Concept – Globalization & Capitalism

Globalization of knowledge is what I define as the process by which actors conceptualize and interconnect ideas in a global scale. In the past, the globalization of knowledge required initially an extensive research in books, magazines and other print resources of ideas that could be connected in order to create a larger image of the field being studied. Later, these ideas were linked and related one to another in the creation of conceptual maps that looked very similar to the nets of spiders in whiteboards. Later, these ideas were interconnected and global conclusions, hypothesis and thesis arised from the evaluation of information.

However, with the advent of technology these complicated and extenuating research process have been shortened and made much more efficient. Now, these interconnections and global images of our research are almost done automatically by computers.

The following video has a great example on how the past and present of the Globalization of Knowledge looked like. I hope you will enjoy watching it as much as I did,

“It was by making myself a Catholic that I won the war of the Vendee [the war of counter-revolution in western France], by making myself a Muslim that I established myself in Egypt, in making myself Ultramontane [a devotee of the papacy] that I won men’s hearts in Italy. If I were to govern a Jewish people, I would re-establish Solomon’s Temple.” Napoleon Bonaparte

It is with Napoleon’s astonishing remark that I decided to give you some light of what Globalization refers to and why I choose to write about it as one of the two pillars of my research.

The term Globalization (also referred to as Globalisation) refers to what many different historians considered a process of interrelation (or unification) of the world. It was a process of cultural, political and economic relations that for the first time in history united all mankind.

It has been the aim of historians to identify When does Globalization begun and How it begun. But also, it has been their aim to question if Globalization as a process has already concluded or if it is an ongoing process in the 21st. Century. As well, historians are still trying to explain if Globalization should be judged (or not) as the result of only positive (good) results in regard to increasing the wealth, culture and technology of the world; while other historians argue that Globalization has also resulted in poverty, losses, conquest and cannibalization.

Globalization has been studied from different approaches in Social Sciences. Sociologists and Anthropologists have focused on the cultural effects that the transfer of technology, mass migrations, institutions and products has had in different regions of the world. Political Theorists studied how Globalization affects the institutions, norms and hierarchical authorities in specific regions and how changes in other regions may have had altered the status quo. Economists study how globalization increased the commerce and transactions between regions and territories through trade, investments, and flows of capital just to mention a few.

In this blog I’ll aim to discuss Globalization as a process and a result of the interconnectedness of human’s psycho-epistemology in specific contexts and periods of history. My mission is to study how human behavior is not determined by nature and how human free will (action that results from rational or irrational reasonings chosen between opportunity costs) has shaped the course of history until the present.

Continue reading “Why Globalization Matters?” →