Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform: Into the Twenty-first Century

Too often we assume implicitly the continuous existence of a world of capitalist nation-states, without recognizing that they came into existence at a certain point in history. This book examines postwar conditions that gave rise to the welfare state, explains how these conditions were changed in the 1970s and argues that more than ever we now need to find alternatives. discussion of the preconditions of globalizatin with a focus on the reciprocal relation between the rise of transnatinal corporations (TNCs) and the creation of a global enabling framework. A new chapter on globalization as the second bourgeois revolution makes an analogy to the transformations that took place with the coming of the first bourgeois revolutions most of which occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries and, like the social, political and economic structures that they displaced, they too will necessarily be displaced or transformed. A new chapter 8 continues with a critical review of some current objections to the idea of globalization. By addressing counter arguments, the shortcomings of the concept and the nature of the reality conceptualized can be analyzed and assessed. In a final section, the author addresses the new contradictions that globalization brings and the consequent necessity for new forms of resistance and alternatives. There can be no successful opposition without knowledge of what it is that is opposed to without knowledge of the principles of the future that is desired.