The ambiguity of the concept, however, seems to escape fashionable political discourse, which is constantly fostering a certitude about the apparent inevitability of globalisation and our response to it at both the national and individual level. The economic dimensions of globalisation are readily seen in the ongoing push for free trade and the relentless appetite of finance speculative capital. We are in an era of 'flows', be it information, trade in goods and services or ideas and money. But these flows are not producing similar outcomes, as a simple perusal of United Nations poverty figures indicates. It would seem that despite the promise of global economic growth, we still have a world of nations characterised by a wealthy few surrounded by the many poor.
Globalisation is one of the great paradoxes of our time.
New technologies are being celebrated as icons of invention and human ingenuity, while masses of people are being deprived of their claims to self-sufficiency and basic human rights. The ghost of Marx still hovers amidst this wondrous world of power and creativity, for while the juggernaut of commerce and corporatism rolls on, we are still faced with staggering contradictions evidenced by the unyielding exploitation of the weak by the strong. It is, therefore, misleading to suggest that we are all winners with the onset of globalisation, just as it is equally misleading to argue the contrary. Wages and salaries are a good example. Consider the wealthiest and most productive country in the world.