If Al Gore Created the Internet, Who Created Globalism?
For George Shultz, Secretary of State in 1987, globalism was a theme he returned to over and over again during interactions with Congress and, as important, the Soviet Union (Mann, 241). His definition? Shultz talked about "the information revolution, the impact of ever-faster computers and telecommunications, the speed with which money and capital flowed from one country to another, and the way which manufacturing could be transferred around the world" (Mann, 242). This would be really cool if Shultz was trying to impress CEOs in Silicon Valley, or, say, Hong Kong or Shanghai. He wasn't. Shultz's target was the Soviet Union, and, more specifically, Michael Gorbachev and his ministers (Mann, 243). The point of all the dialog was the interesting part. Based on research and discussions started by Theodore Levitt at Harvard, whose article The Globalization of Markets dated to 1983, Shultz was pointing out that international societies would have to adjust to a changing reality. Democracies would have a hard time. But, and this is the interesting part, Communist governments and closed societies would no longer be able to control what their citizens saw or heard (Mann, 243). It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to realize where the revolutions in Eastern Europe came from. Global information was having a political effect later to be equaled - or actually surpassed if that is possible - by the economic effect. An aide to Shultz, Richard D. Kauzlarich, copied a telling sentence from a shipping label into a State Department memo (Mann, 243): "Made in Singapore, Taiwan, Mauritius, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines. The exact country of origin is unknown." In 1987, no one realized the impact of these discussions except, tellingly, Gorbachev, Shultz, and Reagan who was trying to "spook the Soviet leadership" (Mann, 244). If we fast-forward from 1987 to today, we find a similar message directed not at the Russians, but at the United States, and from the Chinese, not the Russians. The US dollar continues to dominate international exchange. The Chinese want to change that (LeVine). This feeds two questions: Do the Chinese concerns mean much to a world marketplace dominated by the dollar? and If so, what is the implication for the long-term health of the US economy? Globalization was a strength of the US in 1987. It still is a strength of the US in 2009. The tough part? Leveraging that strength in a difficult economic environment. How we respond dictates in large part our future vitality.
LeVine, Steve and Dexter Roberts. China's Doubts About the Dollar. BusinessWeek. 8 June 2009. 24.
Mann, James. The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan. A History of the Cold War. Viking. 2009.