Licenciada

Globalization
20th November, 2012
Losing the peace incentive: Israel as warning
* Conventional idea: Violence is seen as a factor that can destabilize global economy. However, controlled crises and individual shocks could promote the opening of new markets and the growing of economy. “But after the initial shock had done its work, relative peace and stability were required for sustainedeconomic growth”(Klein 535)
Method: “the guns-to-caviar index” which analyses the inversely proportional relationship between the sales of fighter jets (guns) and executive jets (caviar). This index shows how inside a context of violence and instability, economy cannot grow.
* Davos Dilemma: There is a contrast between the economic growth and political crisis. “The world was going to hell,there was no stability in sight and the global economy was roaring its approval”(Klein 536) Since 9/11 the world is becoming more violent while accumulating higher profits. Global instability provides benefits to: arms dealers, security sector, construction industry, oil industry and the private health care companies. Best Davos Dilemma’s example is Israel because despite its political crisis andconflict with Palestine, its economy is growing rapidly to a range of 5% per year. Its economy is based on the production of antiterrorism security system and weaponry ”Israel’s largest corporations did not just support the war, they sponsored it”(556)
* Conspiracy Theory: The rich and powerful must be deliberately causing natural catastrophes and economic crises so they can exploit them. Thereality: Big Corporations’ desire for easy and fast profits offered by speculative investment has turned “the stock, currency and real estate markets into crisis-creation machines”(Klein 539)
* “The creeping expansion of the disaster capitalism complex into media may prove to be a new kind of corporate synergy” (Klein 541) The more panicked societies become regarding the idea that terroristattack are possible at any time, the more high-tech fences and armament the consumers will buy. In the era of information and high-tech economy, electronic network works as a type of intangible power that is not limited to boundaries of nation-states. This new form of world power is even more insensitive to social inequality. Those who do not support this new type of economy such as producers andconsumers will be ignored by the capitalist model. For example, in the case of Israel Palestinian workers were replaced and discarded as objects.
* Main argument: “The only prospect that threatens the booming disaster economy … is the possibility of achieving some measure of climatic stability and geopolitical peace”(Klein 541)
In the field of International Relations, the neoliberal theoryholds that cooperation and peaceful stability is possible within the international community due to the fact that globalization has promoted an economic interdependence between countries. According to neoliberals, in the current enmeshed and interconnected world, financial incentives for peace have increased because war can reduce the number of trading partners and markets. States are less likely tostart a war because commercial interdependence can raise the costs of war and hurt the economic growth of each nation. In contrast to this school of thought, the Davos Dilemma establishes the existence of an inversely proportional relationship between economic growth and political crisis. This statement means that “the world is becoming less peaceful while accumulating significantly more profit”(Klein 537) Global instability and threats to international peace such as terrorist attacks, benefit not only the arms industry but also generate high profits for corporations linked to heavy reconstruction, private health care, national security and the oil sector. The investment in armament, high-tech security systems and reconstruction has been taken as a solution to financial crises and...