ABSTRACT
If the substructure always determined the shape of the superstructure there would be absolute standardisation, but this has not occurred. Clearly, as we saw in the last chapter, governments do seek to attract capital in order to enrich their own countries and once this process begins, since there is a common core, there is a good likelihood there will be a degree of standardisation between countries in the superstructure. In our everyday experience we are aware of the same products, the same shops and the same brands almost wherever we go in the world. But we are also aware of cultural differences, that there are people fighting to preserve cultural diversity and seeking to oppose the process of globalisation by active demonstration. We are also aware that national governmental policies rarely reinforce uncritically the global pressure; rather they try to modify them or avert them in some way. In this chapter we will examine some of the outcomes of globalisation and we will then look at the way that States have tried to regulate the ‘free market’ and have even resisted some of the globalising tendencies. In addition, we have to recognise that governments’ briefs are much wider than those of the global corporations so that with their different policies and ideologies the inevitable result will be difference – even though they will always recognise the power, often covert, of the substructure. In the final section of this chapter we will show how the globalisation process has affected education.
