A Manifesto for Good Globalization: Or, the Manifesto as Method

Abstract

Global relations remain uneven and contested, but the contemporary world is experiencing the highest intensity of globalization in human history. Now, following a global financial crisis, the emergence of local versus global populism, the continuing intensification of global ecological crisis, and the Covid crisis, it is important to reflect on both the positive possibilities and confronting challenges of globalization. This essay examines the complexity of contemporary globalization focusing on questions of what makes for a positive world. A manifesto for sustainable globalization needs to confront the contemporary human condition, ecologically, economically, politically, and culturally. In ecological terms, this means more than setting up carbon-accounting schemes and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In economic terms, it means rethinking the ever-expanding reach of global capitalism, particularly its more rapacious modalities. Politically, though the usual response is to argue for more cosmopolitanism, this has become complicated by the ‘return’ to reactionary forms of localism. And in cultural terms, we need principles for celebrating differences while recognizing rather than overcoming the continuing boundaries of identity and meaning. In these terms, this essay seeks to respond to present challenges and set out a matrix of principles—principles in tension—for living in a complex global world.