I think that whereas Amartya Sen draws a rather moderate picture of globalization, Benjamin Barber wants to call the reader's attention to one central result of globalization and its opponents...
As Julie has already summarized, Artya Sen's biggest concern is not to judge globalization as something bad, it is rather about the reformation and the fair redistribution of all benefits, something that I would identify as probably one concept of "Fairtrade".
- I think that the reason for his concern is basically justifiable, but I have a big problem with how he wants to archieve his goals? For example how does he want to change the "...overall balance of institutional arrangements" (LB, 20)? I do not think that a completely fair distribution is possible.
Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs McWorld" confronts the reader with a very dark and bitter perspective. For him extreme nationalism or specific national values (represented by the image of "Jihad") and globalization (represented by the image of "McWorld") are connected by influencing each other permanently (eg. Technology). Both concepts act beyond democracy and are even probably against it. "Jihad" needs "McWorld" to revolt against its philosophy and "McWorld" re-creates and reinforces "Jihad" only by its existance.
- I might be wrong with this assumption too, but what I found quite striking is that Barber, when he wrote that book in 1996, foreshadowed the world's current massive conflict between the origin of the "Mc World" /its supporters (USA, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, just to name a few) and those who oppose it ("Jihad-supporters").
As Julie has already summarized, Artya Sen's biggest concern is not to judge globalization as something bad, it is rather about the reformation and the fair redistribution of all benefits, something that I would identify as probably one concept of "Fairtrade".
- I think that the reason for his concern is basically justifiable, but I have a big problem with how he wants to archieve his goals? For example how does he want to change the "...overall balance of institutional arrangements" (LB, 20)? I do not think that a completely fair distribution is possible.
Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs McWorld" confronts the reader with a very dark and bitter perspective. For him extreme nationalism or specific national values (represented by the image of "Jihad") and globalization (represented by the image of "McWorld") are connected by influencing each other permanently (eg. Technology). Both concepts act beyond democracy and are even probably against it. "Jihad" needs "McWorld" to revolt against its philosophy and "McWorld" re-creates and reinforces "Jihad" only by its existance.
- I might be wrong with this assumption too, but what I found quite striking is that Barber, when he wrote that book in 1996, foreshadowed the world's current massive conflict between the origin of the "Mc World" /its supporters (USA, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, just to name a few) and those who oppose it ("Jihad-supporters").
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