Free «Self-Adapted Market as a Clear Utopia» Essay Sample

In accordance with Kobrin (2008), globalization as a concept is believed to be fractional and defective. Despite the fact that the world economy is global, laws, regulations, public affairs, and society are mainly national. They are slowly getting out of frames, which are enforced by the current international or Westphalian state system. Therefore, this situation creates a serious governance gap due to the fact that public affairs fall behind the markets, which broaden way beyond the reach of the national states. Thus, it becomes obvious that global markets demonstrate that they have increased swiftly, while there has been no parallel evolvement of economic and social organizations and establishments, which are required for their impartial operation. Therefore, the current paper will support the idea of Korbin that the world has appeared in the middle of the transfusion from an international to a transnational or post-Westphalian political-economic system. Moreover, the world has not yet evolved the methods of collaboration, various organizations and establishments or even the language, which are actually required to control the integrated world economy efficiently. Such asymmetry leads to numerous implications. The current paper will demonstrate and support the idea that self-adapted market is a clear utopia. Self-adapted market cannot exist without the devastation of the human and natural essence of any society. It means that self-adjusted market can physically destroy human beings and transform human surroundings into an inhospitable region.

In accordance with Scherer and Palazzo (2011) globalization as a notion can be outlined as a procedure of strengthening of trans-boundary social communications and cooperation, resulting from the decreasing of costs spent on binding far-off regions by conjugation and the transmission of costs, products, and people (p. 899). Scherer and Palazzo (2011) believe that this process leads to increasing transnational mutuality of economic and social agents, an enlargement of possibilities and hazards, combined with enhanced competition (p. 891). Kobrin (2008) considers that globalization is intensified by such agents as political resolutions (for instance, the decline of trade barriers, foreign direct investment, privatization and deregulation policies), political overturn (for instance, the fall of the iron curtain), technological progress, and socio-political evolvements (including migration, knowledge spread, and creation of new identities) (p. 328). Nevertheless, the state of the current globalization can be characterized as partial. Therefore, Scherer and Palazzo (2011) conclude that the globalization process has led to the fact that the Westphalian world system is jolted so seriously and strongly that political science researchers currently speak about a post-Westphalian system also known as ‘post-national constellation’ (p. 901). Kobrin (2008) also supports the idea and demonstrates that the Westphalian system majorly grounds on the inference capabilities of state regime of sovereign countries, which have monopoly power on their territories and comparatively connatural national cultures, which guide to a consolidation of social functions and perspectives within well-connected communities (p. 329). Scherer and Palazzo (2011) demonstrate that all of these circumstances are altered in the post-Westphalian system (p. 901). The authors believe that the nation state loses its governmental and regulative authority due to the fact that numerous social and economic connections and cooperations are broadening beyond the reach of geographically connected cognizance and constraint. In fact, nation state authorities more and more fail to supply public products and goods or to decompose externality issues, which have transnational reasons and influences in numerous policy areas. Therefore, as a result of erosion of tradition, the appearance of new identities, the expansion of individualism, and the shift in people migrations, the uniformity of national cultures is successively replaced with new multi-cultural communities, which demonstrates a pluralism of diverse valuables and modes of life. Traditional valuables, viewpoints and social operations that once were taken for granted are losing their credibility (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011, p. 901). Therefore, Kobrin (2008) concluded that the corporate environment should consist of a pluralism of cultures and valuables and an increasing promiscuity of social perspectives (p. 329).

On the other hand, Scherer and Palazzo (2011) concluded that the decadency in nation state capability is partially indemnified by the appearance of new modes of global administration beyond the state (p. 902). Therefore, various international establishments, civil society groups, and private businesses, in collaboration with state administration or without their involvement, have willfully began to contribute skillfulness and resources to fill up the lacunas in global regulations and to solve global public goods issues. Therefore, NGOs (Non-governmental organizations), which used to be focused on pressing governments, started to single out business organizations in order to make them more susceptible to social and environmental concerns. Thus, both authors demonstrate that our world faces asymmetry in the development of social and political system on the one hand, and business markets on the other. However, in order to understand how and why this asymmetry appeared, it is important to understand the principles and the general view of the post-Westphalian system, and methods the current world can employ to transit to this system (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011, p. 902).

The Post-Westphalian Transition

Kobrin (2008) states that the current Westphalian international order stands for the connected system with a well outlined structure (p. 329). Firstly, it is state-focused, as states are the only agents of the international public affairs and the only subjects of the public international regulations. There is an obvious difference between the public area of public affairs, the administration and the private area of markets and economic transactions. Secondly, it is essentially geographic grounded on borders, reciprocally exceptive territorial jurisdictions and sovereignty. Finally, it anarchically lacks any central authority (Kobrin, 2008, p. 329). In addition, Scherer and Palazzo (2011), who agree with the previous idea, state that the sovereign and territorial state, which is the original receptacle of public affairs, provides a geographically connected expanse, in which the struggles for democracy, the promotion of social unity, and constitutional administration forms evolve within the framework of the regulation rules (p. 902). On the other hand, Kobrin (2008) demonstrates that the international politics entails cooperation among states as administrations and the international economy is comprised of separate cross-border transactions (p. 330). Therefore, the only public international concerns incorporate the state, including the public domain, the interstate area and the range of administration, which are mainly related. Therefore, Kobrin (2008) states that the world appears in a middle of deeply-seated alteration in the arrangement of the world economy and global public affairs, requiring a transition to a transnational or post-Westphalian system, which is partially proportional to the transition from the medieval to the modern era in the 16^th and 17^th centuries (p. 331). Moreover, three phases of transition are entirely appropriate for the issues of economic governance, including the comminuting of political authority, the spread of the boundary between the public and private areas, and alterations in the nature and essence of geographic space. Kobrin (2008) states that the emergence of the transnational order was foreseen more than thirty years ago. It defined the world public affairs as all political reciprocity between important agents in the world order, in which an important agent stands for partially or completely self-governing individual or establishment, which controls significant resources and takes part in public affairs with other agents across state lines (p. 331). On the other hand, Scherer and Palazzo (2011) demonstrate that states definitely stay as important (in fact, the most important) agents, the order is no longer state-centric, as non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations and international establishments (including the World Trade Organization) have appeared as crucial transnational agents in the global public affairs (p. 903). Therefore, it creates obvious differentiation between public and private areas, between public affairs, laws and regulations on the one hand and the market and economic operations on the other hand. Public administrations participate directly in economic operations via state-belonging or guided and operated companies and private organizations undertake public roles, including imposing standards or regulating health care (Kobrin, 2008, p. 335). The increase of the ‘competition state’ and the extreme broadening of social duties of business organizations have vitiated the previous clear line between public and private areas. Finally, globalization and the advancement in information technology have altered the economic and political essence of expansion. In fact, borders are “transcended” rather than crossed, communications become progressively “supraterritorial” as dimensions, borders and territorial space forfeit economic and political importance. Moreover, markets are no longer required to be outlined in terms of geographical vicinity and, in some settings, the emplacement of transactions and establishments have become undefined (Kobrin, 2008, p. 337). Scherer and Palazzo (2011) distinguish this developing system as a freshly appearing global public domain, which is no longer concurrent with the states system (p. 904). This domain exists in transnational non-territorial dimensional stratum, and is concentrated and grounded on the standards and perspectives as well as establishments and organization networks combined with operations within, across and beyond states. Therefore, our world is a system in transition, a reality of fragmented globalization. Thus, states are not superseded but rather fixed in a more extensive and deep transnational arena. Kobrin (2008) demonstrates that this domain presupposes that sovereignty-free and sovereignty-bound agents coexist. Moreover, supraterritoriality coexists with territorial expanses, in which territory, dimension, and borders are still important. It is a system in state of evolution where obscurity concerning structures and mutuality seriously compete. Therefore, Scherer and Palazzo (2011) demonstrate the dual movement directing the dynamics of a market society (p. 912). Markets require the formation and foundation of property rights (including intellectual property), contracting settings, civil redress course of actions, and public goods supply in order to be able to function. On the other hand, economic operations require the implementation of regulations and their enhancement as conditions, which the market cannot create itself (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011). The current international state order presupposes that economic governance is connected with the government. Moreover, it is provided by geographically sovereign states, while the structure of the system assumes territorial congruence of public affairs, economics and social communications that the expanse encompasses with borders, which are regarded as a political-economic construct. Due to the fact that there is a notable diversity in concrete political and economic establishments (Kobrin, 2008, p. 331), each state has created the regulations and employed the enhancement mechanisms required by the market to function., This is true internationally to a large extent due to the fact that the international global economy is grounded on the system of sovereign states both individually and conjointly. Therefore, Kobrin (2008) concludes that an international economy is ideally adequate and appropriate in regard to the structural features of the Westphalian system (p. 331). Firstly, it is created from territorially outlined national markets as their syllabic units. Secondly, transactions take the form of detached cross-border streams of goods and costs. Finally, markets and the locus of transactions are established in terms of two-dimensional expanse.

On the other hand, the issues created by cross-border streams of trade and investment have not violated the standards or appropriations of the Westphalian international order, but they demonstrate a tendency to incorporate the cumulative definition (created by states) of regulations controlling and directing international transactions. Furthermore, they incorporate the jurisdictional problems and questions of extraterritoriality and bridging in such areas as the enhancement of sanctions, embargoes and taxation (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011, p. 908).

Multinational Firms as Political Actors

Individuals become constituents of mass movements for alteration and operation. On the other hand, business becomes involved in politics, but not in the form of partisans of a political party, but as crucial agents in global discourse. Thus, it is obvious that the significant alteration has taken place in the political functioning of the corporation. Traditional multinational organizations are products of the Westphalian international system, which accounts for the corporations that have their home in one country but operate and exist under the regulations and habits of other countries as well. The multinational organizations exercise economic rather than political authority (Kobrin, 2008, p. 333). They are the ones who reflect the comparatively obvious differentiation between the private and public areas of markets and the economic operations on the one hand and politics, laws and regulations on the other hand. Nevertheless, this has alternated with the appearance of the postmodern order, the disintegration of political power, the increase of important non-state agents and the obscuring of the line between the private and public areas. An increasing quantity of non-state agents has political power in the international system. Despite the fact that these new agents are not states or state-grounded, and do not rely entirely on the operations or distinct endurance of states in the international arena, they frequently convey and are accorded with some form of legitimate power (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011, p. 909). Kobrin (2008) demonstrates that private power incorporates an organization, which is not associated with government establishments revealing decision-making authority, which is considered to be legitimate in a specific issue area (p. 335). Private establishments can become influential, and, therefore, recognized as lawful, because of historical practice, obtained expertise or an implicit or explicit grant of power given by states. Over the last ten years, business firms have got involved in operations, which were traditionally regarded as genuinely governmental operations. This is particularly true for transnational corporations, as they engage in public health, education, social security, and protection of human rights while frequently operating in countries with failed state agencies. They also address such social diseases as AIDS, malnutrition, homelessness, and illiteracy. They also outline ethics codes and engage in self- regulation in order to fill global lacunas in legal regulation and moral orientation (Scherer & Palazzo, 2011, p. 909); and promote societal peace and stability. These operations of businesses demonstrate increasing involvement of corporations in global business regulation, in politics, economics, and in the production of global public goods (Kobrin, 2008, p. 335).

Conclusion

Therefore, the demonstrated fragmentation of political power and the influence of the digital revolution on the sense of economic expanse, borders and territorial jurisdiction, combined with the issues of economic governance are distinctive in their nature in regard to the transnational world system. Thus, globalization as a concept is viewed as fragmented as while the international, geographically-grounded system can be arbitrated, it has not been superseded by anything addressing a cohesive transnational order. Moreover, our world does not present any transnational social systems or political communities where to embed an integrated global economy. When nationally embedded democracy can be created on a distinct differentiation of labor between business, public affairs and civil society, and while business agents can gain profit from a stable moral and legal context for their operations, the globalization process questions the effectiveness and lawfulness of these grounded functions and duties. The paper demonstrates that political solutions for societal challenges are no longer restricted to the political system and have become embedded in decentralized processes, which include non-state actors. Currently, corporations have to regarded as economic and political agents. This process of societal transformation demonstrates the requirement for a transition, in which the governance lacuna will be omitted.