What is a Global Economy?

A sustained critique of the dominance of neo-liberal, economic rationalist economics needs to be linked to the articulation of a language that can successfully convey the imagination of more desirable relationships between individuality and mutuality; solidarity and difference; ecology and economy.(1)

The global economy is one of the more definable entities in the globalisation debate. Most nations have moved away from collective centralised economic planning and publicly managed state owned enterprises to liberal and laissez-faire policies. This has resulted in the formation of a 'global economy' that arguably benefits private pursuits and global corporations.

This is not the first time that the world has had a global economy, but as Manuel Castells' claims, it is the first time that the world has had a global economy that works in real-time. What he means by this is that the majority of the world's economic activity is now controlled by tens of thousands of flickering computer screens in the world's key financial hubs. He terms this 'the network society'.(2)

Since 1979, the turnover in foreign exchange markets has risen to $1.5 trillion each day, 12 times the level of 1979 and over 50 times that of world trade. The effects on societies and individuals can be either catastrophic or enriching, but the circumstances are equally volatile.(3) more>>

(1) John Wiseman, Global Nation: Australia and the Politics of Globalisation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998.p.149

(2) Manuel Castells, The Rise of Networked Society, Blackwell Publishers, Malden, Massachusetts, 1996

(3) Richard Langhorne, The Coming of Globalisation: Its Evolution and contemporary Consequences, Palgrave, New York, 2001, p.20.