ABSTRACT
Globalization’s throughline Globalization’s throughline (to use Stanislavsky’s term for the overall intention or objective of a drama) is to integrate all systems – information, economic, military, ideological, social, political, and cultural – along the lines of “high performance.” If successful, the result will be a worldwide network of maximum productivity. While globalization allows, even encourages, “cultural differences” at the level of daily behaviors, spoken languages, foods, clothes, lifestyles, artistic works, and so on, its underlying system is unified and transcultural – and its underlying goal is to bring all subsystems into harmony and under control.Whether this is good for most of the world’s people in terms of eliminating poverty, disease, overcrowding, wars, resource depletion, and the other threats to the planet is, of course, debatable. Globalization’s supporters argue that only through systematic integration can most of the world’s peoples achieve a high standard of living, however painful the process in the short run. Globalization’s opponents argue that systematizing means that power (and profits) will remain in the hands of a few with gross inequities – wealth imbalance, displaced persons, and exploited workers – a permanent condition.
