ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the extend Polanyi's conceptualization to a world scale, showing the interactions between globalization and social conflict. It explores the division of labor and the multilevel character of the globalization process. An appropriate starting point is the allocation of work and its products at a global level commerce and consumer tastes all reflect what is produced and how it is produced. The chapter explains the seeds of future conflict sown by globalization and the implications for adaptation to a rapidly changing and highly competitive environment. It also discusses that the evolution of the theory of division of labor provides a key to comprehending the globalization of conflict. To discern the implications of the global division of labor for social conflict, one may then identify interactions among production, the state, and social forces. Paradoxically, regionalism both shields domestic society from, and integrates it into, the global division of labor, as evident in East Asia.
