the modern world system and the development of alternative-globalization movements

7/28/2019 The Modern World System and the Development of Alternative-Globalization Movements

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The Modern World System and the Development of

Alternative-Globalization Movements

Donald Ulrich

University of Alaska Anchorage

May 1, 2008

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The modern spread of capitalist values through the expansion of Western neo-

liberal systems has resulted in the purveyance of globalization as a largely

hegemonic process. Countries that have self-regulated their global

integration such as Bhutan, offer an exception to this rule in its attempt to

take into account the spiritual foundation and history of the country and to

firstly address needs on the local level and secondarily the global level.

It is my intent with this paper to examine the reasons behind

globalization as a modern process and to better understand and explain why it

is that, as a process, globalization has developed the aspects that is has.

I do not have a complete or first hand understanding of what is an extremely

multivariable and complex process, but through a theoretical foundation I

believe that the question can be approached in such a manner as to begin

shedding some light on the subject of globalization.

To begin this examination I will first explore this theoretical

understanding of why globalization would be characterized as it is in regards

to its continuation of modern cultural and economic expansion. I believe

that there are sound theoretical arguments for why it is that Western values

such as capitalism and neo-liberalism are so prevalent as well as the

hegemonic process by which they are expanded into new and unique cultural

landscapes.

Primarily I will be analyzing modern globalization through the lens

provided by Immanuel Wallersteins World-systems Theory. I believe that he

has provided a useful assimilation of past theories that address both

capitalism and the emergence and operation of global economies and global

cultures. I also think that through a critical analyses his assimilation and

formulation of a world-systems theory is accurate in its descriptions of the

current state of affairs and well founded in the its attempts to predict the

course of globalization as a continuation of a historical line of progress.

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After thoroughly developing and reviewing the most relevant theories

that directly address globalization as a modern process, I will present the

case of Bhutan as an example for analyses. I chose Bhutan because I believe

that it is a country that is both counter-culture in regards to the world

system and very relevant in its timing as it is still very much a country

whose attempts to integrate globally are a work in progress. The reason I

want to present a case that is an exception to the hegemony of Westernization

is that through its analysis I hope to make a case for the plausibility and

opportunity for successful alternatives to the seemingly unilinear process

that globalization has become. It is not my intent here to champion an

alternative as I am no Marx and this is not to be any sort of manifesto for

utopian possibilities in the future, but it is my hope to develop a workable

argument for the fallibility of the current world-system and to provide

through the case of Bhutan and example of a country that is developing one of

these alternative models. As a precursor to that section I will add that the

country of Bhutan is not a shining light by which all countries should

follow. It struggles to achieve its goals and as a small country attempting

something relatively unorthodox, it has had its hiccups and unfortunate

casualties in the process of finding that balance between the local and the

global.

Following the example of Bhutan I will end the paper with a brief

synopsis of the alternative globalization movements in general. Just as I

began with an exploration of the theories that address modern economic

globalization I will offer the same analyses to the connecting themes of

systems that attempt to globalize with a priority on social values. This is

almost always manifested in an emphasis by the nation-states addressing the

needs on the local level and then carefully integrating those needs in such a

way as to accommodate global policy. It is again my intent only to argue for

the plausibility of these alternatives and not to suggest that they are in

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and interdependencies of individual cultures across the globe, but must also

be viewed and understood in terms of the bigger picture, and how

globalization is being shaped by cultural constructs and how it in turn acts

upon and shapes those cultures that operate within the web of

interdependency, both directly and indirectly.

Since globalization as a modern process is no longer just a byproduct

of progressive integration across national and cultural boundaries, but has

in fact become the mechanism that drives this interdependency, the focus in

terms of globalizations cultural constructions shifts to; what does

globalization mean to those who are caught up in it and to those with the

power to manage it? This question has come more into focus as social

sciences have begun to address global society in terms of the process of

industrialization and the impact this has in terms of developing and

maintaining social and economic gaps between the poor and wealthy countries

(Roberts & Hite, 2007). This is important in that it address many of the

assumptions that have long provided the moral basis for third world industry,

which was the notion that modernization would provide the solution to the

poor welfare of third world inhabitants (Roberts & Hite, 2007).

Some have taken to furthering the modern definition of globalization

and the global culture it entails, to a more specific structure of power

within which transnational elites have risen to assume control of the

political and economic institutions that are often behind globalizations

policies and procedures. A Wall Street-US Treasury-IMF/World Bank Complex

to whom the strings of international policies can be attributed (McMichael,

1996). While this may be a generalization of what is undoubtedly a very

complex cast of players that provide the financial incentive for

industrialization and modernization, it is a perspective from which to begin

understanding how nation-states position themselves within this global

economy. And while these entities may or may not continue to play the same

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role, the Western economic complex that they are referring to is still a very

pervasive force despite the evolution and fluctuations of who it is that

forms that core.

The relation of these parts in the emergence of this global culture is

analyzed and explained through a modern development of a world-systems model.

What began as a theory of dependency on industrialization and developed into

modernization theory, which was characterized by its tendency to blame the

victim for the inequities of third world life, eventually would combine and

begin to analyze the relationship of all the parts in the global culture, or

as it is called, the world system (Boli & Lechner, 1999).

World-systems analysis is at its heart a post-Marxist comparison of

international relations that has reapplied many of Karl Marxs insights and

understandings of capitalism to the global economy that has developed, which

was Marxs prediction as an inevitable course for capitalisms need to

indefinitely expand into new markets (Roberts & Hite, 2007). Simplified, it

seems an explanation for core/periphery relationships (now with a semi-

periphery addition), but in practice and for those who have developed, and

continue to develop this approach, it is a much more complex and evolving set

of analytical frameworks from which to understand the current status of

nations and economic politics and how they develop. The world system is not

a theory in and of itself, but an approach to social analysis and social

change (Wallerstein, 2004).

It is through world-systems analysis that I believe we can begin to

understand why it is that Western neo-liberal values have brought capitalism

to the forefront of this process of globalization. The importance of world-

systems analysis is that it does not separate economies and cultures into

separate entities to be studied as such, but instead takes each culture and

its system of values as playing an integral part in the whole that is the

world culture. As Wallerstien (2004), one of the key developers of this

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approach says, world-systems analysis calls for a unidisciplinary historical

social science, and contends that the modern disciplines, products of the

19th century, are deeply flawed because they are not separate logics or

disciplines. This is where anthropology and its holistic search for the

meaning of culture can offer an important analytical perspective in the

development of world culture.

First, it must be understood that capitalism can only exits in a world-

economy, but this world-economy is not intrinsically capitalistic. In the

words of Wallerstein, they are obverse sides of the same coin. One does not

cause the other. And capitalism is not necessarily the penultimate in

societal organization, but by its very nature re-instates its value system

from within and continuously grows, expanding into new markets and resource

pools (Wallerstein, 1979). It is a system designed for world-economies, not

micro. Therefore, while the multitude of cultures is part of the world-

economy which is currently capitalist, each culture and its representative

nation-state can institute any number of modes of production in order to

develop the capital they trade in the global market, but they also can not

help but introduce their system within the scope of capitalism as it develops

towards that end (Wallerstein, 2004).

To clarify, it is production with the intent to sell in a market

designed to maximize profit that is the defining feature of a capitalist

world-economy. That is why production can take so many avenues as long as

the destination of product is the same. Production will continue to expand

as long as there are new resources and/or new markets into which it can

expand at a profit (Wallerstein, 1979). Therefore, it can be seen that

capitalisms growth was and is inevitable as long as there are not

oppositional systems put in place to appose it and make it an unprofitable

venture in relation to the alternatives.

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This does in part provide an answer as to why Western neo-liberalism

has dominated the modern globalization process in such a hegemonic way, but

there are other obvious factors that have played a key part in its domination

of global policy. First among these would be the focus of power into a few

countries that have initiated sweeping foreign policies designed to align the

global political discourse behind them. And no country has been more

associated with the ideas of Western ideology in recent history then the

United States (Rydell & Kroes, 2005). Without getting into a history lesson

on U.S. politics, with the rise to super power status after the Second World

War, and the Cold War that ensued, America became the leader of the free

world. And as such they championed the freeing of all aspects of economic

life as a means of combating the totalitarian governments that reigned in the

emerging communist states. This provided the vehicle with which neo-

liberalism could find its way into all corners of the world. Neo-liberalism

is used here to describe a set of economic systems; people are free to vote

their dollars, not necessarily free to vote for their government, hence the

malleable ideals of the U.S. and its willingness to allow any country to sell

in its markets if they subscribed to a few policy mandates (Rydell & Kroes,

2005). This Americanization is now better summed up as a historical trend

that began well before the U.S.s modern global political status, tracing its

roots to market colonies established by Western Europe powers in the 1600s,

hence the term Westernization (Rueschemeyer, Stephens, & Stephens, 1992).

As long as one is in control of the capital in this system, it can be a

beneficial system to be brought into, and has been for many social groups

throughout the history of the process. But a small group of people can amass

a great deal of power through the control of capital and the means of

production, which can make alternative means of social organization very

appealing especially when the majority is at risk of disenfranchisement under

the homogenization of westernization.

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Westernization almost always develops with one measure in mind, and

that is economic prosperity, and more specifically the prosperity of American

corporate entities (McMichael, 1996). This is why capitalism and

westernization are often used synonymously. The empire building of the West

fractured from the rule of one polis into the rule of one system of which a

few very powerful nation states and there economic purveyors held sway

(Wallerstein, 2004). This became the foundation for the modern ranking of

countries from first to third world, as Mike Sobocinski describes it the

relevance of even the simplest indicators per capita GDP used to identify

core, semi-peripheral, peripheral countries (Sobocinski, 2003).

This is the hegemony that countries are faced with, acceptance into a

free-market system that offers the opportunity to profit from the capitalist

world-economy, but also the pressures of neo-liberalization that come with

the opening of cultural development to a system that favors the homogenized

in terms of cultural demand which creates the markets for the goods produced

there and elsewhere. This is not to say that economics is the only driving

force, on the contrary, it is but one of many, and if carefully managed can

operate in conjunction with other needs of a society.

Many social theorists have begun to address this angle of globalization

that is the process as driven from within individual cultures and not just

globalization as an external phenomenon introduced to new societies from the

greater world-culture. It is an increasingly popular postmodern idea that

culture is, and possibly always has been, more important than economics in

driving social change. Therefore, understanding of internal variations

between nations is a vital part of the question as to why different parts of

the world are diverging under globalization (Roberts & Hite, 2007). It is

also a means to understanding how and why nations would choose to enter into

the global-economic system on their own terms through self regulation and how

this can preserve culture at the local level while allowing in the prosperity

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of operating at the global level. Or, as the adage goes, Think globally,

act locally.

Bhutan: A case of internally regulated development

Bhutan is a unique and particularly appropriate example of a country going

through the process of modernization and immersing itself into the global

system at a time when the whole world seems have already arrived in some

guise or the other. The reason that I have chosen them as a point of inquiry

is an interest in their policy of regulation and their focus on globalizing

on their own terms, adapting the process to long standing beliefs and values

instead of the other way around. While the global system is composed of a

multitude of cultural mechanisms developed to allow many peoples and

societies to operate on the same plane, each culture also has vital

institutions and measurements of well being to which it subscribes that

determine on the national and on the personal level of life how good a

life is lead. And for many cultures it is a clash of these values that has

bred discontent as one foundation is eroded by the influx of new systems and

values that declare contrary ideology as necessary for operation. Bhutan

then, would seem to be a prime example for those cultures and countries that

take exception to the status quo, aiming for a global community that is not

homogenized or dominated through Western hegemony, and where the local and

global can coexist to the benefit of all. That at least is the goal, and as

a process that will require constant evaluation, their success will require

constant review.

The countrys official web site declares, As Bhutanese, we go to

unusual lengths to preserve each element of our life. From environment to

dress to language to religion, we have managed to keep our centuries-old

culture and traditions alive. Besides learning as much as we can from our

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past, we also try, whenever possible, to embrace the future and envelope it

in a Bhutanese way (Gov., 2008). This is vital to understanding what it is

that makes Bhutan such a valuable case study; they meld the old with the new

so that globalization becomes a process of evolving what they already have

and not adopting something outside of their own culture as a substitute or to

drive out and replace a system that has provided so much for such a vital

period in the countries past.

One of the most amazing aspects of this cultural revitalization and

overhauling process is the rapidity with which it has been instituted. As

late as the 1960s Bhutan was one of the least progressive nations in the

modern world. Before the development policies begun by King Jigme Dorji

Wangchuk in 1965, Bhutan had no maintained roads, no telephones, and no

national mail service. The economy was based largely on a barter system as

there was almost no monetary policy and there were only eleven schools which

served about 500 kids. 95 percent of the population lived in rural

communities and life expectancy was estimated to be about 35 years with a 50

percent infant mortality rate (Rutland, 1999). These are daunting statistics

for any leader to hope to overcome and yet Bhutans apparently benevolent

monarch set out to do just that. Through a series of carefully instituted

plans the country was set on course to balance the rich spiritual faith and

closely knit rural life styles of the Bhutanese with the best of what the

modern world had to offer, namely health care, education and a sustainable,

sturdy economy that could raise the standards of living in the country

without sacrificing the cultural foundations of the people. This development

from within would prove key in the future plans of the monarchy as

globalization would not be an opening of the door for the rest of the world

to come pouring in through, but instead would be an opportunity for the

Bhutanese to discover and learn from the world outside (Gov., 2008).

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It should be noted for context that Bhutan was truly a land isolated

from the rest of the world. It has never been colonized by the West and has

avoided assimilation into larger nations, namely India to the south and China

to the north, through the geographic isolation of being located in the midst

of the Himalayas. And by the time the outside world rediscovered Bhutan,

they had settled on a strict policy of political isolation to keep themselves

from the influences of culture that threatened their deep spiritual Buddhism

and pristine historical maintenance of life (Rutland, 1999).

How then is such a level of wellness to be measured in a country that

has declared an intent to develop outside of the dominant economic systems?

In the West, economic development is considered to be the precursor to

individual happiness and systems to record these changes are prevalent

throughout the world. This standard by which development is measured around

the world is Gross National Product, a system that is the product of a

capitalist world economy which dictates the standards of the world culture

(Rueschemeyer et al., 1992). And yet Bhutan was not looking to exchange one

set of values for another in order to generate wealth, it was looking to

adapt one system to its own in order to generate wellbeing (Giri, 2004).

With this in mind Bhutan developed its own system for tracking the progress

and success of the development plans and attempts to globalize, the Gross

National Happiness standard. GNH is a more idealistic, but still tangible,

method with which to understand the welfare of the country.

The play on words is obvious and goes beyond titles to demonstrate the

direct and intentional substitution of international measurements. Gross

National Happiness is based on the four pillars just as there are the four

pillars of a free market economy. These guiding principles are sustainable

development, environmental protection, cultural preservation, and good

governance (Larmer, 2008). King Jigme Dori Wangchuk, Dorji Wangchuks

successor, has been a very proactive pursuer of these goals and has had very

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quantifiable measures of success. In terms of economic growth, Bhutan has

steadily risen an average of eight percent every year since 1980 bringing the

gross domestic product from $249 in 1980 to $1523 in 2006 (Gov., 2008). For

a country that has a professed focus on happiness and sustainable well being,

there have also been definite measures of success that can be seen and

appreciated by an economically driven world. This is only encouragement for

a country that has been criticized for its Gross National Happiness policy

while enjoying the double success of cultural sensitivity and increased

standards of living.

While modernization has been a source of division for many countries,

the monarchy and specifically the current King Jigme Dori Wangchuk, have

really pulled the country together around the idea of development and the

overall benefits that it is bringing to Bhutan (Rutland, 1999). Instead of

generational gaps driving the old and the young apart, a common heritage in

the Buddhist traditions of the past and the emphasis on developing for the

community and not the individual has brought the Bhutanese forward with a

sense of having a shared stake in the progress being made (Giri, 2004).

It is a delicate line that they tread though, with happiness a term

that means many things to many people. Some fear that the cultural values

are already being lost by an influx of media and ideas that are challenging

the long held beliefs and inward focus of the Bhutanese. Some analysts say

that the plan fell apart in 1999 when Bhutan brought in the first television

and internet service to the country. Following the turn of the century,

there was an increase in family break-ups, criminal activity and drug abuse

(Tucker, 2007). One local study showed that up to a third of parents in

cities preferred watching TV to talking to their children. Certainly to be

taken with a grain of salt, but an interesting conclusion to be drawn from

research coming out of the country. And everything about the last several

decades has not been a rosy path to enlightenment in the modern world, and

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like the introduction of global media, there have been difficulties to

overcome. But this challenge has been one that has been addressed in an even

more radical way, with democracy and in that an opportunity for the people to

determine the course with which they see the brightest future (Larmer, 2008).

Democracy has been a bitter medicine for some to swallow, as the King

has been an extremely popular figure since he took the throne in 1974

(Larmer, 2008). But it has been the opinion of the King that it is only

through self-governance that the people of Bhutan can truly find their own

happiness. It is also through democracy that the people will be able to

establish a mechanism by which they can express their satisfaction with the

state of individual and community welfare. For this reason the country has

been in the process of transitioning to a constitutional monarchy, with

periodic steps, from establishing a parliament chosen by the King who would

have the power to counter-act royal decree, to the instituting of public

elections. The elections culminated in the first ever publicly elected

parliament in March of this year (Gov., 2008). Aspects of society that have

long lacked a voice will now be entering into the political arena with the

advent of democracy as well and will for the first time be able to express

their desires and values on the national scale (Larmer, 2008).

While this may all seem like a perfect example of an alternative model

by which a country can integrate local values with the world culture, there

have been pitfalls for the Bhutanese to overcome; one of these being cultural

dissidents. Democratic elections give an opportunity for government by the

people, for the people, but they may also lead to a tyranny of the majority.

And in this sense the issue in preserving a local cultural foundation with

which to provide for the communal aspects of life and the values that a

people may hold dear, means that one may have to decide just who assigns

value and whos values will take precedence. In the case of Bhutan this has

meant a crackdown on many foreign peoples who have called the region of

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Bhutan home, but have not given up their own local values for the Buddhism

and the way of life that a Buddhist may lead (Larmer, 2008). Refugees form

Bhutan numbered 106,000 over the last 17 years as policies from the Bhutanese

royalty have been enacted in an attempt to protect local culture from the

influx of new ideas and customs that migrants often bring with them (Briggs,

2007). These refugees have primarily been Nepali-speaking Hindus and were

part of a group that made up nearly 200,000 people in a country with just

fewer than 700,000. Nepal has refused to admit these refugees and while

Bhutan has halted its policy of cultural cleansing, it also will not resettle

them (Briggs, 2007).

So while there are potential short comings to a system such as the one

that Bhutan has put in place, it still bears measuring the focus and benefits

of such an approach to the process of globally integrating a country. I am

not arguing that modern world systems are wrong or that there is a right

way out there, only that there are alternatives that are equally as viable as

the capitalist system championed by the West with its tendency to take on

hegemonic qualities. And it is in Bhutan that we see a concerted effort to

actually bring the idea of thinking globally and acting locally to fruit on

the level of national policy. Bhutan has shown a cultural vitality that

despite being prone to biased policy has persevered into a world that, in my

opinion, has shown less of concern for the local and instead has been aimed

at a global solidarity of markets, where cultural variations are only

accepted in that they dont interfere. And Bhutan may be trying to institute

cultural preservation on a level that is impractical, that being the nation-

state level, but as a unique example I would only emphasize that the

challenges they face are unique and for that reason worth analyzing and

understanding in hopes that they can be learned from and improved in order to

better serve cultures that will certainly face a same desire to preserve

locally and operate globally in the future.

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Alternative-Global Movements

It is my opinion that countries, and transnational policies and organizations

must take into account the diversity of the cultural landscape presented by a

global world, and in doing so offer a measure of leeway to the vital services

that these cultures offer to the people that represent them and to the

multiple perspectives they offer in a global dialogue in which prevailing

theory has never shown itself to be infallible.

With this section I again want to emphasize that these movements are

not anti-globalization, but only alternatives which in some way emphasize an

aspect other than the current capitalist, neo-liberal model that dominates

the process of international integration. The world system developed under

this neo-liberalization does not provide a barrier to the possibility of

alternatives, and has even set in place a foundation from which other

movements can build upon.

The key emphasis that I see as a uniting factor in the most prevalent

and successful of these movements is that of the social movement and

representation of these movements on the local scale. These movements have

long been neglected or have broken apart due to an attempt to work within a

system that was designed to negate their power structure and the ability of a

social movement to gain traction when developed in the traditional nation-

state model (CHO, 2000). Still, there has been a determined aspect of the

need for social representation and recognition that has allowed movements of

this sort to persevere and to multiply in numbers across the globe (Karsin,

2000).

The key to developing these movements into a global system is public

regulatory mechanisms. The problem is that this globalization of capital

movement is breaking off the social regulatory mechanism,which were

established through the social and class struggle within the terrain of a

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nation-state boundary, and is including all the former fragmented areas into

the global free market (CHO, 2000). In other words, the public must be

given a means to express their needs and to affect change as it represents

their values as a community.

Transnational economics and the corporations that operate within this

system have exceeded the ability of structures in place to regulate the

economy within a cultural framework. Solutions to this issue may include a

break down of economic tyranny and a reassertion of the publics, and by

public I mean the people as a collective, right to guide the direction of

policies that impact their wellbeing and cultural values (CHO, 2000). There

needs to be a manner in which the local value sets can garner representation

in the global discourse.

Anthony Giddens suggests a need for redemocratization of the global

system. It is his understanding that only through an opportunity for each

member of the society, at the local level and at the global, to have access

to regular and fair elections, in which all members of the population take

part to express their civil liberties freedom of expression and discussion,

together with the freedom to form and join political groups or associations

(Giddens, 2003), that there can be a workable solution formed from the

global society. Giddens asserts that democracy is not only viable, but is in

fact the best solution for a governmental system. This is not necessarily

reflected in the all the democracies of the West, of which there are many

varieties of democracy taken into different areas of focus and relative

power, but the ideal, the core of democracy is something that he sees as

being the answer to the global organization of social movements. And this

organization is a system that applies to a people establishing self rule in a

country such as Bhutan all the way to an international regulatory body that

is made up of elected representatives from the various interests of the

world. And for the countries that have become disillusioned with the process

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and no longer see it as a truly representative form of government, the

solution is still to return to the fundamentals of democracy, a

democratizing democracy as Giddens puts it (Giddens, 2003).

Another solution that looks to the same general field of global

cooperation but strays to a less centralized model than a global democratic

regulatory agency is a global confederation of cultural groups that could

still decree guidelines and regulations on transnational economics and

corporations but would be more or less self sufficient in regards to national

policy. Benjamin R. Barber develops this theory in his article Jihad Vs.

McWorld. Barber is still an advocate of a democratic system, but he

describes it as a decentralized participatory form of democratic government

in which there would be the leeway for the more extreme ends of the

democratic spectrum, from parochialism to communitarianism, to still have the

ability to cooperate on global policy to the end that is a beneficial process

for the variation of values and policies that each country may subscribe to

(Barber, 1992).

Confederations would also be plausible solutions to predicaments such

as the one face by Bhutan in which even at the state level there are further

divisions among cultural entities within its bounds. Each of these cultural

regions could have separate representation. The problem for this solution to

overcome, as Barber sees it, is the continued trend towards uniformitarian

globalism. He feels that through the organization of peoples desire for

self-governance that a solution could be found. He does not advocate for a

union of states, but instead a representative body of cultures, or the

societies they represent (Barber, 1992).

Both Giddens and Barber advocate for a globally accepted method of

representation that allows cultural values to elect their own representation.

They see a need to regulate the unbridled extremes that are possibilities of

hegemonic take over of the world-system and they both believe that the best

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way to do this is through a system of democratically elected governments.

They differ on the final situation, but the method is very much the same,

leading one to the global and one to the local.

Final Thoughts

With this paper I hope to have demonstrated why it is that the modern process

of globalization has been so dominated by the set of values representing

capitalism as an economic system born of Western cultures, and the neo-

liberalization of the world that has opened up cultures and markets for the

exploitation of Western corporations and governments. The current world-

system as described by researchers such as Wallerstein does seem to be the

work of a force that is almost unrelenting in its tendency to drive countries

towards a single value system. But as Wallerstein states, there is bound to

be an evolution of counter-culture systems that will erode the foundation of

a Westernized global capitalism and reinstate some alternative form by which

the global discourse will be directed (Wallerstein, 1979).

The problem that has arisen in the current system is that it has

designed regulations that are not about limiting transnational companys

options as regulations do at the state level, but instead are about limiting

the options of those countries whose governments are in the process of

developing, taking away their abilities to constrain those transnational

companies seeking to operate within their borders (Wade, 2003). It is this

continued expansion of economic rights at the cost of social rights that has

caused disillusionment with the current state of affairs and the beginnings

of many counter-culture movements that express a desire for alternative forms

of globalization and an ability to exert the cultural values held at the

local level. There are many proposed or desired methods through which these

various movements hope to achieve their goals, but I think that the cases

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presented by Giddens and Barber are two of the most flexible systems that

attempt to address the need for a global social movement that accounts for

the local needs of each culture and its chosen means of representation.

In Bhutan I think we see a country that has started this process and is

setting a precedent by asserting their local values first, and adapting the

global system within the constraints of those needs. They are still limited,

and challenged by many of the influences of the capitalist world-system, but

I also believe that they are making proactive attempts to address these

challenges and that they provide a path for those who follow to refine and

develop. The system developed by Bhutan is certainly not claimed in this

paper to be a pinnacle of achievement, and has had, and will certainly have

its problems, but as it has developed it seems to be a viable alternative

model and for that reason I hope that it does receive the attention due to a

pioneer in that field. There are certainly other models out there that I

would have liked to incorporate into a larger and more complete collage of

alternative globalization movements and through a demonstration of Bhutans

success I believe that their own plausibility must be evaluated more

seriously as we move ahead in a world that is increasingly more integrated

and increasingly so in a fashion that represents the values of neo-

liberalization and capitalism.

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Works Cited:

the modern world system and the development of alternative-globalization movements

Documents