Globalisation and the network of cataclysms - the politics and state-image of the third millenium (twenty theses)

1. Definitions of globalisation. Can the theory of globalisation become an independent theory? The status of the theory of globalisation within the philosophy of science. The unique features of the theory of globalisation within legitimate theory-making.

2. The sociology of the theory and research of globalisation. Who writes about globalisation and why? Stiglitz, the great ideal. How can statements about globalisation be verified? Does the Max Weberian value-free characteristic appear in the theoretical and scientific research of globalisation? Is it right to expect it to appear at all? Whose private interest is it to get to know globalisation? Is it also their interest to make actual valid knowledge public?

3. Why do we write about the “catches of cataclysms”? Who do we represent and what do we want to achieve by this?

4. In the analysis of the “catches of cataclysms”, it’s not possible to discuss the problems of the “world” in the same context with those of today’s Hungary. The relation of this idea to the concept of the book. Globalisation has its cataclysms and those have their catches, but in fact they cannot be sensibly brought in connection with Hungarian “cataclysms” and their “catches” in the same book.

5. The macro-relations of globalisation can only be connected on two logical threads with Hungarian relations: whether anyone has recognized the essential characteristics of globalisation in Hungary (who, when, how, and how publicly), and whether they could (who, when, where, where not) elaborate matching strategies for them.

6. The Hungarian issue can be discussed in the two contexts indicated in No 5. The Hungarian “cataclysm-traps” are not globalisation-specific in this scientific sense (i.e. not in the ordinary sense which is though legitimate for ordinary usage), because they can come from a) the non-recognition of the phenomena of globalisation, b) from wrong answers to the phenomena of globalisation, c) from answers not given for the phenomena of globalisation, or d) from the inability to give any kind of answer to the phenomena of globalisation. Therefore, globalisation is not a direct cause of the Hungarian cataclysms. Thus we’re not talking about say, Slovenian cataclysms.

7. Has globalisation ever had a beginning? Yes, in 1989. It’s meaningless to talk about globalisation preceding this date, but it’s inevitable to talk about it after this date.

8. Not every characteristic of history before 1989 is relevant for the interpretation of today’s globalisation. However, it’s useful to know each important detail of world history after 1945, even more after 1968, for any of them might prove to be relevant in the interpretation of present globalisation. Thus the fall of Communism might be a part of such an anamnesis as well, but only in the interrelatedness of a given context.

9. Globalisation is an exceeding of a critical limit of global operation. The theoretical definition of this. Practical criterion: when it’s no use to start out from the spheres under globalisation, as their examination would lead to the “ocean” of global interconnections anyway (because of exceeding the “critical mass”).

10. What doesn’t function globally is not global; what functions globally is global.

11. Globalisation is not the globalisation of (world) economy, even though (world) economy occupies an especially important position in the row of globalizing phenomena and institutions.

12. Globalisation and modernization.

13. Whether globalisation is capitalism or not; whether it is post-capitalism, or the highest level, or the end of capitalism.

14. The structure of globalisation. Globalisation and its actors in the global sphere. Actors and organizations. Globalisation and bureaucracy. Globalisation and administration. Civil society as a global actor, as an actor in globalisation.

15. The seven basic perspectives of globalisation appearing as a uniform phenomenon: information, mediation, venture, neo-liberal, post-industrial, monetarist, and knowledge-globalisation, and their interpretations.

16. Why are there cataclysms? The real reasons of global cataclysms. The relation of systems and actors that can be characterized by operation to those that can be characterized by values and contracts (see No 17 and 18).

17. The relationship of globalisation and politics. Is there any global politics in the most strict sense (besides in the language of the press and the public, as these are allowed to have it)? Does defined and recognized, presumably “objective” globalisation legitimate aspirations for world domination based on the fact that we are living in the age of globalisation? The relationship of globalisation and politics as one of the reasons of global cataclysms.

18. The relationship of globalisation and the state. What is the state like, which the victorious globalisation meets after 1989? (After the precedents of the 70’s – 80’s, of course.) It’s not totalitarian, neither is it a welfare state, but it’s modern etatism itself (remember Bismarck). This state gradually drew all elements of the broadening reproduction of social life to itself, and made them appear as trivial facts of civilization. Globalisation freed the actors from state authority, while none of the actors did take up the interhistorical obligations of the state. The state as a structural loser. The relationship of globalisation and the state, as the second overall cause of global cataclysms.

19. Besides the two great groups of causes included in #17 and 18, there are only two more sources of global cataclysms. One of them is the issue of the environment and climate, which – although not entirely – can be built into one theory of globalisation on the trace of venture. The last great group of the causes of global cataclysms is actually outside the theory of globalisation: the fourth group of global cataclysms comes from the actors’ side (mentioned in No 14), the new global freedom of the actors, which is a structural feature of globalisation. It was not globalisation that invaded Iraq, but it was Bush. It’s not globalisation that feeds us rotten meat but many concrete companies. It’s not globalisation that recommends the legalization of child pornography, but it’s Miklós Hankó-Faragó.

20. From all this follows that in the future, we should deal with the two most important causes of global cataclysms, i.e. the issue of globalisation and politics, and the issue of globalisation and the state, in all branches of science. And the Politics and State of the Third Millennium really have to be like that.