[OPE-L:6632] [OPE-L:93] Re: Globalisation

Asfilho@aol.com
Fri, 4 Sep 1998 07:19:08 EDT

Dear all,

Brendan's questions are important, and deserve to be looked at in detail.
Unfortunately I don't have the data; I hope someone in the list is working
with it.

However, I have the feeling that the best way to assess globalisation is not
through country trade and investment data. They tell an important story, but
what we understand as globalisation seems to me to involve two things-

(a) the increasing power of certain firms to command labour and control
production processes across the world, even in nominally independent firms
located abroad; this evolves differently in distinct branches of industry, and
must be analysed separately. I guess there is very little in common between
globalisation in the defence, auto, and food industries.

(b) the increasing flows of finance, which should be distinguished between
trade-related (inc. exchange rate futures), 'purely' speculative, etc.

alfredo.