For a mental image that instinctively breeds mistrust, imagine the twenty most powerful businessmen and women of a small town holding a behind-closed-doors meeting in order to facilitate better economic and political control over the already dominated population. Despite the professed altruism behind some of the closeted discussions, this scenario is an accurate microcosm for what the G20 represents at a global level—at least on face value. It is therefore unsurprising that the G20 attracts such visceral and persistent protests in response to its annual conventions. These protests will once again materialize at the end of this week, as the G20 convenes in Brisbane, Australia.
The central theme to the protests will be, as it has been historically, an opposition to the lack of transparency, the lack of democratic representation, the oligarchical control over international politics, and the plutocratic self-fulfillment of the member states. Based on the structure and nature of the G20, this represents a valid set of grievances. However, and similarly predictable based on recent history, the converging protest movements will undoubtedly attach themselves to the much repeated claim that increased rates of globalization, as a perceived by-product of these summits, produce ever-increasing levels of global economic inequality—thereby inflicting further suffering upon already impoverished societies. This is a statistical misunderstanding.
The first difficulty with this claim is conceptual. Ubiquitous now in casual discourse, the terms “globalization” and “inequality” tend to be internalized as singular, straight-forward principles—in reality they are far from it.
Distinct from internationalization, globalization is a relatively modern phenomenon. It is a term that encapsulates not just a multi-dimensional shrinking of the globe, but also a weakening of state authority, a predominance of the global market, the free flow of capital, a practical realization of theoretical liberalization; and the normative underpinning for a range of desires, attitudes, expectations, and trepidations.
