ABSTRACT
The idea of globalisation has seemingly swept away everything in front of it. Politicians and a legion of writers and commentators testify to the idea that the national state has been fatally weakened by the growth of transnational companies, international trade, financial liquidity and rapid, unregulated communications (Ohmae, 1990). Attempts by national governments to control economic activities within their national borders are portrayed in the dominant model as ill judged and fated to failure. Moreover, this verdict comes from the left as well as those celebrating the triumph of the market. Hardt and Negri, for instance, state:
The primary factors of production and exchange – money, technology, people and goods – move with increasing ease across national boundaries; hence the nation state has less and less power to regulate these flows and impose its authority over the economy.
