This has of course been a period of quickening globalisation, spurred on by the improved means of communication and transportation. Separating advances in technology from global concentration of economic power, and seeing how their combination has changed class relations, is critical both for analysis and for political strategy. This takes us back to what Marx said over a hundred years ago. That is, capitalist relations of production are such that at a particular advanced stage, the relations of production diverge significantly from the productive forces. What we see today is rapid changes in technology which are however not used for the betterment of all the people but to augment profits and thereby the power of capital.
Technology is harnessed by capitalist to increase and concentrate their power.
It has been used to change the balance of power between classes. Attention needs to be focused on this, not on the technology itself. In analysing the process of globalisation therefore, we must understand how technological revolution is used to consolidate the power of capital. Another important dimension in the understanding of globalisation is the myth of the powerless state. The reality is that the importance of state action in enabling the capitalist system of the industrialised world to function is increased, not reduced as that system spreads internationally.