In The News

IT Mergers Have Feds Flailing Against Tech Globalization

J. Nicholas Hoover April 4, 2006
The US Department of Defense aims to scrutinize any foreign entity that wants to buy US information-technology (IT) firms. Before Canada-based Nortel Networks purchased government-contractor PEC Solutions, it had to set up a separate subsidiary and allow the Defense Department to monitor e-mails. Election-year politics in the US could lead to more intense scrutiny. In particular, the government...

Don't Give Up on WTO, Fix It

Richard G. Lipsey April 4, 2006
Contrary to what its most adamant critics maintain, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a primary defense for poor and oppressed nations against exploitation from powerful nations and companies. Economist Richard G. Lipsey traces how the international institution that regulates trade emerged from policies facilitating globalization during the latter half of the 20th century. The WTO does not...

For People and Planet

Al Gore April 3, 2006
Current business practices take little account of environmental costs, and such neglect will impose huge costs and decreased standards of living for future generations. Too many businesses, investors and consumers continue to act as though natural resources – oil, minerals, clean water – are unlimited. Sustainable development could be the driving force of industrial and economic change over the...

Does Globalization Help or Hurt the World’s Poor?

Pranab Bardhan March 31, 2006
As debates over economic globalization rage, one writer ponders whether “expansion of foreign trade and investment” influences the world’s poor. Author Pranab Bardhan notes that the answer is neither a simple yes or no. By certain measures, the level of extreme poverty has lessened worldwide, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with globalization and could be the result of some domestic...

Democracy Isn’t “Western”

Amartya Sen March 28, 2006
Since the 1993 publication of Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations,” culture has made deep inroads into the vocabulary of the political scientist. Huntington argues that the post-Cold War world would be shaped by conflicts between “civilizations,” And US foreign policy would be tied inextricably to the preservation of Western civilization. Huntington’s supporters claim the ongoing war...

A Floundering WTO – Part II

Balakrishnan Rajagopal March 23, 2006
The goal for the Doha Round of WTO talks is to ease trade for developing nations and eliminate poverty. But the 150 members of the WTO have failed to reach agreements that would lower barriers for small and developing nations. In the second of this two-part series about the WTO, MIT professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal describes the world as more divided than ever before, with relatively successful...

The New Globalization Guru?

Eric Hobsbawm March 23, 2006
“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere…. Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist.” Philosopher Karl Marx made some uncanny predictions,...