AMERICANIZATION OR GLOBALIZATION?

The notion of globalization is often considered to be a synonym for

Americanization. This is why there are two parties, the first is represented by the skeptics
who bring the idea that globalization has the same meaning as Americanization and the
second consists of the globalists who say that globalization is just the result of some
historical events. In fact, globalization describes a process by which regional economies,
societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of
communication, transportation, and trade. Even if the term is sometimes used to refer
specifically to economic globalization, it is usually recognized as being driven by a
combination of economic, technological, sociocultural, political, and biological factors.
For the skeptics, such as Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson (1999: 10-18),
globalization represents a ‘necessary myth’. It rather reflects a process of
‘internationalization’ or the clustering of cross-border economic and social exchanges. On
the other side, there are the globalists, such as Peter Dicken (2003), who emphasize that
the discourse of globalization serves the interests of powerful economic and social forces
in the West, meaning that it is an expression of deeper structural changes in the scale of
modern social organization, similar to Americanization. So, as it can be seen, the idea of
globalization is a source of great controversy.
Globalization seen as a myth by the skeptics is considered to be a synonym for
Americanization. They consider it a ‘necessary myth’ because it helps justify and
legitimize the neoliberal global project, that consists of the creation of a global free
market and the consolidation of Anglo-American capitalism within the world’s major
economic regions. The post Cold War era led to the increasing influence of what some
people these days call quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank). So, the truth is that globalization is an umbrella term for a complex
series of economic, social, technological, and political changes seen as increasing
interdependence and interaction between people and companies in disparate locations. In
general use within the field of economics and political economy, it refers to the
increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and

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financial flows. The term sometimes also refers to the movement of people (labour) and
knowledge (technology) across international borders. There are also broader cultural,
political and environmental dimensions of globalization.
At its most basic, there is nothing mysterious about globalization. Different
people of thought contend that countries like the United States of America are using the
globalization as an engine of "corporate imperialism"; one which tramples over the
human rights of developing societies, claims to bring prosperity, yet often simply
amounts to plundering and profiteering. Another negative effect of globalization has been
cultural assimilation via cultural imperialism. This can be further explained as a situation
of exporting of artificial wants, and the destruction or inhibition of authentic local
cultures. This brings us to the gist of submission. At a closer look, globalization is slowly
shifting towards Americanization. In the early 1900's Americanization meant taking new
immigrants and turning them into Americans whether they wanted to give up their
traditional ways or not. This process often involved learning English and adjusting to
American culture, customs, and dress. Critics now say globalization is nothing more than
the imposition of American culture on the entire world. In fact, the most visible sign of
globalization seems to be the spread of American hamburgers and cola (Pepsi and Coca
Cola products) to nearly every country on earth, as a reporter said: "...globalization is in
so many ways Americanization: globalization wears Mickey Mouse ears, it drinks Pepsi
and Coke, eats Big Macs, does its computing on an IBM laptop with Windows 98. Many
societies around the world can't get enough of it, but others see it as a fundamental
threat." (Allan Brian Ssenyogna1: 2006).
This transmission of American culture has been mainly through several conduits
with the number one medium being the electronic media. Television in particular has
done a lot in Americanizing those who view images especially from Hollywood.
Everyone now adore jazz, hip-hop, rap music, country music as well as gospel music all
of which were pioneered by the United States. The number one medium for the
transmission of American culture has been through electronic media, television in
particular.

1
Allan Brian Ssenyonga is a Ugandan freelance writer for The New Times.

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 Besides all these negative effects that Americanization or globalization brought
us, there is more than just a free market and television influence. All these are part of the
power that America has, and for this the national capitalism must continuously expand
the geographical reach of capitalist social relations, so in order to achieve this goal, there
was created a new form made up by new mechanisms of multilateral control and
surveillance, such as the G8, group formed by the eight largest industrialized nations
(Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, USA and Russia) and the World Bank. In
addition to the power and to what this means, geopolitics plays an important role, too.
These states had sufficient military and economic power to create and maintain the
conditions which are necessary for an open international order. This also means that
without an American hegemony there is no liberal international order.
If the skeptics consider that all the globalization process is in fact an
Americanization one, the globalists do not share the same opinion. They see globalization
as something that started somewhere in the history, being a phenomenon that does not
belong to the modern age. It is said that the development is part of globalization and it
started together with the epoch of world discovery and it still continues nowadays. This
deals with the idea of a significant transformation of the organizing principles of social
life and world order, on three levels: the transformation of traditional patterns of socio-
economic organization, the territorial principle and the power. The one who has the
power controls the rest, so globalization is taken to express the scale on which power is
organized and exercised.
These globalists are in fact, pro-globalization supporters, who know that power
means in fact trade control and this is not a nowadays situation, but it started a long time
ago. Therefore trade is the key towards globalization. Supporters of free trade claim that
it increases economic prosperity as well as opportunity, especially among developing
nations, enhances civil liberties and leads to a more efficient allocation of resources.
Economic theories of comparative advantage suggest that free trade leads to a more
efficient allocation of resources, with all countries involved in the trade benefiting. In
general, this leads to lower prices, more employment, higher output and a higher standard
of living for those in developing countries.

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 Proponents of laissez-faire capitalism, and some libertarians, say that higher
degrees of political and economic freedom in the form of democracy and capitalism in
the developed world are ends in themselves and also produce higher levels of material
wealth. They see globalization as the beneficial spread of liberty and capitalism.
Nowadays the man who knows how to control resources and how to use them has the
ultimate power.
Supporters of democratic globalization are sometimes called pro-globalists. They
believe that the first phase of globalization, which was market-oriented, should be
followed by a phase of building global political institutions representing the will of world
citizens. The difference from other globalists is that they do not define in advance any
ideology to orient this will, but would leave it to the free choice of those citizens via a
democratic process.
Globalization represents a large theme that maybe as the globalists said, it is not a
synonym for Americanization, but it started at the moment in which the world was
discovered because of the need of the global population to progress and maybe it is in the
nature of human beings to look for it. Even from the beginning, the nations that were
more developed influenced the ones that were poorer and this is exactly what happens in
the contemporary age. Globalization, as it was mentioned before, is an umbrella term for
a complex series of changes that led to better or worse situations, one of them being
represented by the events that happened on the 11th of September 2001 in the USA.
In conclusion, therefore, the global stage is at a period of American conquest in
many different ways than you can imagine. Globalization seems to be hijacked by the
Americans. However simply dismissing or demonizing globalization as mere
Americanization is misleading. Globalization has the ability to alter much more than just
the movies or food consumed by a society. And the results can be powerfully positive,
devastatingly negative, or (more often) something in between, but this didn’t start in the
modern age, so it is not something new but something which continues to play an
important role in the contemporary age.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bhagwati, J. 2004. In Defense of Globalization. Oxford, New York: Oxford University

Press.
Dicken, P. 2003. Global shift: reshaping the global economic map in the 21st century,
London: SAGE Publication, 577-600
Held, D. and McGrew, A. 2003. “Making Sense of Globalization” in Globalization/Anti-
Globalization. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1-8 (50-54)
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. 1999. Globalization in question, Polity Press in association
with Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1-18
Ssenyonga, A.B. 2006. Culture and Society, New York Times, Rwanda.