Disorder and Public Concern Around Globalization

Conclusion

Es el mejor de los buenos Quien sabe que en esta vida Todo es cuestión de medida

Antonio Machado Campos de Castilla, Proverbio y Cantares (1912)

Curiously, both economists who are confident in the effectiveness of freed markets and sociologists who forecast an impending end to capitalism seem to share a similar vision of the future world. For both, new technologies would create conditions for the existence of a society composed of free and anonymous individuals, who are at the same time consumers and producers. In this virtual world, consumers representing standard economic theory would be as comfortable with it as independent producers dispensed from wage chains. Central currency and large banks would disappear in favor of local currencies and participatory financing, a curious reminiscence of the monetary and financial neutrality assumed or claimed by this standard theory.

Only the issue of growth would remain open to discussion. Some think that it is time to abandon it and that in any case its sources have dried up, since the new technological revolution does not have the same virtues as those that preceded it. Others believe in a new less turbulent growth, one that is more friendly to people and environment, made possible by the properties of this digital economy. In either case, history has come to an end and technology would dictate its law. The fate of each is drawn. A predetermined and sacred future would command the present. It would be impossible to derogate ...