21st Century Globalization - One System With One Destiny

Globalization can be described as

...a multiplicity of phenomena and ...increased global interdependence in the economic, social, techno-logical, cultural, political, and ecological spheres...understood as a unitary process inclusive of many subprocesses...increasingly binding people and the biosphere more tightly into one global system with one destiny. [Wikepedia]

One System? With One Destiny? There is stability, security, and promise in the implied answer to those questions. Yet, is it possible to have an amalgam of all the world's sub systems coalesced into one super system? If it is possible, is it desirable?

Whether possible and/or desirable, is it an end which will result of its own accord? Are the peoples of this planet fated to move to a single system with a single end?

Systems do not commence of their own accord. Active and dynamic systems do not create themselves from inactive and static parts. There is not a critical mass of parts which, when brought together, naturally produces a system.

Systems are conceptualized, organized, and set in motion by an actor. To sustain motion, to continue to exist, systems must be reinitiated and regenerated. Otherwise, systems slow, wind down, and stop. Globalization is a system.

Although introduced into the business lexicon in 1983, its conceptualization is not a phenomenon of the 21st or even 20th centuries. It continues to be organized, reinitiated, and regenerated by actors. Its exponential ascendancy during the last two decades of the 20th Century until now is a function of myopic acceptance and unresponsible propagation.

It is not uncontrollable or inevitable, the ultimate vehicle of destiny, or our fate. As any system, it continues as we allow it to continue.

In the context we validate, it lives as we live it. Conversely, its hold on us diminishes as we diminish our willingness to be so conformed, contained, and constrained.

21st Century Globalization is a large, complicated system which grows larger and more complicated daily. As such, it is a very complex system. As system complexity increases, individual independence decreases. With decreasing independence comes weakening self-direction, eroding self-reliance, and loss of freedom.

Does a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil really affect the weather in Texas? Theoretically, yes.

Do "butterflies" in China, India, the Mideast, or anywhere, necessarily affect the economic, social, or technological "weather" in Florida, from the Nature Coast to the Lee Island Coast? Only if we permit it.

[ excerpt from "Know Globally," Millennium Suites, LLC ]

All Rights Reserved. Copyright Millennium Suites, LLC 2004-2007