On the latest episode of Leaders in ERP, our Founder Shawn Windle sat down with Unit4’s Chief Product Officer, Jennifer Sherman, to discuss how Unit4’s AI innovations and globalization approach are empowering service-oriented organizations.
Tune in now >> https://www.erpadvisorsgroup.com/blog/leaders-in-erp-jennifer-sherman-cpo-unit4
Ideas That Changed the World rarely begin with grand ambition. Most start as arguments, observations, or experiments within small communities. Yet some ideas escape the intentions of their creators and spread through institutions, technologies, and cultures until they reshape civilization itself. Once an idea takes hold, it becomes difficult to contain. It influences governments, economies, and…
Ideas That Changed the World Forever: When Ideas Escape Control
the world in its metashape shook, the new was coming…. globalization that connected to the local
If we do not take globalization into account, but view it as a trash bin, we have nothing to fear. But as this huge pile of trash is large, it might become a giant roller. In this case, we will understand why the Savior says: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk. 12:32).
-Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa
Ever wonder what it was like to be in that first audience, watching a train pull into a station on a flickering screen and actually ducking? 🚂 The birth of film is wild, and its evolution is the ultimate glow-up story.
From silent screams to THX rumbles, cinema’s journey is a blockbuster epic written in light, sound, and pure human ingenuity. Let’s rewind the tape.
The late 1800s were a vibe of pure invention. Think Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope (peep-show style viewing!) and the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe—a camera, projector, and film printer all in one! ✨
Their short “actualities” (fancy term for slices of life) blew minds. But it was pioneers like Georges Méliès who saw its magic, using tricks to create fantastical stories. This was the dawn of pure visual storytelling, where emotion lived in a raised eyebrow or a frantic chase.
1927’s The Jazz Singer didn’t just introduce sound—it changed everything. Dialogue, musicals, new acting styles! Then Technicolor painted the world in vibrant hues, making Oz that much more magical.
This was the Golden Age of Hollywood: iconic studios, legendary stars, and films that defined culture. It was the era of the “movie star” as global royalty
#Cinéma #Innovation #Technology #Film #Globalization
Cina. Alla conquista dell’”Africa d’or”: 4 miliardi per miniere nel Sahel | Notizie Geopolitiche
Si aprono a questo punto tre scenari:
– l’oro resta caro e la Cina consolida. In quel caso, l’acquisizione diventa un manuale di strategia industriale: usare liquidità e accesso al credito per bloccare risorse reali, quando i mercati premiano la sicurezza più della crescita.
– l’oro scende, ma i giacimenti restano. In quel caso, chi ha comprato miniere con vita lunga e costi competitivi regge l’urto meglio di chi vive di progetti marginali. È il classico gioco della massa critica: meno fragilità, più capacità di assorbire cicli sfavorevoli.
– l’oro diventa ancora di più una copertura contro sanzioni, instabilità monetaria e frammentazione commerciale. In questa lettura, possedere produzione fisica in più Paesi non è solo un investimento: è una riduzione del rischio sistemico.
I decided to hold off on this one for about a year. If President Trump’s achieve any good, that is a victory for him, and his White (House) Washed Gang. If it isn’t a victory, if it does tank the economy of the USA, I hope this will help you understand why.
Cliff Potts
November 30, 2024
Baybay City, Philippines — Imagine you and your best friend are trading lunches. You love their amazing…
Trade Wars: Why Tariffs are Like Schoolyard Fights (But for Countries)
The Media Education Foundation presents
Stuart Hall: Through the Prism of an Intellectual Life
A Lecture by Stuart Hall
In this recently discovered, newly restored video of one of Stuart Hall’s most famous lectures, Hall speaks with dazzling precision about the responsibilities of intellectuals and educators in the face of undemocratic structures of power, injustice, racism, and inequality, and lays out in the clearest possible terms a theoretical framework for dissecting and resisting authoritarian thinking without lapsing into reductive ideological simplifications.
I look at Stuart Hall and expect him to sound like anything except what he sounds like lmao
Related: Identity & Dislocation - STUART HALL: THROUGH THE PRISM
Question: With increasing globalization, is a strong sense of national or local identity still important?
Answer: Globalization, to be clear, is a process by which businesses and other organizations develop international influence or operate on an international scale. The world becomes more interconnected with economies, cultures, and populations linked by cross-border trade, technology, and the…
From here.
Non-Western Modernities and Alternative Globalizations: Sociological Perspectives, by Mikhail Maslovskiy, Russian Sociological Review, 24 no. 4, 2025.
This article examines globalization through the theoretical lens of multiple modernities, emphasizing the limitations of “reductionist” approaches (particularly world-systems theory) and advancing a multidimensional understanding of global processes. Building on critiques by Shmuel Eisenstadt and Johann Arnason, the author argues that globalization cannot be reduced to economic dynamics alone but must be understood as an interaction of economic, political, cultural, and civilizational dimensions, each with its own logic and temporalities. Arnason’s rejection of rigid “system” models in favour of globalizing processes highlights the plurality and irreducibility of sociocultural spheres.
The article reviews dominant perspectives on the temporalities of globalization, distinguishing between long-term (500-year), medium-term (250-year), and recent (50-year) frameworks. It situates these within the multiple modernities approach, drawing especially on Göran Therborn’s analysis of successive waves of globalization and de-globalization. From this perspective, contemporary trends—marked by crises since 2008 and renewed geopolitical conflict—suggest a shift toward de-globalization and the growing importance of global politics rather than economic integration alone. Globalization is taken to be a spread of a certain type of modernity (roughly, neoliberalism) which has now come into crisis, leading to “multiple globalizations.”
A central contribution of the article is its discussion of Arnason’s analysis of the Soviet mode of globalization. Arnason conceptualizes communism as an alternative modernity with global reach, shaped by revolutionary ideology, imperial legacies, and civilizational patterns. He emphasizes the multidimensional character of Soviet globalization, encompassing political expansion, ideological diffusion, and civilizational rivalry with Western liberal modernity. While the Soviet project achieved significant geopolitical influence, it ultimately failed to construct a viable alternative world economy or a sustainable civilizational model. The Sino-Soviet split further weakened the global communist project, revealing deep civilizational and cultural fractures within communist modernity itself. Arnason interprets the collapse of the Soviet model as the result of intertwined economic, political, and cultural factors, resisting monocausal explanations.
The article also highlights the influence of Arnason’s framework on historical sociology and post-communist studies, particularly in analyses of Russia’s post-Soviet transformations. The multiple modernities perspective is shown to be useful for understanding Russia’s oscillation between openness to Western models and later conservative, civilizationally framed rejections of Western modernity.
In its second major empirical focus, the article applies the multiple modernities framework to China’s rise. It argues that contemporary China represents a distinct configuration combining capitalist economy, Marxist-Leninist political structures, and selective revival of civilizational and imperial legacies, notably Confucianism. Drawing on Arnason, Therborn, and others, the article critiques simplistic notions of China as a monolithic “civilizational state,” stressing instead the recombination of old and new elements and the enduring influence of imperial trajectories. Initiatives such as the Belt and Road are interpreted as potential expressions of an emerging alternative mode of globalization shaped by China’s historical experience.
The conclusion argues that the multiple modernities approach is compatible with, and enriching for, globalization studies. It allows for the analysis of multiple globalizations associated with different forms of modernity and overcomes the limitations of economically reductionist theories. The Soviet Union is interpreted as a failed alternative globalization, while China is presented as a more ambiguous and evolving case whose global role may represent a new, historically grounded form of alternative globalization.
What it means for radicals: It’s not clear how much the Russian state influences the output of this journal or its authors, but the argument made fits well with its aspirations. The driver for denying that modernity is an effect of western power or of a single developmental model may well be the Russian state’s attempts to both modernize (or defend its modernity) and to assert its difference from the west. Maslovskiy seems to be advocating what decolonial theorists call “dewesternization,” i.e. a continuation of modern civilization and capitalism but with a cultural superstructure different from that of the west. This allows emerging powers to position themselves as anti-colonial while continuing colonial legacies.
I’m surprised to see Weberian developmentalists/social scientists popping up in this context, but in retrospect it makes sense. People like Eisenstadt and Therborn are in favour of modernity, but do not wish it to be tied to an expansion of western culture. They also allow enough political economy to realistically handle situations involving it, without going the whole way like Marxists or world systems theorists. I would suggest that this article is also somewhat reductionist, but that it replaces socioeconomic factors with cultural/civilizational factors. Historically, the idea of culture or civilization as a driving force is older than the idea of a socioeconomic base, and is typically associated with rightist and ethnocentric theories (although it’s also common in poststructuralist and identity-political approaches today). The idea that Germany in particular could modernize without succumbing to the horrors of British or French history was fashionable in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and education and culture tended to be cast as panaceas which would humanize modernity. It didn’t exactly work in Germany, and I suspect the whole project is flawed for a particular reason. Cultures arise as systems of meanings connected to everyday experiences, not as systems of norms which guide and determine life. While cultural change is slow, a discontinuity between actual social conditions and cultural values will sooner or later generate a rupture between the two. For example, ideas that everything is interconnected are quite sustainable in a horticultural society, but they run up against the reality of class divisions in highly stratified societies, and when adopted in atomized and competitive modern societies, they can only be maintained as dogmas or fantasies with no impact on actual socioeconomic actions – unless they are articulated as part of a lived revolutionary project of some kind. In the same way, metaphors of “weaving” which come naturally in places where people actually weave clothes become rather amorphous in contexts where clothes are mass-produced in factories. I’m sceptical whether culture can affect economics, unless it is enforced as moral economy by the popular sectors or inspires alternative paths away from dominant models of development.
How Has Transportation Affected Globalization? The Simple Answer With Real Examples
How Has Transportation Affected Globalization?
From sailboats to supersonic jets, transportation has shrunk the world and fueled globalization. This article explores how advances in movement — of people, goods, and ideas — transformed economies, connected cultures, and reshaped global interactions.
Globalization is one of the most significant phenomena shaping economies worldwide, influencing various sectors, including retail garments. As companies search for ways to lower production costs and expand their reach, they often turn to global supply chains. This article explores the impact of globalization on retail garment supply units, examining factors such as market accessibility,…
Недавно во время очередного разговора о современном искусстве (в коем я ничего не смыслю с культурологической точки зрения, и могу рассуждать только как обыватель) мне указали на главную его “проблему”: исчезновение истинной массовости, голосов поколений и книг, которые знают и любят все.
Тогда я просто отмахнулся, мол, даже, если и так, то это только потому, что большую часть слушателей, зрителей и им подобных просто стало сложнее посчитать: отрывки из песен теперь известны миллионам, хотя они никогда не соберутся на одном стадионе, как раньше. И вообще, к делу это тогда не относилось: ведь аудитория не очень-то подвластна автору.
Но одна статья натолкнула на мысль, что все не так просто.
Автор колонки выдвинул тезис, что создание образа “великих деятелей культуры” и его распространение — часть защиты национальных границ не менее важная для государства, чем границы физические.
И вот с этого ракурса исчезновение единых кумиров — следствие куда более значительных изменений в обществе на рубеже ХХ-ХХI веков. У людей не просто появился выбор, какой контент потреблять, но и ослабло влияние государства и общества на этот выбор путем отбора и выдвижения авторов. Мысль, если подумать, очевидная, но до меня дошло только сейчас.
И это ведь круто: разнообразие идей и мнений и свобода объединения вокруг них, если они не призывают вредить людям — отличная вещь, важный признак информационного общества.
Дай Ктулху, чтобы этого по миру становилось больше, а не меньше.
P.S.
1. С другой стороны, больше мнений — больше срачей, и преимущество опять начинают получать идеи, которые сплачивают вокруг себя сторонников (ака плоскоземельщики), пока остальные ругаются между собой.
Но прогресс — всегда покупка невиданных возможностей за сложные проблемы и новые страхи. От этого никуда не денешься, и рано или поздно привыкаешь.
2. Это не относится к проблеме последних двух (пяти) лет — контенту, который тебя вовлекает и становится известен просто потому, что его много, но не позволяет создать какой-то общности (например, брейн-рот). Как отключиться от такого “коллективного разума” я не знаю. Но могу дать ссылку на Кита.
A groundbreaking psychology study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General surveyed nearly 6,000 participants across diverse countries—including the US, China, South Korea, Germany, India, South Africa, and Chile—from 2018 to 2022. Researchers asked people to rate personalities of those they viewed as “cool” versus “not cool” or simply “good.” Surprisingly, perceptions of…
If you have these six traits, you are a 'universally cool’ person
Anarchists and other radicals have always opposed neoliberalism and neoliberal globalization. Older readers will remember us shutting down summits in Seattle and Prague, getting shot in Gothenburg and Genoa, taking over the City of London on J18, and continuing to protest long into the 2000s. After the 2008 economic crash, people have gradually realised that we were right (without of course admitting it). Even the right is anti-neoliberal nowadays. And yet the economy is still run along neoliberal lines – whether people vote for leftists like Syriza and Lula, or anti-globalist rightists like Trump. So much for democracy.
Image from here.
This article from political scientists deals with a theme which has become prominent in this particular journal – the leading American outlet for the subject-area. The authors examine whether globalization (taken loosely to mean neoliberalism) undermined governance capacity in democratic states (i.e. the state’s capacity to do things) and helped generate a political backlash against globalization itself. They ask why governments were relatively slow to respond to rising public discontent and how the policy environment shaped the backlash.
To answer this question, they argue that policymakers in “advanced democracies” (i.e. the global North) operated under a strong neoliberal consensus that prioritized market liberalization and reduced state intervention. This ideological commitment constrained governments’ willingness and ability to respond to the negative local effects of globalization (such as loss of safety nets, adjustment assistance, and legal concessions). In practical terms, rulers were obdurate against calls to significantly alter trade policies or expand social protections in response to popular concerns.
The institutions built in the 1990s-2000s also played a role in locking-in neoliberalism (as they were probably intended to). Participation in rules-based international trade regimes (e.g., WTO and associated agreements) limited the range of domestic policy options available to national governments. These constraints made it harder for states to tailor economic responses to local needs without risking disputes or sanctions under international commitments. In effect, the transnational political class disciplined each of its national fractions in alliance with transnational capital.
The combination of public economic anxiety and limited policy responses created fertile ground for anti-globalization “political entrepreneurs” (people who look to profit by exploiting political opportunities).Populist, protectionist, and nationalist movements capitalized on discontent, pushing for policy changes that challenged globalization’s core features (e.g., trade restrictions, immigration limits).
The authors argue that globalization did help spur a political backlash, not directly because globalization alone caused universal harm, but because of de-democratising effects. Neoliberal governance choices constrained state responses to the social and economic costs of globalization, andinternational rules reduced domestic policy maneuverability, leaving affected populations feeling overlooked. This combination undermined confidence in traditional governance approaches and helped fuel anti-globalization sentiment. In other words, rulers claiming democratic legitimacy while enacting tyrannical, anti-popular economic policies could not avoid perceptions of illegitimacy indefinitely. No surprise there.
What it means for radicals: We’ve been proven right about “globalization”, as we always expected. The idiots who opposed us in the 1990s-2000s ought to be reconsidering our positions. But mostly they aren’t. On the other hand, it is highly disturbing that our being proven right has benefited not our movements (where these even exist today), but some of our worst political enemies. Logically, there should by now be a massive groundswell around the anti-globalization movement, paralysing states and bringing down regimes. Instead there is almost no movement today. And when something one would expect to happen does not happen, an empirical researcher will always look for the obstacles and the factors they hadn’t already taken into account.
The waters are further muddied by supposed radicals today who embrace neoliberalism, Third Way policies, cybernetic views of relationality, and so on, often because these are believed to correspond to moral improvement or the interests of positionally oppressed groups. These moves – even among anarchists – are tied to people’s career interests and conditioned myopia, not to understandings of sensuous reality. They have often associated radical views with a vapid ethical cosmopolitanism and “strategic” exploitation of neoliberal systems, with very little sense of socioeconomic antagonism. Worse, these people blame right-populism solely on reactionary forces, and do not appeal to people disenchanted with globalization. This has been a huge strategic faux pas – and likely is a result of a different strand of political entrepreneurship aimed at personal career advancement for those involved.
This doesn’t explain why people have not turned to grassroots radicalism instead of the far-right or elected populist rulers. The repressive environment, police-states, and constant propaganda campaigns form part of the picture here; radicals are easier to slur and cancel than are millionaire political entrepreneurs. However, the normie tendency to want “strong” rulers to do something for them – instead of doing it themselves – is also crucial. Normies believe in spooks and have irrational aversions to taking socially-tabooed actions. This is what makes them vulnerable to political entrepreneurs.
For radical change to happen, either normies will have to grow brains for the first time, or other people will have to do it without them.
Saw some old, very optimistic ideas about a solarpunk utopian future of renewable energy and living in harmony with nature and a moneyless socialist society of people only working in tasks that they like. It seems a bit mean to rain on the parade, so I am not reblogging it to say this…
But this feels like it’s obviously a dream built on a whole lot of offscreen misery and offshoring-type NIMBYism and slavery/third world impoverishment. Who’s manufacturing these solar panels and wind turbines? Who’s doing the actual work of society, managing sewage and growing food and making the paint, etc while your multicultural communities of blue-hairs self-actualizes and paints murals?
So many of these dreams, when actually enacted in reality, are at best two-tiered systems with a lot more than a single Omelas Child in misery. Heck, the American Antebellum South was an enactment of a particular dream… for the plantation owners. Obviously it was more of a nightmare for the slaves and impoverished freemen who supported the Planters, who had had never actually planted anything in their lives.
Globalization started with colonialism. Originally, the ideas was for the colonies to produce/extract raw materials for shipping to the colonizers’ homelands, which produced manufactured goods (with their own bountiful underclass) and sold them to the colonies.
However, this production created and increased a middle class and a gradually less poor lower class, which increasingly demanded and eventually got greater formal and semi-formal political power, which they unsurprisingly eventually used to make their labor suck less and pay more, in cash and in benefits. Meanwhile voluntary and even involuntary emigration from Europe to the colonies was continuing in large numbers and the birth rate dropped… resulting in an increasingly tight labor supply that also got more and more expensive for other reasons.
Meanwhile the population in the settler colonies were growing from voluntary and involuntary immigration and robust birth rates. They of course industrialized themselves, benefiting from shorter supply chains and the ability to process local raw materials before export as finished products. The lower cost of living (due to low population density and comparatively high value of labor) meant that even the lowest lived a bit better than their equivalent in Europe and Asia (compare calories per day. How many surviving children a person had is a good measure available through the mists of time and poor record keeping about the poor.)
Globalization is shaping the world we live in—every single day
From global trade and multinational careers to cultural exchange and digital learning, globalization has unlocked unprecedented opportunities. At the same time, it has intensified challenges such as economic inequality, environmental strain, labor exploitation, and the digital divide.
Dive into a detailed exploration of the positive and negative impacts of globalization, real-world country examples, and what the future of a digitally connected global economy means for students, professionals, and policymakers alike.
