Neoliberalism, Globalization and the Capitalist World Order

Abstract

We often forget how fast things change; for example, my father was born at a time when a wagon ride to the major city center 50 miles away took half a day and by the time he died almost a century later he could travel across a major ocean and traverse a continent in the same time. Those of us old enough to recall having to literally cut and paste together edits on our work know that the “cut” and “paste” features on most word processing software is a reference that most undergraduates cannot understand in their literal sense. My teenage son recently saw a rotary phone in a communication museum and pondered how you make a call, and it is only recently that he has become comfortable with telling time on an analog watch (who knows what he makes of old war films with “bandits at four o’clock” ‐ is that a reference to some appointment or anticipation?). In much the same way we get wrapped up in current debates and discussions over globalization, the internationalization of production, and the spread of capitalism as it penetrates all corners of the globe. Empires were built on commerce and there is no need to review the history of societies developing the fastest and safest means to bring goods to market ‐ whether it was the building of roads and garrisons to ensure the flow of goods toRome,guardingthetraderoutesacrossAsia,ordevelopingfasterandmoreefficientmeans of transportation over water. Early European empires grew out of trade and conquests, and early stages of capitalist development were inexorably tied to increasing global markets (primarily for the raw materials that fed the engines of production, and to some smaller extent as the outlet for the goods produced).The ability to utilize transportation, whether the land trade routes across Europe and between Europe and Asia, the inland waterways of northern and central Europe, or conquering the oceans to link continents, all contributed to the growth of great commercial empires. We need not repeat here the lessons of global processes so ably detailed in grand works of epic (and epochal) proportion by scholars like Braudel (1992a [1979], 1992b [1979], 1992c[1979])andWallerstein(1974,1980,1989).Itisenoughtopointoutthatsomeform