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Challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon

Article in International Journal of Lifelong Education · January 1999

DOI: 10.1080/026013799293919

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIFELONG EDUCATION, VOL. 18, NO. 1 (JANUARY± FEBRUARY 1999), 3± 17

Challenging globalization as discourse and

phenomenon

TONY BROWN
University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

In recent years the concept of globalization has become widely used in a broad range of
disciplines. It is also attracting increasing attention within adult education although the
discussionis still only in its infancy. It is not surprisingtherefore that this discussionhas drawn on
arguments and positions opened up in other ® elds but in the process the term has been used
indiscriminately and often in a highly uncritical way. Globalization mostly refers to a set of
economic and political phenomena. However, it has also become a discourse which serves to treat
globalization as an irresistibleand irreversible process beyond the scope of human agency to resist.
This paper aims to contribute to the debate about adult education and globalization and raises
issues concerning the role of the nation state and the proposition that globalization is a new
paradigm. It concludes by posing an alternative way of understandingglobalization, seeing it not
as the driving force of change, but rather an expression of the expansive, and often explosive
nature of capital accumulation.

Introduction

The concept of ` globalization’ has been attracting increasing attention in recent times
as a factor or cause in the changing structure of adult education across the world.
(Edwards and Usher 1996, 1997, Foley 1996, Hall 1996, Harris 1996, special issue of
Convergence 1996, Korsgaard 1997, Walters 1997, Hannah and Fischer 1998). As
Korsgaard (1997 : 9) points out it became a key word at the ® fth International
Conference on Adult Education in Hamburg in 1997 whereas it had not been used at
any of the four previous conferences.
This re¯ ects the widespread usage of the term in recent years in disciplines ranging
from cultural studies to management and political science to marketing. Within adult
education however the discussion is really only in its infancy. It is not surprising
therefore that within adult education the discussion has drawn on arguments and
positions opened up in other ® elds. But in the process the term has often been used
indiscriminately and in a highly uncritical way.
What’ s more the term is used in three quite distinct ways which further adds to the
confusion surrounding it. Globalization is most often used to describe a process of
change. The huge transfers of money around the world, the rapid development of
information technology, new opportunities for international production and exchange
of services and the declining role of the nation state are commonly presented as evidence
of the impact of globalization.

T ony Brown is a lecturer, doctoral studentand a member of the Centre for Popular Education at the University
of Technology, Sydney, Australia. His teaching and research interests are in the political economy of adult
education. Prior to joining UTS he was a public sector union activist and oæ cial and worked in the areas of
community adult education policy development and research.

0260± 1370 } 99 $12.00 ’ 1999 Taylor and Francis Ltd

4 tony brown

Secondly, it is referred to as though it is an objective entity seemingly with its own

conscious purpose. Reference is made to globalization as an independent active agent
± ` Globalization is responsible for and responsive to space-time compression ¼
(Edwards and Usher 1997 : 136).
The third way globalization is used is as a discourse, a discourse which constructs an
acceptance of globalization as being inevitable, irresistible and irreversible. Used in this
way globalization becomes not a set of material forces or outcomes but rather some sort
of natural process operating outside the control or in¯ uence of human beings. It is this
latter use that has given globalization its hegemonic force in the 1990s and in practice
has been used to justify a fatalistic acceptance of neo-liberalism. In so doing it has
become the latest manifestation of Margaret Thatcher’ s 1980s dictum ` there is no
alternative ’ (TINA). Globalization is nothing if not versatile !"
As globalization is being used more widely within adult education it is timely to
investigate how it is being interpreted. Elayne Harris’ (1996 : 5) contention that adult
education ` needs a considered and informed analysis of globalization’ because in the
late 1990s it has become a term that is ` both portentous and vague ’ is timely. Similarly
we are reminded that locating such concepts historically is important ` at a time when
the homogenising discourse of ` globalization’ can encourage ` ahistoiricism’ .’ (Inter-
national J ournal of Lifelong Education 1998)
Foley and Morris (1995 : 113) have also argued that adult educators need to develop
` economic literacy’ , while Hall (1996 : 117) has concluded that ` one of the lessons of the
1990s is that all adult educators can bene® t from increased understanding of
international economic trends ’ . They highlight a situation where history, industrial
relations, economics, and political economy in particular, have too often been neglected
in the adult education literature. This has left the ® eld exposed when trying to
understand the interaction between education, work, production, economics and
politics and as a result debate has at times been conducted at the level of abstraction
rather than being engaged with the empirical. There is then a need to clarify exactly
what is meant by the term globalization.
In Australia, as in other advanced economies, education and training has been
restructured through the 1980s and 1990s to better serve industry and the drive for
improved international competitiveness. Australia’ s training reform agenda was
conceived of as being an integral component in facilitating workplace reform and
restructuring to assist in this process. A number of examples drawn from that experience
are used through the paper as illustrations.
This paper aims to contribute to that discussion by looking more closely at what is
meant by globalization. It sets out to summarize some common theoretical under-
standings of globalization. It suggests that globalization is becoming a new meta-
narrative and new orthodoxy, one that lacks clarity and coherence, being called upon
to explain such a diversity of phenomena that it has become practically useless for
understanding the dynamics of economic, political and education change.
The third section takes up the role of the nation state, an issue central to adult
education provision. It challenges the view that the state’ s role has diminished in
importance arguing instead that the state’ s role has changed but remains central to the
maintenance of economic stability and labour discipline thereby facilitating the
conditions for pro® table investment.
The fourth section returns to the distinction between globalization as discourse and
phenomenon. It challenges the empirical basis upon which much of the globalization
discourse rests before considering the view of both the right and the post-modern left,
challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon 5

that the changes which are commonly associated with globalization are both irresistible
and irreversible.
Finally, it is suggested that alternatives to the globalization thesis are possible and
that adult educators can contribute to the development and elaboration of those
alternatives. What is important is to make clear the assumptions upon which terms such
as globalisation rest in order to develop the clarity that will assist us to understand our
present circumstances so that we can act collectively, intelligently and eå ectively.

What is meant by globalization?

Globalization is used to explain everything from falling wages, the introduction of

student fees, the growth of international tourism, international currency transactions,
the latest workplace or enterprise agreement, changes in sport, cutting state and public
sector budgets, to reneging on greenhouse emissions policies. It has grown to be so all-
embracing that the question must be asked if it has any use as a term of de® nition at all.
(Brown 1998).
Instead of a de® nition various writers put forward features which are then combined
under the general heading of globalization. And central to nearly all attempts to
describe globalization’ s consequences are an irresistible and rapid technological
development, the diminishing role of the nation state, and the rearrangement of
industrial production away from the western economies to the newly industrialising
economies and the corresponding growth of service industries, particularly ® nancial
exchanges and services, in the advanced world. The glue which holds these components
together is that the force behind these changes is irreversible and largely outside the
control of human agency. They are in some way a logic of development that can at best
be shaped but cannot be held back.
In his work on the impact of globalization on Australian employment and training
Maglen recognizes that glozalisation is ` somewhat fuzzy’ and ` lacking a clear
de® nition’ , and argues that it describes a set of conditions for producing value and
wealth. He identi® es twelve salient features of globalization most of which concern the
growth and reorganization of multinational enterprises.
Those features include the emergence of global oligopolies; their internal
restructuring ; changes in trading and investment patterns ; the creation of vast currency
¯ ows not primarily directed at trade ; and the internationalization of the division of the
labour. To these he adds the internationalization of research and development and
scienti® c knowledge; the globalization of world aviation and the spectacular growth of
international tourism ; and the marginalization of developing countries especially those
least developed. (Maglen 1994 : 299± 300).
In their discussion of globalization and its impact on adult education the editors of
Globalization, adult education and training state their concern as being ` the role of adult
education and training within a context of globalization’ (Walters 1997 : 1) They make
the claim that globalization is a new paradigm and conclude that ` the world is currently
in transition from one paradigm to another. The dominant paradigm has been that of
modernization, and we would suggest that we are shifting to a new paradigm of
globalization’ . Such a situation, they continue, has implications for our understanding
of ` progress ’ and democracy and notions of civil society, the state, and the market
(Walters 1997 : 1± 2) ’ .
6 tony brown

They take up the theme that the nation state has become marginalized. As Walters
and her colleagues explain it, ` the globalizing forces minimize diå erences and national
borders ¼ the nation-state has become less important in the world ’ . Again ` The
economic importance of the nation-state is in rapid decline, while its importance on the
political level is being reasserted ’ (Walters 1997 : 3± 4).
Mann develops this point further. He notes that there is one point on which the
proponents of globalization, who come from a very broad political spectrum, agree and
that is that the changes are weakening, if not rendering powerless, the nation state.

From postmodernists like Baudrillard or Lyotard or Jameson to geographers like

Harvey or Taylor to sociologists like Giddens or Lash and Urry, to the business
economists of T he Economist come similar statements about the ` undermining ’ ,
` undercutting’ , ` out¯ anking’ , or ` marginalization’ of the nation state. (Mann
1997 : 473).

According to these proponents the means by which the state has been marginalized has
been through the technological-informational innovations of the past twenty years. The
result is that :

E the state’ s macroeconomic planning, its collectivist welfare state, and its
citizens’ sense of collective identity has been undermined by a capitalism which
is now global, transnational, post-industrial, ` informational ’ , consumerist, neo-
liberal and ` restructured ’ .
E new global limits such as environmental and population threats, have become
too broad and too menacing to be handled by a nation state alone, and
E identity politics and new social movements generate new localized and
transnational identities at the expense of both national identities and broad
class identities. These in turn are giving birth to a new international ` civil
society ’ where movements for peace, human rights and environmental reform
are also becoming global. (Mann 1997 : 473± 474).

Contributing to the confusion around the term is the pliable way in which it is used.
Globalization is described as meaning both ` global unity as manifested for example in
transnational capital, satellite television, the Internet and patterns of consumption’
while also being ` characterized by diversi® cation’ (Edwards and Usher 1996 : 221,
223). It would seem that globalization represents homogeneity and heterogeneity at the
same time which does not leave much out of its universalizing scope.
Hall identi® es ® ve common features of the international impact of global economic
change on adult education ± a narrowing of the scope of adult education through an
increased emphasis on training ; withdrawal of the state from the ® nancing of adult
education ; increased centralization of adult and basic education policy formulation ; an
increase in crisis oriented adult education ; and an increasing number of people around
the world who do not read and write. He ascribes these changes to the eå ects of
globalization (1996 : 117± 120).
It is possible to summarize the major components of the broad globalization position
as :

E globalization is an irreversible force, driven by an equally irresistible

technological development. It is outside the scope of individuals or social
groups to prevent or hold it back
challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon 7

E because it has become such an irresistible force, the nation’ s economic success,
and in some cases very survival, depends on encouraging and supporting this
process
E the role of the nation state has been weakened to an extent that it has lost power
in comparison with multi-national or transnational corporations. This reduces
the possibility of political action within and against the state ;
E a realignment of international production is such that there has been a
simultaneous transfer of manufacturing production and investment from the
older industrialised economies to the newer, dynamic economies of Asia, Latin
America and Eastern Europe with a growth of services and technology in the
now de-industrializing nations
E there is a new global order, dominated by the USA, comprising international
bodies beyond the control of nation states. A new form of ` international civil
society ’ is suggested as the only means of blocking the new world order’ s power
and in¯ uence.

But not all see these features as the result of a combination of unidenti® ed mysterious
forces. By contrast Harris sees globalization as being motivated by ` the expansionist
drive of modern and advanced capitalism ¼ to invade ever more extensive and distant
markets ’ (Harris 1996 : 5). Foley points to the mass media’ s role in promoting capitalist
restructuring, a process which runs against the interests of ordinary people. Both writers
emphasize that these actions and policies are not the result of some unseen, impersonal
set of forces but rather operate in the interests of the ruling political and economic
system of corporate power. (Foley 1996)
What we are witness to is a much less puzzling process which globalization fails to
explain. That is, the extension of market relations has been internationalized spreading
across the world to an unprecedented degree. For the ® rst time it is possible to say that
the economic and social relations established by the market ± not the market of
mercantile trade or barter but the capitalist market resting on the exchange of human
labour power ± has established a ® rm foothold in practically every country. What has
been established in what were previously described as the economic ` miracles ’ of Asia
over the past twenty ® ve years has been, albeit unevenly, the transformation of asiatic
models of development to more modern forms of capitalist development. Those
developments in Asia mirror the industrial revolutions of Europe of two centuries ago
except that Asian economic growth has been even more rapid than that of Europe. But
the Asian ® nancial crisis which began in mid 1997 serves to remind us of the human costs
associated with introducing market relations, costs which will become more and more
evident as the IMF demands are implemented.
Expansion, boom and bust are inevitable products of this system. Capitalist
production is inherently expansionary, driving towards accumulation of capital through
an increase in the rate and mass of pro® t. Pro® t is increased by replacing the less eæ cient
and by opening new markets, by searching for the lowest and most eæ cient costs of
production, by creating needs and absorbing previously non-market sectors. In the
Grundrisse Marx imagined a global capital breaking through every barrier and driving
into previously untouched locales :

While capital must on one side strive to tear down every spatial barrier to
intercourse, ie. to exchange, and conquer the whole world for its market, it strives
on the other side to annihilate this space with time, ie. to reduce to a minimum the
8 tony brown

time spent in motion from one place to another. The more developed the capital,
therefore, the more extensive the market over which it circulates, which forms the
spatial orbit of its circulation, the more does it strive for an even greater extension
of the market and for greater annihilation of space by time ¼ There appears here
the universalising tendency of capital, which distinguishes it from all previous
stages of production. (Marx 1973 : 539± 40)

Here then is a more grounded explanation for space-time compression and for new
international production arrangements than abstract references to globalization.

New paradigm or new orthodoxy ?

Questioning the usefulness of globalization as a concept is not intended to deny that

important changes are taking place in the economy, and in education and training.
Indeed it would be foolish to deny that something substantial has been happening since
at least the beginning of the 1980s. The real question is, are there better ways of
explaining these changes ? Do they represent a ` new paradigm ’ or they are a
continuation of something much older but with new features ? And what of the state ?
Has its role been diminished or recon® gured to meet new needs ?
Since the recession of 1982 } 83 a new pattern has emerged in the world economy,
diå erent from the long boom and the up and down 70s. It is a pattern of high pro® ts and
rapid technological growth yet low growth and high unemployment.
The exchange controls which limited movements of funds from one currency to
another up to the late 1970s were increasingly overwhelmed by the new international
® nancial markets. From the early 1980s milder methods of ® nancial control were being
scrapped, and once some states discarded those controls, others quickly followed suit.
The new regime was locked into place by the fast growth of international ® nance
¯ ows, and also by the international restructuring of industry. Manufacturing industries
once central in each major national economy ± coal-mining, steel, automobiles, textiles
and footwear ± became less central with major production centres shifting to new
countries.
Micro-electronics and information technology became signi® cant industries and
transformed other industries. These developments were driven by the low pro® t rates of
the 1970s and 1980s, and made possible by signi® cant industrial and political defeats for
the organised working class, which they then compounded. The accompanying waves
of bankruptcies, industrial collapses, takeovers, mergers, new ventures, retooling and
redevelopment, increased the appetite for heavy and expensive credit. (Thomas 1997)
Today we have a new rise of ® nance capital. The long term ¯ ows of capital across
national borders today are not unprecedented, it is the speed and size of short term ¯ ows
which is unprecedented. For instance, international bond issues rose from $38 billion in
1980 to $461 billion in 1995 while international loans increased from $78 billion to $372
billion (OECD 1996). The business of swapping huge volumes of cash from one
currency into another, to ® nd the one which keeps its value best or oå ers the best interest
rate, has grown in volume to maybe twenty times world trade. The Michael Milken,
Robert Maxwell, Barings and Sumitomo scandals illustrate the vast role of money-
juggling, as distinct from production, in today’ s capitalism.
The rise of free market economics in the West in the 1980s coupled with the collapse
challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon 9

of the command economies of Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s has resulted in a
` universalization ’ of market relations across the world. (Wood 1997b : 552) There are
few if any remaining parts of the globe where the social relations of capitalism do not
either dominate society or are in the process of being established.
Viewed this way globalization can be considered not just as :

an economic regime but as a system of social relations, rooted in the speci® cally
capitalist form of social power, which is concentrated in private capital and the
nation-state. Globalisation basically means that the market ¼ has become
increasingly universal as an economic regulator. As the scope of the market
widens, the scope of democratic power narrows : whatever is controlled by the
market is not subject to democratic accountability. (Albo 1997 : 27± 28).

We are witness to many stark examples of people and nations being drawn into those
social relations. In the west the market establishes itself in areas where it was previously
excluded. Public utilities such as electricity, water and telecommunications are
privatized while public goods such as education, health and aged and child care are
commodi® ed.
The clearest examples can be seen on the one hand in the countries of Eastern
Europe and Russia and on the other in countries like India, Indonesia, Thailand and
China. As occurred two hundred years ago in Britain, today the rural populations of
Asia are forced from their lands as they migrate to the cities to sell their labour power.
They enter into an entirely new set of social relations. Material life and social
reproduction are mediated by the market, so that all individuals must in one way or
another enter into new social relations in order to gain access to the means of life. The
dictates of the market ± competition, accumulation, pro® t maximization and increasing
labour productivity ± regulate not only economic transactions but social relations in
general. And it is this, the spread of the social relations of Capital, that is of signi® cance
and importance.
For Wood it is the relations of production which are the fundamental feature of
capitalism ± not technology, the forces of production or even ownership. Capitalism’ s
essence is those relations through which capital appropriates the surplus of production
± and these relations of production are not con® ned to the sphere of work, they are
incorporated in law, in the state, and in other aspects of society, which then impinge on
and aå ect everything else.
The very elasticity of globalization and its lack of de® nition tends to de¯ ect attention
from this spread and the quest for higher pro® ts and lower prices which are the primary
causes of the restructuring and change we are experiencing.

The nation state

The ability to shape the provision of education has long been understood. Yet its role
today is the subject to much debate. Adult educators, whether they work in vocational
or community based education, whether they are nurse or prison educators, university
teachers or work based trainers, are all aware that economic and political imperatives
are driving changes in the funding and delivery of education.
The current notion that globalization has dissolved national frontiers and made
10 tony brown

national governments powerless is therefore an important issue requiring closer

attention. The argument is that the more globalization the smaller the role of the nation
state. Some writers have suggested that this has had particular consequences for social
democratic parties with Hirst and Thompson maintaining that it has crippled social
democratic policy making while Albo has argued that it has led to the adoption of a
policy of ` shaped advantage ’ . (Hirst and Thompson 1996, Albo 1996).
The new social democratic conventional wisdom insists, according to Albo, that
economic policy is left with only one central question: how should national (or regional)
competitiveness be created and maintained? Everything else ± from macroeconomic
policies to strategies for training and welfare ± ¯ ows from this question.
The case for an industrial policy of shaped advantage has been strongly advocated
in economically declining countries such as Britain, Canada, the USA and Australia. In
Canada for instance the Ontario government warns that a critical determinant in the
transition to a higher value-added economy will be the ` education, skills, ingenuity and
adaptability of our workers ’ (OPCT 1990 : 1). In Australia, the Australian National
Training Authority asserted that ` Training is the key to Australia’ s economic future’
(ANTA 1994 : 3) while the European Commission’ s White Paper reported that
` Education and training is ¼ the key means of ensuring the transformation of our
society ’ (EC 1994 : 11). (See also Reich 1991, Ormerod 1995, Hutton 1996 and Thurow
1996 for elaborations of the shaped advantage argument).
In their view a world economy of ever increasing trade volumes aå ords ample
market opportunities if the industrial successes of Japan, Germany and Sweden can be
replicated (and their failures avoided). Shaped advantage can resolve the problems of
external trade imbalances and create a stable capitalism. By contrast 1980s Britain is
held up as an example to be avoided. Countries that lose technological capacity suå er
the economic misfortunes exempli® ed by Britain’ s fall in world standing.
Albo (1996) puts forward three features of shaped advantage ± progressive
competitiveness; shared austerity; and international Keynesianism ± which can be
readily applied to the Australian experience of restructuring and education and training
reform undertaken by the Labor (ALP) government through the 1980s and 1990s.
The ` progressive competitiveness’ strategy emphasises the eå ects of external
constraints imposed by globalization. In a globalized market, what distinguishes one
economy from another is the skills of its labour force and the nature of workplace
relations. Training policies should, therefore, be the central component of a jobs and
welfare strategy, while relationships of ` trust ’ and co-operation should be fostered
within enterprises. Training and workplace reform were central planks of the Labor
governments between the mid 1980s through to its defeat in 1996.
` Shared austerity’ stresses the internal constraints of distribution of relations. Full
employment requires restraint of workers’ pay and consumption to keep exports
competitive, investment high, and the state’ s budget under control. Incomes policy,
such as Australia’ s Prices and Incomes Accord, has a role to play in spreading work
through wage restraint and keeping unit labour costs down for exports.
Finally, the ` international Keynesian ’ view maintains that removing constraints on
the market simply requires the political will to shift expansionary policies from the
national to the international level. What is needed, according to this view, is
international co-ordination of economic policy. The ALP’ s concentration on winning
support for the ¯ edgling APEC group of nations is congruent with this strategy. What
is clear about this approach is that the nation state is the linchpin upon which these
policies were introduced.
challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon 11

Bryan (1995) draws an important distinction between the nation state and the
national economy. His argument is that although the notion of a ` national economy ’ is
withering under the impact of international capital’ s activities, particularly ® nance
capital, nation states, far from declining in signi® cance, are simply redirecting their
intervention so as to assist the success of ` their ’ companies on the international stage.
He further argues that national states are now focusing solely on the productivity of
labour, with education, training and work reorganization key components of this
strategy, as the key resource over which they still maintain control. States running large
de® cits seek to force their domestic working classes up to prevailing international rates
of exploitation, while states running surpluses must maintain pressure on their working
classes in order that their ` competitive advantage ’ can be sustained over time.
In eå ect each state participates in a type of ` World Productivity Cup’ to drive its
own working class into a never ending chase for marginal advantage. Economic
nationalism is used as a potent ideology to drive the working classes of each participant
state in this race.
Welton (1997) and Jackson (1997) in their analyses of restructuring in Canada and
Britain respectively describe how ` global market forces have reduced the capacity of
individual nation states to create social policies in the interests of their people’ (Walters
1997 : 5).
The image presented of the British and Canadian governments is that of reluctant
victims of some powerful, yet unseen international force. They found themselves caught
unawares in front of the international global tidal wave. But this view doesn’ t stand up
to scrutiny. Given their records in government it can hardly be argued that Margaret
Thatcher and John Major, or Brian Mulroney and Mike Harris were powerless in their
desire to ` create social policies in the interests of their people’ . Rather than being victims
they were active agents, indeed leading proponents of these very changes. They were
nothing if not clear and determined.
If anything, globalization presupposes the state. Today transnational capital is more
eå ective in penetrating every corner of the world because of the assistance oå ered by
local capital and national states. While the state may have lost some of its traditional
functions it has gained new ones.
The nation state is today the main conduit through which national, or multinational,
capital is inserted into the local and the global market. And this is so in economies
ranging from the newly industrializing right through to the most technologically
advanced. Asia perhaps oå ers the best recent example of this. In the aftermath of
Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto’ s resignation in July 1998 world ® nancial and
political leaders waited anxiously to see who the Japanese national political leadership
would elect as his replacement. Would they elect someone who would satisfy the
international markets demands to stimulate the economy or continue the practice of
balancing free trade and protectionism. The election of LDP powerbroker Keizo
Obuchi seems to indicate that the latter course will be followed. At the same time the
Chinese state guarantees for international investors that it will maintain the conditions
of economic stability and labour discipline, which are the conditions of pro® table
investment, in a way that could not be guaranteed by any other power.
In Europe the austerity drives currently under way in countries such as France, Italy
and Germany are aimed at meeting the stringent requirements of monetary union. Yet
contrary to the idea that the nation state is becoming irrelevant as Europe uni® es it is
the nation state that not only guarantees meeting those requirements but acts to enforce
them through cutting public spending and services. The resulting con¯ ict, which was
12 tony brown

vividly demonstrated by the enormous wave of industrial action in France in December

1995 and was continued with the dramatic defeat of the Chirac government in 1997, is
one that is played out on the national level.
Reliance on the state as a facilitator of capital accumulation can also be clearly seen
in Australia. The restructuring of education and training under the Labor government
in the 1980s and 1990s tied education to the needs of industry through award
restructuring by means of state industrial tribunals.
New federal and state legislation assisted the restructuring of workplace relations by
introducing enterprise bargaining, while at the same time restricting the rights of
workers to organize collectively and prohibited workers in one enterprise or industry
from taking collective action in support of other workers.
Where unions tried to break out of these limits they were either hit with punitive
® nes by state industrial tribunals (the Meatworkers’ and Food Preservers’ Unions) ;
deregistered as a trade union (Builders Labourers Federation) or in the case of the
airline pilots union eå ectively demolished as an organization through the combined
eå ort of the government (bringing in troops to ¯ y planes), employers (importing pilots
from other countries) and the Australia’ s peak trade union body the Australian Council
of Trade Unions (ACTU) (by refusing to oppose the government’ s use of the armed
forces or by supporting the right of the union to pursue its wage claim).
In other areas, the Australian dollar was ¯ oated ; tariå and other trade barriers were
reduced ; a series of industries notably in banking and ® nance were de-regulated ; and
competition was introduced into the telecommunications and media industries. At the
same time, the government through various agencies paved the way for greater access
by Australian companies into the growing Asia} Paci® c region through initiatives such
as establishing the regional APEC grouping.
The world’ s largest corporations do have turnovers equivalent to some national
budgets and there are more giant corporations with a global reach than ever before.
Also there are more international organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF
serving the interests of capital, though it should also be noted these bodies are more than
half a century old. So while it is accurate that some international corporations are as
powerful as medium sized states existing governments are not as powerless as they, for
political reasons, often make out. Rather than being rendered powerless the state has
changed. It has lost some powers and acquired others. In some cases the size of
government spending has grown over the past two decades but what has been most
noticeable is that the direction of state spending has been away from areas of social
provision such as education, health and housing and towards increased law enforcement
and business support, concessions and transfers.
But to acknowledge this is not to accept that there exists a harmonious, coordinated
international capitalist class or any organization that can serve as the equivalent of a
nation state writ large. If anything the spread of market relations has led to increased
competition between states and the resurgence of trading and competitive blocs such as
the European Union, NAFTA, and APEC.
It also means that as national economies become more open to international capital,
there is increased competition between industries within nations. The move back to
tariå barriers in countries such as Australia ± witness the tension between manufacturers
and primary producers over the diå erent application of tariå policy in the automobile
and sugar industries ± are evidence of such internal competition.
Of greater importance however are the conclusions being drawn from the current
globalization discourse regarding the possibility of challenging these changes. In
challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon 13

general those conclusions are pessimistic in that they treat this process, where ` the
international system becomes autonomized as markets and production become truly
global ’ (Korsgaard 1997 : 10), as being irresistible and irreversible. The only possible
resistance to it, so it is claimed, can take place at either the most localized level ; or
through the politics of identity; or at the international level. The possibility of
challenging power at the national level is eå ectively abandoned. So at the very time that
the state guarantees capital’ s easier access to both internal and external accumulation
it is argued that it is no longer an important site of struggle.
These conclusions are based on the argument that as capital becomes more mobile
and production more international, the state is less able to respond and the working
class becomes more fragmented. Power is left in the hands of a new global order
comprising a new transnational class united in a variety of supranational organizations.
(Wood 1995 : 26).
Hall conveys this sense of pessimism in his writing about the political economy of
global economic change and adult education:
because of the overwhelming power of increasingly centralized global
institutional, ® nancial, and military structures. It seems impossible (to write
about these changes) because power is complex and ¯ exible and is in® nitely able
to maintain these systems of asymmetrical relationships. (Hall 1996 : 105).
Shifting attention from the local, national level to the prospect of an international
civil society ends up missing the point that state intervention is an essential feature of the
neo-liberal era, or as Panitch observed ` The real issue of our time is not less state versus
more state, but rather a diå erent kind of state ’ (Panitch 1993 : 5).

What is new about globalization?

It is this discourse of accepting globalization as an inevitable product of technological

development coupled with a realpolitik view of the rearrangement of the international
order in the wake of the Gulf War and the demise of the command economies of Eastern
Europe which is new. The phenomenon of globalization, its empirical basis, is much
more debatable. What needs to be further examined is how much of what is presented
as something new is indeed new and how much is a continuation of the old methods of
ensuring that goods and services are produced as cheaply and eæ ciently as possible in
order to maximize pro® t.
As has already been mentioned the most dramatic change in the world economy
since the early 1980s has been the speed and size of short term ® nance ¯ ows across
national borders. The volume of ® nance transfers around the world is now considerably
greater than the volume of trade in goods. But while ® nance capital increasingly moves
freely across national boundaries by electronic means, industrial capital isn’ t nearly as
mobile. This is not a new phenomenon as capitalism has always tended toward
internationalization. Patterns of exchange are today remarkably similar to patterns
throughout this century. There is substantial evidence showing how trade throughout
the century has been conducted by a small band of corporations in a small number of
advanced economies. (See for historical comparisons the work of Hobson 1906,
Hilferding 1981, Lenin 1978, UNDP 1994, Maddison 1995, Henwood 1996 and Wood
1997b).
Reports such as that of the United Nations Development Program con® rm that
14 tony brown

what is occurring is not some dramatic shift in the global economy but rather a
solidifying of long established patterns. Its Human Development Report details among other
things the trading patterns of all member nations. It records that the richest ® fth of the
world’ s population produces 84.7% of the world’ s GNP and 84.2 % of world trade ;
85.5% of domestic savings and 85 % of domestic investment. By contrast the world’ s
poorest ® fth participates in 0.9 % of world trade leaving the middle 60 % of the world’ s
population with 14.9 %. (UNDP 1994 : 63). In other words the overwhelming majority
of the world’ s population remain involved in peripheral trade while one in ® ve of the
world’ s population are eå ectively excluded from trade.
Nor is the perception that big industrial corporations are closing down their
production in the industrialized economies and moving oå shore as widespread as
conventional wisdom would have it. Trade remains primarily an exchange between the
advanced economies each investing in each other. While investment in pursuit of cheap,
unskilled and unregulated third world labour takes place it does not neatly ® t the
` globalization’ model where investment in those markets directly replaces production
at home. For instance, in 1993 79% of US foreign direct manufacturing investment was
in other advanced industrialized economies ± Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan.
Furthermore, foreign branches of multinational corporations account for about 15 % of
the world’ s industrial output, while 85 % is produced by domestic corporations in single
geographical locales (Wood 1997a : 24).
There are those, both within and outside the mainstream, who contest a number of
the foundations on which the globalization discourse rests. One such critic is the World
Bank’ s chief economist Lawrence Summers whose views were reported in T he Economist
in February 1992. He asked :

What’ s new ? ¼ I struggle with the evidence showing what exactly the proclaimed
revolution (in production) has revolutionized. ¼ The ` globalization’ of pro-
duction has happened, sure, but has the telecommunications revolution really had
a major impact ? I would guess the invention of relatively simple things, like
steamship transport, did more for world trade than digitalized data transmission
through ® ber optic cables. How exactly has the nature of manufacturing been
` fundamentally altered ’ ? Aren’ t people just incrementally better at doing things
they’ ve always done, like locating production in the lowest cost location for
delivery to markets (now ` globalization of production ’ ), like managing in-
ventories in a least cost way (now ` just-in-time inventory management), like
choosing the appropriate level of vertical integration depending on the production
process (now ` critical buyer-seller links’ ), like matching production to demand
(now ` short product cycles ’ ). Is a revolution the appropriate metaphor for these
changes ? (cited in Henwood 1996 : 5).

Conclusion

The discussion around globalization to date highlights the potential for the term to be
indiscriminately adopted as a ready answer to those diæ cult questions thrown up by
economic and political restructuring, by changes to work, production and education
right through from the local to the national and international levels.
Secondly, despite attempting to shed light on important changes, the way
globalization is being used contributes to a widespread pessimism which denies the
challenging globalization as discourse and phenomenon 15

possibility, and even the desirability, of any coordinated opposition to the spread of
market relations within and across nations.
Yet it is somewhat ironic that at the same time as some postmodern writers promote
and celebrate the idea that we are witnessing the end of ` totalizing’ concepts such as
modernity, capitalism, and class, along come a new set of concepts, such as globalization,
technology, the market and ¯ exibility ± perhaps the most resolute of the new
orthodoxies ± which are so readily adopted. Terry Eagleton has succinctly summed this
up by arguing that ` not looking for totality is just code for not looking at capitalism’
(Eagleton 1996 : 11).
These new orthodoxies share something else in common. Each is presented in a way
which presupposes a certain inevitability and in so doing strips them of their historic
speci® city and negates the idea of human agency. They are presented as though they are
external forces of nature, such as gravity, rather than products of human agency. What
is the point of trying to change an external force ? But globalization is not some natural
process ± certainly not if it means things like the withdrawal of the state from regulatory
and social welfare functions in the interest of capital mobility and ` competitiveness’ in
the world market.
If then globalization is a political response to structural conditions, it follows that
there are alternative ways of responding to the same conditions. If understood as a set
of policies, a conscious act of human agents, then the opportunity to protest, challenge
and act becomes much more feasible and realisable. The elaboration of such alternatives
is the real challenge and one that adult educators can play a critical role in developing.
(For further discussion on what some alternatives might look like see Lebowitz 1988,
Frenkel 1996, Panitch 1996 and Albo 1997).
What the adult education discussion so far highlights, and what Harris and Foley
point to, is the need for a considered and informed analysis of the changes taking place
around us, both in the local and international economy. This will involve developing
new conceptual tools which contextualize the political economy of adult education and
which recognises that history, class, power, ideology, and the state are all features which
need to be taken into account in coming to grips with changes in education, the
economy and society.
The globalization debate reminds us of the need to track the continuous processes of
change inherent to capitalism while keeping in perspective that these are trans-
formations within that system of production not transformations of it. This paper argues
that globalization is not the driving force of change, but rather an expression of the
expansive, and often explosive nature of capital accumulation.
It is for these reasons that trying to sort out how terms such as globalization should,
and shouldn’ t, be used will assist adult educators working for decisive social change to
develop the clarity that, in the words of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, ` help us to
understand the world and act in it intelligently and eå ectively’ .

Notes

1. It should be noted that there does exist an oppositional literature which is highly critical of the way
globalization is used. Some examples include Albo 1996 and 1997, Gordon 1988, Harman 1996, Henwood
1996, Magdoå 1992, Panitch 1994, Sweezy 1997 and Wood 1997.
16 tony brown

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Joyce Stalker, Janet Burstall and colleagues in the UTS
Writing Group for the valuable feedback they gave on earlier versions of this paper.

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