungary in ÈR and German/Germany in SR are much more remote to the respective population than before. Preliminary and pre-signaled conditions for a greater interest parcellation were thus created in Central Europe. To prevent this from above, the Visegrád Four grouping was formed (now better functioning than at the start) wherein Poland, Hungary and ÈR are already members of NATO, and SR still remains outside. All four states want to fulfill the conditions for a membership in EU (within the “West”). (Outstanding USSR debts remaining from the Soviet period on Central-European accounts were blocked in the succession states and, counting with the “Eastern” in- solvency, trade with Russia is now significantly low.)

 

In Central Europe democracy is still taken as a free mechanism of political elections. Within this region, to make joint decisions, listen to what others say, try to understand different statements, engage people in admitting working compromises, and especially live consciously under an enforceable law and payment discipline, are not simple matters. Seemingly anonymous large frauds, bribery, bank failings and tax abuses are still habitual. The level of salaries and wages, and the price of land remain very low and cannot be compared with Western standards. A sound flat market does not exist. The young cannot easily get a room in which to live (or to marry and start a family). Once again (and certainly not for the first time since 1989), the Czech economy tries to lift off from the ground.

 

At the same time it may be said that ÈR has a higher standard than within the nations to its east. ÈR also is the most western state east of the Schengen frontier. Thus, it may serve as a very convenient distribution point for drugs, money laundering, and an opportune valorizing point for forged and smuggled products, and possibly as a last frontier for illegal passages to the West. This renewed “bridge” is primarily a “one-way” type: from the East to the West. (Stolen cars go mostly the other way round, to the east, as well as to the south.)

 

In some of its aspects, this “bridge” represents at the very least, a route of migrating peoples in their quest to participate in the economic prosperity of the West. If ÈR wants to become an integral part of the EU, it surely must stop the illegal passages of people to the West. This presents a number of problems, as the migrating “outsiders” surely think they have a justifiable right to have their own personal choice to live in another country, cost what it may, and be it so risky as it is. They ask why they should not have such a right.

 

Conclusion

We have to count with the fact that owing to special economic, social or nationalist/military (and also political) situations, some territories develop under a breakdown of developmental conditions. We know that “local” wars or clashes hamper normal life in some—and repeatedly dangerous—areas but we also know that to interfere in these regions costs both national blood and “unexpectedly” always a bigger slice of the somewhat scarce national budget. Even “humanly needed” international interventions are mostly evaded, because they are always risky and usually unpopular. Peace is costly and as such it may not hold a universal value for everyone.

 

Lifestyle changed dramatically throughout the 20th century, although people under 50 years of age can know little about these changes from their own personal experience. Let us not forget that in Central Europe throughout the first half of the 20th century the horse was the fundamental force of transportation. Until nearly the end of the 20th century wired telephone communication seemed to be a technical innovation which had reached the zenith of its development. Now cars are an all too common personal means of transport (for longer distances jet planes) and information may be transported by laser beams (a totally surpassing idea some twenty years ago). Television, as another miracle introduced after the Second World War, makes our world smaller and much more quickly accessible; it has the capacity to atomize and manipulate society, and to lower cultural appetite. Computers have ceased to be large cumbersome devices and have become the universal means of personally chosen and exchangeable information. Bio- and nanotechnologies combined are another head-turning indication for the future. (See again Part 1b.) We even might forget (“it is already so long ago!”) that the 20th century was one filled with wars, large and small.

 

As “rational creatures” we seem not to admit in a real context that confrontation and violence are not adequate means of solving pending problems. In Central Europe we boast that the division (or “splitting”, or “disintegration”) of Czechoslovakia into two independent states was not followed by any blood toll; much lesser interest has been provoked by consecutive internal political disputes wherein thymos (Greek, as a “robust or tough show/demonstration,” or “contention”) does not allow one to listen to other possibly positive proposals. We do not take into account that reality is surely unique, though at the same time admitting various viewpoints (as concerning both interpretation of the given and planning for the future). Different interpretations and visions can “equally” be “true” in social life simultaneously. Dialétheia (Greek, “double truth”) is an old expression with a renewed warning carrying with itself a mission that our assurances need not be “absolute”. Added should be the idea that in social development we subconsciously count with causality, but at the same time we still want to implement some telos (Greek, “end”, “goal”, “purpose”) into our life. Purposes, on our developmental exponential, split into many alternative preferences. We sink once again into illusions that an optimum solution may be only solution, and one completely without risk. We also think that liberty and justice (together with responsibility) do not restrict one another.

 

Within the EU there is now much talk and controversy about a united “Europe of two speeds”. The formerly “Eastern” part of the traditional Central Europe is anxious to learn the terms of its admission into EU, which through the conception of “two speeds” (i.e., two currencies, and thus two economies as well) immediately makes the states on the waiting list (the Central-European nations to be included) the zone of a “third” efficiency class/”speed”, and actually postpones the admission procedure indefinitely.

 

Considering these current situations, illustrates that our outwardly and verbally globalizing world has at least another and yet lower (and not yet adequately listed) “speed” category, where there are two mutually combined “globalization” problems: an appreciated and authentic distaste for living in poverty, combined with a probably legally more problematic right to seek a better life elsewhere, in happier and more hopeful countries. ÈR has also been mentioned as a possible transition territory. The forthcoming Schengen agreements for Czech boundaries are intended to more efficiently tighten these borders and prevent those on the Eastern side of the “bridge” to pass over. Let us express this more eloquently: ÈR is bound to erect another “Berlin wall” on its frontiers (on the entrance side of the bridge), as the ideal theoretical “globalization” status, so to speak.

 

Thus, “globalization”—with all of its “technicalities”—has not only its positive side. That side is Western (Euro-American), and not very “global”, look ignoring the former “third world” future. Even the Central-European contemporary “third” speed cannot assure a viable (not all too complicated if at all thinkable) way towards EU integration with the West: the political scene in ÈR sometimes seems to be an irresponsible scenario, the banking system is not credible enough, there are 9-10% (in some regions nearly 20%) unemployment rates, and delayed payments from even the solvent enterprises; further, the family as a social institution does not seem to be stable enough. Shall the young have the strength to push the “old hands” (not always older than thirty five or so years), with their plotting, off the line? There is not much hope in this now. But, new generations take their turns rather quickly. And they want to live a better life and without useless hindrances, and they want to live a safer life as well. Science and technology can assure much of this.

 

What about the 21st-century politics? There are as yet no preliminary solutions for testing. Neither are of any help the various utopias or anxieties quoted above in Part 1. The right to live a decent life in the country of one’s own origin has not yet been observed as an urgent task. Instead, migration (and immigration) seems as a problem for commentators. And thus is a problem the demographic curve (with an unsound demographic basis), delinquency, credibility of the “free-market” or organized-production utopia. Whose holds responsibility for a somewhat more calibrated (and thus immediately “utopian”) dose of personal good luck? For those belonging to the bottom layer to participate in this responsibility task it is still a requirement above their ability and cultural level.

 

Social and individual roles of people and their hopes within the contemporary scenario of our—still maintainable?—biosphere on the threshold of an information age have not yet been investigated seriously enough. Democracy as a society of responsible citizens has not yet been installed in the majority of countries, formerly “Eastern”, and now Central-European, states to be included.

 

In a haphazard manner, in this rather sensitive, impatient and hastened period, this rather small region has been sentenced to practically solve both the problem of social optimalization and individual justice, such that in a much broader range than it is now—politically, socially, morally, economically, legally, and also globally—able. How can Central Europe cope with such all-too-human problems when no dialetheism, so to speak, yet enables to act with sufficient caution and reason?

 

Postscript

The contemporary “East-West Migration Bridge” already illustrates a fear within some factions of the European Union caused by the first five new applicant countries representing — as admitted members of the EU — an uncontrolled and potentially large labor migration. Being inspired by Thurow’s proposed new roles of control to build wealth, the “Rich North” sometimes appears to forget the “North-South Imbalance”.

 

Thus, taken in its most negative sense, “globalization” can mean “controlling worldwide means and ends” (sometimes described as “mutual integration”), and thus pictures the wealthy nations openly turning a cold shoulder on the unprivileged.

 

In its most positive sense, Globalization can bring a recognition that the world is already headed toward a great deepening in the Wealth Divide (which now encompasses education, opportunity, technology, et cetera) and a sharing of the basic elements of said wealth, education, opportunity, technology among all nations of the world is a necessary requirement for the overall sustained long-term prosperity of our now-globalized world.