The Hindu Business Line : A future without moorings?

There has been a lot of gloating over globalisation and an interdependent world without walls being ushered in by knowledge society, information technology and scientific marvels in the making.

The expectation is that trillions of transactions of every description circling the globe eight times a single second will bring peoples together, and neutralise all disparities and differences. This will, it is assumed, conduce to a homogenous world, reducing the scope for conflict or confrontation and raising the prospects of social cohesion and economic well-being all round.

Inevitably, the fizz soon subsided and a reality check began. The most talked about flip side is in the economic sphere, militating against the even and equitable spread of the benefits of globalisation. Alarm bells have begun to ring about the possibility of the widening divides between the rich and poor and between the reached and the un-reached.

Beginning from the Battle of Seattle at the time of the WTO’s Ministerial meeting in 1999, there have been a series of spontaneous demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of particularly young protesters, braving sun, rain and snow, at venues of G-8, IMF and World Bank gatherings stridently demanding a plan of action to ward off the adverse effects of globalisation.

A groundswell of writings has incisively portrayed all that could and did go wrong when globalisation was pursued as an end in itself.

The rising crescendo of debate on the economic consequences has resulted in taking the gaze away from globalisation’s equally serious impact on the familial, social and political planes. For instance, families which used to be close-knit entities are getting fractured. The joint family system in India, which helped preserve a stable social order, acted as a storehouse of high values for generations, and provided solace and security to members in times of trouble or advancing age, is very nearly extinct. Gone with it is the sense of filial or fraternal obligations, so much so parents and their progeny, as also close relations, hardly see, or are otherwise in contact with, each other for years.

Worsening trends

When such is the case, it is no surprise that prized traits such as loyalty and keeping a promise are going overboard. No organisation nowadays can count on any employee sticking with it for any length of time. Reneging on a commitment or defaulting in repayment of debt is no longer a thing to be ashamed of. It is all coming to each person for himself and the Devil taking the hindmost. From the look of things, these trends can only worsen.

In the larger context, concepts such as sovereignty and nationality, which were held immutable at one time, are getting to be outmoded. Unhindered flow of information and the facility of communications at the speed of light have crushed all barriers and become intrusive.

Internal affairs of neither households nor nations are sacrosanct. The doings and goings on in countries are the subject matter of publicly expressed critical comments by Governments.

In these circumstances, it has become anachronistic for any nation to claim that it is sovereign in the sense of exercising absolute and supreme authority within its territory. The widely prevalent current view is that there can never be anything like a total freedom given to a nation to do whatever it pleases regardless of the havoc it causes outside its borders.

On the other hand, nations are finding it to their benefit to give up a part of their sovereignty; groupings such as trade organisations, Asean, European Union and the UN testify to this fact. Nationality too may likewise be on its way out.

We are thus moving to a future without the familiar moorings. A benumbing thought!

B. S. RAGHAVAN