How Globalisation Fails Us

Maybe the cities of the world shouldn’t all start to look the same? The capitalist consequences of economic globalisation persist as a pervasive presence in our lives, exploiting populations and erasing the diversity of peoples across the planet.

Introduction - 0:00
The History of Globalisation - 2:29
The Gains of Globalisation - 5:17
The Pains of Globalisation - 9:36
The Anti-Globalisation Movement - 14:59
Imagining Internationalism - 21:48

Resources for Congo:

Support me on Patreon!
=
outro music: Cedar Womb by joe zempel
=
Sources & Resources:
Globalisation: The Global Suburb by John Simpson
No Logo by Naomi Klein
Fences and Windows by Naomi Klein
The Power of Place Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape by Harm de Blij
Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions, and Uneven Integration By Matthew Sparke
Alternatives to economic globalization by John Cavanagh and Jerry Mander

[Andrewism]

The crisis in Congo has grown increasingly severe in recent years. Please donate whatever you can to provide humanitarian aid to those suffering:

[ponderosabones]

"Maybe Amazon shouldn't hold more value than the Amazon rainforest" bro came out swinging

[graaacias]

Thank you StAndrewism from Taiwan. Ive been grieving how the hype around AI and NVIDIA is overlooking the extrwme environmental cost to Taiwan thats only getting worse for our mountains, mother rivers and farmers and indigenous peoples. Half of the islands water is legally relegated to big tech for the world's semiconductor production. The actual usage is even higher and is destroying connections to ourselves and each other. And for what, for faster wars and more burned out sameness everywhere?

[EDuarteVillanueva]

Neo-andean architecture is actually a great example of modern architecture that rejects the "glass skyscraper" model in favor of something unique, culturally significant and full of color.

[joeldickerson]

"There also seemed to be an over focus on particular acts of confrontation with authorities and not enough acts of prefiguration to meet people's needs and build a more resilient base of support for the struggle".

I can't tell you enough how much this statement means, as someone who worked for an int'l social justice organization and fought for rights for the marginalized from Atlanta to Palestine, and how much I appreciate you saying we need a diversified front of new actions that fundamentally support a profound system of global sustainability and economics that regards life itself first.

[iamTakuu]

Recently found out that they banned kids at my lil cousins school (where I went too when small) from speaking our mother tongue Shona- it’s a Portuguese school btw.

[wiiaoio]

I always said that societies lost their uniqueness when we stopped wearing cultural clothes as everyday wear.

[MalleeMate]

I studied economics at school, and at first I was sooo deadset on making as much money as possible. What I didn't expect was a deep depression about the way the European economies rely on the former imperial periphery for all their resources, yet also crush unions and exploit the hell out of these countries

[danielmalinen]

One of the biggest failures of globalism was the transfer of jobs and industry to Asia, the so-called "China phenomenon" and now our western clothes are made with child labor in sweatshops. In cold countries like Finland, this creates an ethical dilemma because you don't want to support child labor or sweatshops, but clothes are an obligated necessity for survival and people have to be able to afford them because there aren't enough jobs for everyone, which is why people don't have money for expensive local/domestic products, i.e. luxuries (for example, a winter jacket made in Asia costs around 100 euros or more, while one made in Finland costs around 1.000 euros or more).

[marcusnguginganga]

This video just reminded me of a tiktok I saw talking about how the world has become less colourful in terms of culture but also products. There are very few cars that aren't black or some shade of grey. look at Macbooks or even typical architecture these days. The world is becoming so dull and it sucks.

[dylstarling]

It's haunting how much my home country of Ireland has become a little america in the last one hundred years. Our various cultures were dissolved into one "irish" culture which itself is transforming to conform with american norms, more and more people now speak with americanized accents with view points lining up more politically and culturally with american norms. We have the good fortune that what little cultural quirks we have left are interestingly quaint enough to be survived as commodities to be sold to tourists and in some twisted way to be sold back to us. There are tiny pockets of quare little remnants of the older cultures dotted across the country but you have to go out of your way to find those as the government are more concerned with promoting what tourists already believe is ireland, to be fair anything too odd seems to scare them off, they'd rather spend €15 on a stone from someones yard with a little spiral draw on it. And with how dublin centric the county has become those pockets of culture are fading away.

[Tawhiri-szwc]

The globe was never able to hold a single hegemony, that's why empires that try to span the globe always end up falling apart, just a matter of time before it happens to the capitalist/American hegemony

[cometogether]

Freedom for oppressive systems to do their thing destroys imagination, is boring, tends to always look the same. Freedom for the people accomplishes similar goals in different settings but in beautiful, creative ways. There is one system we are collectively resisting, and billions of possibilities arising as alternatives.

[jeffventures]

As a Trini I realized Globalisation was taking a hold when my little cousins had american accents without ever stepping foot on a plane.

[mootytootyfrooty]

biodiversity and by association human diversity is our fundamental responsibility to preserve (even enhance) if our very minds are to maintain their sensitivity to learning new things and experiencing the depths of life.

[Mahawww]

The "learning from the past attempts" part of the video was really great! I think a lot of leftist essays have either a complete lack of advice about moving forward or they just give examples of past attempts, that most of the time failed, and do not consider how we can IMPROVE on them.

Really good stuff and hope to see more of it in future videos!

[PeKaNo]

what you said about cultural globalisation resonates a lot with me
sadly, the globalists made it so that in order to overcome one's low social condition, one has to learn their codes, their cultures and their languages. They made all locals willingly strive towards globals as a way to socially elevate. It's the harsh reality

[nathan]

Globalization is hierarchy. It's simple as that as their is no need to confuse words that mean 'expansion'. Capitalism, Colonization, Globalization, Hierarchy, Imperialism... it is all about getting bigger and bigger, more and more. We need Decolonization efforts. Indigenous want and need what they had to share with the lands, waters, animals... not Globalization of Colonialism

[michelkliewer]

Im studying economics right now and whenever im struggling with the workload in uni im coming to your chanel. This and many other ideas on here, are exactly what i hope to contribute towards with my degree! Thank you for keeping me motivated!

[erikhenry]

So glad someone is talking about this. I started reading a book this spring recounting the stories of the anti-globalization movement that really opened my eyes. Never learned anything about this in school, and even my parents had no recollection of the battle of seattle. It feels like the history itself was hidden. Also VERY fascinated to hear reasons for the decline of the movement, my search so far had been fruitless.
I would add the Cochabamba Water War as an important event for the movement as well.
I just finished a chapter on the death of Carlo Giuliani during the action in Genoa. The book implies that the aftermath made violent resistance controversial and vastly reduced the participation of people in the western world. Aside from barely hearing about anti-globalization until this year, I never hear about social movements in the global south, successes or failures, and I'm excited about the potential of a new movement to reconnect the people of the global south to the global north.