Public Scholars at
Hanover College
Inquiries
Volume One, Number Four- Spring 2001
Facing Up to Globalization
Globalization is a fact. That is the one thing that our four featured participants and their audience agreed upon at our recent symposium entitled: "One Word, Many Markets: Justice, Progress, and Globalization," held on the Hanover College campus November 5 - 7, 2000. During those three days, we brought together a sociologist-Martin Albrow, Research Professor in the social sciences at the University of Surrey, Roehampton, and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D. C.; a food scientist-Alex Avery, Director of Research and Education at the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute; an economist-Colin Bradford, Professor of Economics and International Relations at American University in Washington D. C. ; and sociologist, anthropologist, and social activist Kevin Bales. As they interacted with each other, and with the faculty, students, and community of Hanover College, a single message emerged: a global economy exists and it is evolving at an incredible rate.
To be "against" globalization is pointless; to deny that it provides unprecedented opportunities is perverse. On the other hand, to pretend that globalization will cure the ills and rid us of the evils of the world in naive and irresponsible. The challenge is to understand the process, evaluate its effects, and devise both local and international strategies to cope with it. The essay that we share with you in this issue of Inquiries does just that.
When I first encountered Kevin Bales book, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (University of California Press, 1999), I assumed that it was another tract outlining how much of the world has been left behind or outside of the process of globalization. But Bales' point is that slavery is like any other human institution-it evolves in response to change. The slavery that exists in the world today is not a remnant of an earlier time, rather it is a new and complex form that reflects the imperatives of the new global economy. In the essay printed here, Bales takes us through a thorough analysis of the complexities of modern slavery and offers suggestion about what we can do about it.
Jeffrey Brautigam
Jeffrey Brautigam is the Director of the Center for Free Inquiry at Hanover College, where he also teaches modern European history and the history of science.