Globalisation and Social Change

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XII (Social Change and Development in India), Chapter 6.

Why does an apple from Australia sit next to an Indian apple?

Walk to your neighbourhood fruit stall. You may find a pear from China, an apple from Australia, orange juice from abroad and ready to fry chips in frozen packets. Since 1 April 2001 all quantitative restrictions on imports have been withdrawn, so these are now ordinary sights. For an urban, affluent shopper this means more choice. For a farmer who grows fruit it can mean a crisis of livelihood. One policy, two very different effects. That is the heart of this chapter: globalisation touches everyone, but not in the same way.

Sociological imagination and globalisation

Different subjects look at different parts of globalisation. Economics studies capital flows and political science studies the changing role of governments. Sociology uses the sociological imagination to link the individual and society, the micro and the macro, the local and the global. How is a peasant in a remote village affected? What happens to a neighbourhood grocer if retail opens to big transnational companies? Why are there so many shopping malls, and how do young people spend leisure time today?

Because of the compression of space and time, a sociologist can no longer study a village, a family, a caste or a movement as if it stood alone. Even a farmer's life has to be studied with the effect of WTO rules in mind.

Globalisation affects us all, but differently.

Is globalisation new?

Views differ sharply. Some say it is necessary for a better world. Others say the privileged benefit while the condition of the already excluded worsens. Still others argue it is not new at all. The chapter weighs the last claim first.

A parable from old Sanskrit texts warns against isolation: the kupamanduka, a frog that lives all its life in a well, knows nothing else and distrusts everything outside it. The point is that history, science and culture would have been poor if we had lived like well frogs.

Two views. For the exam: global interconnections are not new, but globalisation is distinctive for the intensity and complexity of changes in production, communication, labour and capital, technology, culture, governance and social movements, especially those from the communication revolution. Another reading: some scholars stress continuity, since modern capitalism had a global dimension from its start. Both statements are in the textbook, so be ready to explain how they fit together: the links are old, but their speed and scope are new.

Pause and predict: if India traded with Rome two thousand years ago, why do we call today's changes "globalisation" and not simply "trade"?

Check your answer: Because globalisation is more than exchange. It covers changes in how production, labour, capital, communication and governance are organised, driven above all by information and communication technology, which has increased the speed and scope of interaction.

Defining globalisation

Globalisation is the growing interdependence between people, regions and countries in the world as social and economic relationships come to stretch worldwide. Economic forces are part of it, but they do not produce it alone. It has been driven above all by information and communication technologies, and it grew in a political context.

Liberalisation is different and narrower. In India it means the range of policy decisions the state took from 1991 to open the Indian economy to the world market. In July 1991 a series of reforms began in agriculture, industry, trade, foreign investment and technology, the public sector, financial institutions and other areas.

After Independence the state had set up many laws that shielded Indian markets and business from outside competition, on the belief that a former colony would be at a disadvantage in a free market. Liberalisation reversed that. It also involved loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which come with conditions known as structural adjustment: usually cuts in state spending on health, education and social security. International institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) also gained a greater say.

The five economic dimensions

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the weightless economy is one whose products have their base in information, such as software, media and internet services. In reality: "weightless" is a figure of speech. Software and streaming still depend on physical things such as cables, servers, power and people. Why it matters: the word describes the product, not the whole system behind it.

Global communications

Telephones, mobiles, fax, digital and cable television, email and the Internet link homes and offices to the world, and satellite technology compresses time and space. Two people in Bengaluru and New York can talk and send documents and images instantly. The process is giving rise to a network and media society. The Government of India's Digital India programme aims to make India a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy.

But the digital divide persists. The Internet grew phenomenally in the 1990s, and a 2017 to 18 study found about one in ten households with a computer and about a quarter with internet connectivity through a mobile phone or another device. Cyber connectivity remained largely urban. Rural areas with erratic power, widespread illiteracy and poor infrastructure remained largely unconnected.

The textbook adds a social angle: telephones succeeded in India partly because they serve the sociocultural need to keep in touch with family, much like train journeys for weddings and family visits. Mobiles were once viewed with distrust, then seen as luxury items, and now are part of the self of urban middle class youth. During 2020 to 21 lakhs of children used mobile phones for online classes.

Globalisation and labour

A new international division of labour has emerged: more routine manufacturing and employment happens in cities of poorer countries. A global sports shoe company illustrates it. Its shoes were made in Japan in the 1960s, in South Korea from the mid 1970s as costs rose, in Thailand and Indonesia in the 1980s, and in India since the 1990s. If labour is cheaper elsewhere, production will move. That flexibility works for the producers, but makes workers vulnerable and insecure.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Fordism is mass production at a centralised location, and post-Fordism is flexible production at dispersed locations. In reality: the term comes from the assembly line made famous by Henry Ford, and post-Fordism describes the shift to flexible, networked production. Why it matters: if you remember the source of the word, you will not mix up which is which.

A car with many nationalities. An American car priced at 20,000 US dollars in the showroom sends only 7,600 US dollars back to Americans. The rest goes in the following shares: 48 per cent to South Korea for labour and assembly, 28 per cent to Japan for engines and electronics, 12 per cent to Germany for styling and design, 7 per cent to Taiwan and Singapore for small components, 4 per cent to the United Kingdom for marketing and about 1 per cent to Barbados or Ireland for data processing. The point is that a "national" product is made by a web of countries.

Employment. The impact is uneven. Middle class urban youth gain new careers: computer courses, call centres, business process outsourcing, sales in malls and jobs in new restaurants. Yet broader employment trends are disappointing. An ILO report on Asia and the Pacific noted a growing "employment gap": between 2003 and 2004 employment rose by only 1.6 per cent, about 25 million jobs, while economic growth was over 7 per cent.

Pause and predict: why does the new international division of labour make workers insecure?

Check your answer: Because production is flexible and dispersed, a firm can move its factories wherever labour is cheapest. A worker whose job is at one site has no guarantee it will stay.

Globalisation and political change

The collapse of the socialist bloc hastened globalisation and gave it a particular economic and political approach, often called neo-liberal. This is a political vision of free enterprise that believes free play of market forces will be efficient and fair, and it is critical of state regulation and subsidies. So globalisation has a political vision as much as an economic one. The textbook notes that a different globalisation is possible: inclusive globalisation, which includes all sections of society.

Regional bodies such as the European Union, ASEAN and SAARC show a greater role for regional associations. The textbook also stresses international organisations.

Globalisation and culture

India has long been open to cultural influences and has been enriched by them, and the kupamanduka warning applies again. The last decade has seen major cultural changes and fears that local cultures would be overtaken. Debates today about clothes, styles, music, films and languages echo those of 19th century reformers and nationalists, but the scale and intensity are greater.

Two views. For the exam: some argue all cultures will become alike (homogenisation). Others argue for glocalisation, the mixing of the global with the local. Another reading: glocalisation is not entirely spontaneous and is not detached from commercial interests. Foreign firms often use it as a strategy to improve marketability. The textbook's conclusion is that culture is not a fixed entity that either collapses or stays the same, and that globalisation will probably create new local traditions and global ones too.

Gender and culture. Defenders of a fixed idea of tradition sometimes justify undemocratic practices against women, from sati to women's exclusion from education and public life, in the name of cultural identity. Globalisation can then be used as a bogey to defend unjust practices. India's democratic tradition lets culture be defined in a more inclusive way.

Culture of consumption. Until the 1970s manufacturing shaped the growth of cities. Now cultural consumption of art, food, fashion, music and tourism shapes them, which shows in shopping malls, multiplex cinemas, amusement parks and water parks. Advertising and the media promote a culture where spending is important and being careful with money is no longer a virtue. Success in international fashion pageants has led to growth in the fashion, cosmetics and health industries, and popular game shows made it seem that fortunes could turn over a few games.

Corporate culture. A branch of management theory that tries to raise productivity and competitiveness through a unique organisational culture, with company events, rituals and traditions meant to build employee loyalty and group solidarity. It also covers the way of doing things, of promotion and of packaging products. Metropolitan cities now have an upwardly mobile class of professionals in software, multinational banks, chartered accountancy firms, stock markets, travel, fashion designing, entertainment and media, with stressful schedules and high salaries, who are the main clientele of the consumer industry.

Threats to indigenous craft, literary traditions and knowledge systems. Modern development was already making inroads into traditional cultural forms before globalisation, but the scale and intensity are now much greater. About 30 theatre groups around the textile mill areas of Parel and Girgaum in Mumbai have become defunct because the mill workers lost their jobs. Traditional weavers in villages such as Sircilla and Dubakka in Andhra Pradesh, with no means to invest in technology, were unable to adapt to changing tastes and competition from power looms. Attempts by some multinational companies to patent the use of tulsi, haldi (turmeric), rudraksha and basmati rice have shown the need to protect indigenous knowledge systems. A performer from the dombari community describes how television and radio took away the audience and income of acrobats.

Timeline

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Change and Development in Industrial Society introduces liberalisation, outsourcing and contract work, which this chapter widens.
• Next: Mass Media and Communications covers the changes in television, print and the Internet that this chapter calls the most visible effect of globalisation.
• Related: Change and Development in Rural Society shows contract farming and imports reaching the village.