A sneeze in Hong Kong or Tokyo can send shock waves around the globe. At the end of the 20th century the internet has given us instant access to both information and mutual communication across huge distances. But the nerve center of the global internet system is still located in the United States and has residual links with the US Federal Government. But those shared academic ranks, semesters and scholarly paradigms are disproportionately drawn from the United States and and Western Europe. The ideological systems of the world at the end of the 20th century are converging.
Market economies are triumphant.
Liberalization is being embraced or enforced. Even China has adopted market Marxism. Egypt is pushing the frontiers of Intifada. India is liberalizing. The people who are orchestrating and sometimes enforcing marketization, liberalization and privatization are Western economic gurus - reinforced by the power of the USA, the World Bank, the IMF and the European Union.