tat sovereignty and studiously avoiding mention of the enhanced powers that may accrue to AustraliaÆs larger MNCs (Australian Broadcasting Authority 11-16).
The Globalization of Trade and Finance
Globalization ù the spread of economic innovations and activity around the world, together with the political and cultural adjustments that accompany such diffusion ù is not a new phenomenon or even a 20th century phenomenon. Rather, globalization has been occurring in one form or another for 3,000 years. The Phoenicians
à spread innovations almost entirely through the movement of products (trade) to small centers of development scattered around the Mediterranean. The diffusion of process technology followed after ù sometimes centuries later (Lewis and Harris 114).
The principal differences between earlier globalization activities and those occurring in the early years of the 21st century are (a) the relative speed that characterizes the diffusion process and (b) the difficulties encountered by those sovereign states that, for whatever reason, want to resist some of the invasive aspects of globalization. For some sovereign states, the externalities accompanying strengthened global linkages in trade and finance are either unacceptable or simply undesirable from their perspectives (Heilbronner and Milberg 161).
Some observers view globalization as a benign process because, according to their perception, it is not an outcome of either a planned activity by government or military power designed to create either ôever larger geopolitical entitiesö or an ôideological conformityö (Lewis and Harris 114). Somewhat pompously, Lewis and Harris (114) contended that globalization is ôthe organic result of the virtuous cycle à, by which economic convergence and the diffusion of innovation raise standards of living over time.ö
Other observers disagree with the benign attribution for the causes, motivations, and outcomes of ...