How India is saving capitalism

March 31, 2004 10:01 PM

How India is saving capitalism. "For one Silicon Valley company, hiring Indian programmers wasn't about greed, it was about survival. A special report from Chennai, globalization's ground zero."
posted by homunculus (1 comment total)

The title of this piece tells me about as much as the jabbering of crows or the patter of rain on my roof - or even less, perhaps.

The text tells me more, but only in the way (as the story goes) of the blind men touching an elephant - "globalization is like....a tusk!" - "No, it's like a pillar!" - "No, it's like...."

A meta-perspective is sadly lacking.

Define capitalism within the perspective of Globalization - what does Capitalism mean within this context? And are there any possible motives to oppose the process of Globalization or to challenge it's pace and ground rules?

From such glosses (for shame, Salon!), one learns little to nothing about the ongoing struggles over Globalization - over the WTO's aggressive promotion of privatization (even of water) or it's insistence on running roughshod over local regulations on worker's rights and the environment.

Will Globalization proceed? Of course. Short of a global catastrophe - a major comet impact or the next world war, for example - the process is now unstoppable.

But the terms of the process are being hotly contested : to ignore that fact is antidemocratic, foolhardy, or disingenuous.

The current rapid pace of job outsourcing, combined with far more powerful (in terms of job elimination) process of production efficiency gains - the combined effect of which seems to be an accelerating loss of American jobs - will likely produce, sooner or later, a political backlash in the US, as American living standards decline.

This backlash could be quite ugly, and it could lead in many unpredictable directions - but few of these are apt to be good either for the US or for the world at large.
posted by troutfishing at 2:33 PM on April 1, 2004