The problems now facing the planet, in addition to being interconnected between them, are several times the complication of the problems and their nature (e.g. Covid-19 pandemic) which make it compulsory to cooperate if not of the whole but of most of the planet.
So, just as the problems and their resolution need global cooperation, the opportunities presented are also of a global nature and require global cooperation. In other words, the globalisation of politics is inevitable a one-way street given that some politicians want to delay it.
The development of technology and how it ‘abolishes’ the national state
The structures of the national states were developed at times when the movement of people, goods, capital and information was a difficult and very costly affair. Over the last forty years or so, the rapid development of technology that is becoming increasingly accessible by the ordinary citizen has changed and is constantly changing the reality.
Overseas air travel is now affordable both in terms of timesaving and cost-saving, for example, to get from Europe to America in the early 20th century, it took a month of travel and the cost was prohibitive. Today the same trip requires eight hours and €380.
It is therefore the booming development of technology that globalizes everything and of course makes migration, along with the use of plastic boats (technological effect), cheaper both at cost and time.
Of course, in this global context, there will always be those who will react, and reality will always transcend them. Usually the ones who react are the politicians and the politics they express. In the early 1990s, when the transfer of funds without hindrance began to take place, there were politicians who closed their country’s borders against free capital movements developments.
All they managed was for their countries to wither economically and prosper the states neighbouring these countries, and until other politicians came to executive power to accept those developments (their countries’ participation in the free movement of capital).
The same is happening today in the field of information and communication where we have China imposing suffocating control on the internet and its use while excluding technological giants. But this suffocating control imposed by China on the internet has turned against China with the spread and dispersal of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic.
We see, therefore, that the booming development of technology causes constant reversals in production, work and society in general, creating in all fields of society and life a constant shock of all existing and stagnant situations, through a constant fuelled uncertainty and movement.
The evolution of technology manages to dissolve all solid and rusty representations and perceptions by replacing them with new ones that before they can be established in society in a short time they are replaced with new ones.
The reaction of the politics
In the face of this global and irreversible phenomenon, the reaction of politics is awkward and knee-jerk. On the one hand we have the surge of the national state, which until a few decades ago decided on everything but also on the way of life of its citizens, and on the other hand there is the pressure exerted by the voters of the ruling parties who fear change and the new one that is now coming with increased speed due to the rapid evolution of technology.
These findings, which appear in the material production process, therefore, also appear in the intellectual production process. The products of the intellect (spirit) of the individual states become common property. National unilateralism and national restriction are becoming weaker and the national and local status equally are now moving to the global status.
But what is that phenomenon that leads to the rapid evolution of society through the rapid evolution of technology in which politics reacts awkwardly and convulsively?
The ‘liberal bourgeoisie’ phenomenon
The one and only phenomenon responsible for the evolution of society, technology and humanity in general is the bourgeoisie of liberal societies. It is the specific bourgeoisie that invests continuously to rapidly improve all production tools, to develop technology, to facilitate communications. It is this bourgeoisie that draws civilization forward and draws in its culture all the most barbaric nations.
The “artillery” of the liberal bourgeoisie is the cheap prices of its goods that tear down all the tax walls and forces the hatred of all those against foreigners to be subdued. It is the liberal bourgeoisie that forces all states to accept the urban way of producing if they want to survive, also becoming bourgeois and adopting the way of life called culture/civilization.
The roots of the bourgeoisie, which nourish the liberal bourgeoisie, are the deep social process based on people’s primal desire to improve their personal lives and social status and includes as a means of progressing and at the same time using technology.
Every person on this planet will use every available technology to gain something even more – whether this technology used is tractor and artificial intelligence to make arable land more productive or is the use of electronic technology to buy securities (shares, bonds, etc.).
All the policies promised by politicians entrenched in the “borders” of their national state have failed to break these developments. Their failure and subsequent disappearance from the political arena lie in the fact that they initially promise things by creating expectations that in the end they cannot satisfy.
Today we are experiencing the step-by-step globalisation of politics, whether it is achieved in the form of global agreements or in the form of global coordination (not always successful) to tackle global problems such as global warming, the Covid-19 pandemic, etc.
Despite any setbacks there can be no overall withdrawal into globalisation in both politics and societies. The problems facing humanity and the planet in general do not allow it.
