ABSTRACT
This chapter provides four different pictures of economic globalization drawn by scholars coming from four different schools of thought. In laissez-faire economics, emphasis is placed on the importance of the free market, private property rights, and a limited government role in economic affairs. The impressive economic growth of some nation-states is related to their success in enhancing a symbiotic relationship with the competitive marketplace. International financial markets and international competition may impose similar economic disciplines on all governments, but they do not necessarily generate a convergence in national economic strategies or policies. The domination of capitalism only partly depends on economic factors, such as the private ownership of the means of production. In the world war of savage capitalism, governments and workforces do whatever is necessary to obtain and maintain the confidence of global markets. Global capitalism undermines job security with its structural adjustment programs. The modern capitalist economy has been global since the inception of modernization.
