French fries gobble'isation
| Words of pedestrian wisdom follow. "The French Fry is but one indicator of economic prosperity," she informs the reader, "The more a country develops economically, the more French Fries people consume." |
| The author rightly makes a distinction between "internationalization" and "globalization", but she miserably fails to spell out the basic features which distinguish these two stages of modern capitalism. |
| The author sets about to describe the effects of globalisation on organisations with special reference to six spheres of activity: (i) global business and industry activities; (ii) the natural environment; (iii) global culture; (iv) global politics; (v) global economics; and (vi) global technologies. |
| An important issue raised by Parker is the status of the nation-state in the newly globalised world order, and she quotes an author as writing that "globalization ... looks at the whole world as being nationless and borderless. Goods, capital and people have to be moving freely ..." |
| Yet Parker's book fails to escape the particulars of her own nation-state upbringing. Her chapters on global culture, global economy and global politics, for example, are devoted to the nuances of globalisation's impact on the lives of people living in other nation-states. |
| Her recipe for economic growth is as American as fast food. She sells "market capitalism" in a wrapper of mythology designed for facile appeal and instant consumption. |
| Market capitalism is the success formula that attracts capital, and this point is made over and over again in this book. Parker writes that "the majority of FDI inflows of about $1 trillion in 2001 was meant for advanced economies. |
| Economic Triad nations""the US, the EU, Japan""attracted about 70 per cent of these inflows". While talking about the relationship between the state and market, she states: "On balance the premise of a market system is that the collective good is best served by the activities of largely self-interested actors in a free and open market. This is not to say that government does nothing ... governments legislate to meet social needs..." This book is full of such inanities. |
| Here is another statement: "A principal policy role of any government is to balance individual interests with common and collective interests of the governed." |
| On the East Asian currency crisis of 1997-98, she writes in all innocence, "Meanwhile, there is trouble in Asia. In 1997 currency traders observed that Thailand had a growing trade deficit. To hedge their risk in the Thai baht, traders converted their holdings to dollars. These sales depressed the value of the baht, leading to further selloffs that eventually took the baht to half of its former dollar value." |
| The crisis was an event of much gravity, but the author fails to raise any analytical questions about the role of global rating agencies and other players that can lead to adverse consequences for national economies. She seems completely ignorant of the detailed mechanisms and power nodes of financial global integration. The currency speculator George Soros has himself written a book on how easily global finance can be manipulated. |
| Parker does not mention Soros at all. She is satisfied with statements like, "Thus world prosperity becomes an issue for national leaders who encourage more global business activities via privatization, deregulation, business stimulation, and trade agreement." Government must improve itself, she writes, for the good purpose of improving the rules of business conduct. |
| An entire chapter has been devoted to "Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics", in which normative dos and don'ts have been mentioned for managers in need of such guidance. This handbook for business managers is too perfunctory for interest to the better-educated, but is revealing nonetheless. |
| The biggest achievement of the author, at the end, is to keep readers of the book completely ignorant on matters of great analytical concern for the millions who are adversely affected by globalisation of the kind that is under operation these days. INTRODUCTION TO GLOBALISATION AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS AND RESPONSIBILITIES |
| Barbara Parker Sage Price: Rs 680; Pages: 523 |