Tapsearch Com EditorThe Bewildered New World
May 28th 2009 22:24
By Ray Tapajna from his economic human dignity "ministry" - This article is based on Bewildered New World from a interview of Manuel Castells by Cliff Barney in 1998. Manuel Castells wrote several books about Globalization and Free Trade. This may be the most perceptive article you will ever read about globalization and free trade. Chuck Harder, host of For the People , reported the same economic forecast more than ten years ago. There were others like Sir James Goldsmith leading the way with his book The Trap, that told the world what was going to happen in the global economic arena. This is what my economic "ministry" is all about. Social doctrines like Rerum Novarum that guided human dignity for close to a hundred years have been thrashed by both conservatives and liberals.
The Bewildered New World 1997- Manuel Castells forecasts our economic storms.
Castells: The financial world has taken on an independent logic of its own; you make money or lose money in the global casino, regardless what happens in the production world
He said this in 1997 and now our economy in 2009, based on making money on money instead of making things is burning out. For 30 years, sociologist Manuel Castells has studied the global economy and the information society. He noted that the economic cost, in terms of burned-out people, burned-out capital, burned-out societies, will drag down the business productivity as well. This is now the state of our union in 2009.
On the government front, as the global community becomes established, nation states become less sovereign and more like power brokers in a world of shifting alliances. They can no longer control thier currencies or fulfill the promises of the welfare state. Moreover, the enclosure of the democratic process in the media has caused a crisis of democracy by transforming citizen representation into image making. -- How true this is today as you listen to CNN, MSNBC and FOX. They are all on the same page coloring events in their own images while ignoring the real world of what is really happening on the streets.
Globalization translates to a large proportion of humankind being disenfranchised politically and impoverished economically. They have no control over investments, ( this is now obvious with President Obama taking charge over the financial communities and he bypasses those on the bottom who are economically wounded. ), they don't have the proper skills ( or are replaced by those who are willing to work for a fraction of what American workers once earned ); they are bypassed by global flows fo capital, and they no longer can negotiate with their employers because their employers keep shifting places as much as they want, or outsourcing, or bringing workers or supplies from anywhere.
The internet was once presented as the panacea for all our problems. It can be described as the Rapture of the Net, where in this mystical network becomes a general - purpose solution for social and cultural problems, a gateway to paradise. We were going to fix the schools, reinvent government, link the world in an orgy of mass communication - and get rich in the process. Instead, the world is worst off than ever with things much better before the internet came. In fact, as someone who has spent more than thirty years in the computer field, I now report to this generation and the generations to come that the U.S. was better off before the computer age took hold.
Castells brings in more connotations related to the "network" besides just the internet. He talks about nets. One net might be a stock exchange network, banks, and financial officers; another a political network such as the European Union. Another net links coca fields, clandestine labs, secret landing strips and untold stories of money laundering in the global economic arena. An international business corporations can launder drug money at will.
Another net can be television networks, news teams, computer graphics specialists adn mobile transmitters.
Utlimately it is really all about you in the global economic arena. If you are not part of any network, you do not exist. Most will find they are outside looking in at a global network with no power to change things and with things happening outside the will of the people
We will continue this article with more commentaries in our next post.
The Bewildered New World 1997- Manuel Castells forecasts our economic storms.
Castells: The financial world has taken on an independent logic of its own; you make money or lose money in the global casino, regardless what happens in the production world
He said this in 1997 and now our economy in 2009, based on making money on money instead of making things is burning out. For 30 years, sociologist Manuel Castells has studied the global economy and the information society. He noted that the economic cost, in terms of burned-out people, burned-out capital, burned-out societies, will drag down the business productivity as well. This is now the state of our union in 2009.
On the government front, as the global community becomes established, nation states become less sovereign and more like power brokers in a world of shifting alliances. They can no longer control thier currencies or fulfill the promises of the welfare state. Moreover, the enclosure of the democratic process in the media has caused a crisis of democracy by transforming citizen representation into image making. -- How true this is today as you listen to CNN, MSNBC and FOX. They are all on the same page coloring events in their own images while ignoring the real world of what is really happening on the streets.
Globalization translates to a large proportion of humankind being disenfranchised politically and impoverished economically. They have no control over investments, ( this is now obvious with President Obama taking charge over the financial communities and he bypasses those on the bottom who are economically wounded. ), they don't have the proper skills ( or are replaced by those who are willing to work for a fraction of what American workers once earned ); they are bypassed by global flows fo capital, and they no longer can negotiate with their employers because their employers keep shifting places as much as they want, or outsourcing, or bringing workers or supplies from anywhere.
The internet was once presented as the panacea for all our problems. It can be described as the Rapture of the Net, where in this mystical network becomes a general - purpose solution for social and cultural problems, a gateway to paradise. We were going to fix the schools, reinvent government, link the world in an orgy of mass communication - and get rich in the process. Instead, the world is worst off than ever with things much better before the internet came. In fact, as someone who has spent more than thirty years in the computer field, I now report to this generation and the generations to come that the U.S. was better off before the computer age took hold.
Castells brings in more connotations related to the "network" besides just the internet. He talks about nets. One net might be a stock exchange network, banks, and financial officers; another a political network such as the European Union. Another net links coca fields, clandestine labs, secret landing strips and untold stories of money laundering in the global economic arena. An international business corporations can launder drug money at will.
Another net can be television networks, news teams, computer graphics specialists adn mobile transmitters.
Utlimately it is really all about you in the global economic arena. If you are not part of any network, you do not exist. Most will find they are outside looking in at a global network with no power to change things and with things happening outside the will of the people
We will continue this article with more commentaries in our next post.
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