Sunday, April 18, 2004

Local versus global In an insightful article in today's New York Times Magazine ("No Politics Are Local", 4/18/2004), Christopher Caldwell traces the way in which local issues and decisions are often no longer just matters of parochial concern. Thanks to the Internet, freer trade, and relatively inexpensive international travel, issues that were once confined to a single city, state, or country, have repercussions across the world, in ways that were unimaginable even a few decades ago. Caldwell sees this in terms of the current brouhaha about gay marriage, where the local decisions of a mayor in San Francisco and a supreme court in Massachusetts have repercussions across the country. While Alabama or Nebraska are unlikely to permit gay marriage anytime soon, its existence in other localities will tend to complicate the "traditional values" in Birmingham or Omaha. As Caldwell puts it, "Two moral orders that worked fine in isolation - human rights and traditional values - wind up locked in a death struggle when, thanks to the Internet, television and the pressure of law and politics, each cannot get out of the other's hair. And it is in the national arena that it will be decided which of those two orders emerges as the new uniform morality." As Caldwell points out, Marshall McLuhan's celebrated "global village" is in essence like a real village, where neighbors are all too aware of each other's foibles and where bickering and intolerance are as much the rule as mutual understanding. After all, I might be very tolerant of prostitution, partying, or auto repair, but not if it's going on next door. Among the political issues that tend to spill over borders are: drug laws (including lax laws in Canada) prostitution (legal in some countries or states, semi-legal in others) pornography (over the Internet) gambling (also an Internet issue, but also a state line issue) status of women (bigamy, abortion, property rights, divorce, etc.) All of these are areas where public policy in one location can differ enormously from that in another, with consequences that are felt across borders. And it's an area where diplomats are constantly at odds, trying to rewrite the laws of other countries (think of female genital mutilation one side or on coca or opium growing on the other). For multinational oligopolies, this global/local conflict is critical too. Expansion through the world leads to conflicts where some countries' laws are more permissive, others less so. Smart oligopolies are interested in influencing local laws to conform to the most favorable versions for their interests. Examples: Attempts to restrict the importing of prescription drugs from Canada to the US, because Canada's public health bargaining power lowers drug prices radically. Attempts by media companies to have other countries conform to America's increasingly strict copyright laws. Attempts by agribusiness to fight some companies' restrictions on genetically modified foods and growth-hormone meat products, to force them down the throats of the unwilling Attempts to influence trade policy to further the interests of big companies. Attempts to discourage any real international consensus on workers' rights. Attempts to squash local and state laws that put restrictions on US businesses by moving operations or having federal laws passed. In fact, free trade has allowed by companies to force the hand of local governments across the world, as the threat of just moving away is enough to discourage new environmental or labor regulations and even the enforcement of those now on the books. If the US or Japan puts new restrictions on chemical company cleanups, those operations will quickly move to Mexico or China (and do). As Caldwell puts it, "what used to be penny-ante administrative arguments or obscure regional quarrels have been transformed into high-stakes battles over universal values." In the economic, like the moral sphere, local requirements are trumped by global imperatives, and local interests aren't consulted when the decisions get made. 12:22:41 PM

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