Reading and speaking

Pre-reading task

1. Comment on Henry Ford’s saying: “Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable.”

2. Define the term “globalization”.

3. What are the main reasons for globalization processes?

4. How is sociology related with globalization?

5. Read the text.

Globalization

Growing attention to a variety of large-scale changes in economic relations, technology, and cultural relations, broadly subsumed under the description ''globalization,'' has inspired renewed interest in the ideas of convergence and modernity. The literature on globalization has several threads. One approach focuses on the economic and cultural impact of transnational capitalist enterprises that are judged to be responsible for the spread of a pervasive ideology and culture of consumerism. Ritzer (1993) summarizes this phenomenon as the ''McDonaldization of society''—a broad reference to the ubiquity and influence of the consumer brand names (and the large corporate interests behind them) that are instantly recognizable in virtually every country in the world today. The main implication of this perspective is that indigenous industries, habits, and culture are rapidly being driven aside or even into extinction by the ''juggernaut'' of the world capitalist economy dominated by a relatively few powerful interests.

Meyer (1997) provides a different interpretation of globalization in his work on ''world society.'' Although he argues that ''many features of the contemporary nation-state derive from a worldwide model constructed and propagated through global cultural and associational processes'', the essence of his position is that nations are drawn toward a model that is ''surprisingly consensual. . .in virtually all the domains of rationalized social life''. Meyer contends that various core principles, such as those legitimating human rights and favoring environmentalism, do not emerge spontaneously as an imperative of modernity, but rather diffuse rapidly among nations worldwide through the agency of international organizations, networks of scientists and professionals, and other forms of association. Although not referring specifically to convergence theory, this world society and culture approach makes a strong case for the emergence of widely shared structural and cultural similarities, many of which hold out the promise of improvement, among otherwise diverse nation-states.

The rapid growth of telecommunications and computing technology, especially apparent in the emergence of the Internet as a major social and economic phenomenon of the 1990s, presents yet another aspect of globalization that holds profound implications for possible societal convergence. However important and wide-ranging, the precise patterns that will ultimately emerge from these technological innovations are not yet clear. While new computing and communication technologies compress the time and space dimensions of social interaction (Giddens 1990), and have the potential to undercut national identities and cultural differences along the lines envisioned by McLuhan's (1960) ''global village,'' the same forces of advanced technology that can level traditional differences may ultimately reinforce the boundaries of nation, culture, and social class. For example, even as the computers and related communication technologies become more widely disseminated, access to and benefits from the new technologies appear to be disproportionately concentrated among the ''haves,'' leaving the ''have nots'' more and more excluded from participation. Over time, such disparities might well serve to widen differences both across and within nations, thus leading toward divergence rather than convergence.

Finally, interest in convergence has also been given a boost by various political developments in the 1990s. In particular, the twin developments of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and the progressive weakening of economic and political barriers in Europe are notable in this regard. The demise of state socialism has revived interest in the possibilities of global economic and political convergence among advanced industrial societies. Although ongoing economic and political turmoil in the ''transition to capitalism'' in the former Soviet Union during the 1990s may cast serious doubt on the long-term prospects for convergence, developments have clearly moved in that direction with astonishing speed.

Answer the following questions

1. What are the main approaches to globalization in sociological literature?

2. Comment on the statement from the text: “… indigenous industries, habits, and culture are rapidly being driven aside or even into extinction by the ''juggernaut'' of the world capitalist economy dominated by a relatively few powerful interests.”

3. Do you agree with Meyer’s interpretation of globalization?

4. What is the role of computing technologies in the process of globalization?

5. What are the possibilities of global economic and political convergence?

6. If you were in power what would you do to support science in Russia?