What is informatization and globalization?

Informatization refers to the historical process of cultivating and developing new productive forces represented by computer-based intelligent tools and making them benefit society. (Intelligent tools are also called information-based production tools. They generally must have the functions of information acquisition, information transmission, information processing, information regeneration, and information utilization.) The productivity that is compatible with intelligent tools is called information productivity. The difference between intelligent production tools and production tools in the past productivity is that it is not an isolated and scattered thing, but a large-scale, top-down, organized information network system. This networked production tool will change people's production methods, working methods, learning methods, communication methods, lifestyles, thinking methods, etc., and will bring extremely profound changes to human society.

Informatization productivity is the most advanced productivity of mankind so far. It requires advanced production relations and superstructure to adapt to it. All production relations and superstructures that are not suitable for productivity will change accordingly. The complete connotation of informatization includes the following four aspects: (1) Information network system, including information resources, various information systems, public communication network platforms, etc. (2) Information industry foundation, including information science and technology research and development, information equipment manufacturing, information consulting services, etc. (3) Social operating environment, including production relations and superstructure such as modern industry and agriculture, management systems, policies and laws, rules and regulations, culture and education, and moral concepts. (4) The process of utility accumulation, including the quality of workers, the level of national modernization, the continuous improvement of people’s quality of life, and the continuous progress of spiritual and material civilization construction, etc.

The concept of informatization originated in Japan in the 1960s. It was first proposed by a Japanese scholar and then translated into English and spread to the West. Western societies generally use the terms "information society" and "informatization". "The concept only started in the late 1970s.

Concerning the expression of informatization, there have been long-term discussions within the Chinese academic community and government. For example, some believe that informatization is the modernization of computers, communications and network technologies; some believe that informatization is the development process of transforming from a society dominated by material production to a society dominated by the information industry; some believe that informatization It is the process of evolution from industrial society to information society, and so on.

The First National Informatization Work Conference held in 1997 defined informatization and national informatization as: "Informatization refers to cultivating, developing and benefiting new productive forces represented by intelligent tools. The historical process of society. National informatization is the application of modern information technology in all aspects of agriculture, industry, science and technology, national defense and social life under the unified planning and organization of the country, in-depth development and extensive use of information resources, and acceleration of the process of national modernization. "To achieve informatization, we need to build and improve national informatization with six elements (developing and utilizing information resources, building national information networks, promoting the application of information technology, developing information technology and industry, cultivating informatization talents, and formulating and improving informatization policies). system.

Globalization is a inflammatory word. Advocates envision that it will bring unprecedented progress and prosperity to the entire world; critics assert that it will bring poverty, war, and even cultural genocide to developing countries. What is globalization? Are we really experiencing unprecedented globalization? What has globalization brought us in the past?

What is globalization?

Globalization is a process that refers to the flow of material and spiritual products that breaks through the constraints of regional and national boundaries and affects life in every corner of the earth. Globalization also includes the movement of people across national borders. The flow of people is the highest degree of synthesis of material and spiritual flow.

Scientific and technological progress is the driving force behind all social changes, and progress in transportation and communication technology is the backbone of globalization. The advancement of transportation promotes the globalization of people and material products, and the advancement of communication promotes the globalization of spiritual products. Of course, the roles of the two types of technologies are often inseparable. The Internet can mobilize capital, and ships can also spread spirit.

Putting aside the factor of technological progress, globalization is the globalization of capital, and it is also the globalization of the "ism" of capital, that is, the globalization of profit supremacy - Marx discussed it 150 years ago the nature of globalization. Except during times of war, capital is frantically chasing profits around the world, 24 hours a day, and never tires. Therefore, globalization so far is reflected in the expansion of the market economic system around the world. All other aspects of globalization, including the international communist movement, are derived from the globalization of capital. If the expansion of world markets is inevitable, so is globalization. Since globalization affects life in every corner of the earth, people certainly want to have their own clear stand. The complexity of globalization lies in the fact that different things can produce different results in different spaces and at different times. There are infinitely many variables in these four categories. Since people cannot predict all variables, they have to rely on ideology to determine their position.

For many of its supporters, globalization is an ideology based on the ideal of world unity. Supporting globalization means respecting the "laws of the market" and following the trend of history. For its many opponents, anti-globalization is an ideology based on the ideal of an equal world. Anti-globalization means opposing the widening gap between rich and poor and opposing hegemony. Ideological tendencies are human nature and an important driving force for human progress.

However, the author does not want to talk about ideology here, but only wants to discuss the matter.

Are we experiencing unprecedented globalization?

Is globalization in the “sun never sets” era of empire inferior to that of the American era? If McDonald's and KFC can reflect globalization, Chinese restaurants have appeared all over the world in the last century, and their popularity today is far beyond that of American fast food. I suspect that today's globalization is exaggerated by the rapidly expanding "press world".

The current globalization is mainly caused by the rapid progress of communication technology, and transportation technology has not made leaps and bounds. From the second half of the 19th century to the early 20th century, transportation technology represented by ships, railways, automobiles, and airplanes experienced a qualitative leap, and the international exchange of people and materials increased exponentially. At that time, immigration was easy, entry management was not strict, and passports were optional. It was at that time that America began to be filled with immigrants. It was then that the Chinese began to wear Western-style clothes, use Western-style pen and ink, carry foreign guns, live in foreign houses, use foreign fire, make foreign tacks, and travel to Southeast Asia, explore the West, and travel to other countries. Oriental.

Even with regard to capital flows, I’m afraid it may not be that far off from the old times. 100 years ago, many Chinese people deposited, withdrew and borrowed money in banks run by foreigners. The currency at that time was freely convertible. Capital export was regarded by Lenin as one of the main features of traditional imperialism. It is said that today's globalization is reflected in the flow of "financial capital" on an astonishing scale. Every day, more than 1 trillion U.S. dollars are gambled and speculated in the world's financial markets, and global "hot money" reaches 400 trillion U.S. dollars every year. But what does that mean? Today's international trade volume is only 8 trillion US dollars. Can international financial gambling affect life in every corner of the earth? Capital is one of the three elements of the economy, and its fundamental significance is to promote the efficiency of the combination of labor and means of production. However, how much efficiency does the "capital" used for international gambling promote? The backbone of globalization is industrial and commercial capital, not "gambling capital."

The use of electricity, the rise of broadcasting, the emergence of telephones, the popularization of news and publishing, and even the later television era. The significance of any of the above-mentioned communication technology advancements is not necessarily less than that of the Internet. Therefore, the degree of globalization of spiritual products in the past was no less than today, and the diversification of spiritual products was no less than today. Otherwise, how could democratic ideas, communist ideas, and even various other ideologies spread throughout the world in the 19th and 20th centuries? In addition to huge amounts of "financial capital," today's globalization is said to be reflected in the booming popularity of the Internet. The Internet makes information transmission fast and convenient. But possessing information and possessing knowledge are obviously not the same thing, and an increase in the amount of information may not necessarily increase the diversity of ideas. Americans today are no more diverse in outlook than they were during the Vietnam War, and they are no more diverse than in India. The concepts of China’s intelligentsia today are not even necessarily more diverse than those of the Warring States Period 2,300 years ago. Compared to today’s universities, wasn’t Peking University in the 1920s much more ideologically diverse? Of course, Chinese people have more diversified ideas now than they did 20 years ago, but that is not the result of the Internet.

The two world wars plus the Cold War lasted for 80 years, cutting off the world's globalization process and making the international exchanges that began to resume after the Cold War seem sudden and novel. I am not a historian, but I would not be surprised if some historian told me that in the last century and early part of the last century, the international exchange of people, materials, capital, and spirits was greater than it is today.

Of course, I did not say that future globalization will not exceed past globalization.

What does globalization bring?

Whether we are in the midst of an unprecedented globalization process or not, past experience is instructive. The historical experience of globalization can be divided into four major categories: moral issues; income issues; convergence and divergence issues; internationalism and nationalism issues. The following four characteristics of globalization correspond to these four problems.

1． Globalization that lacks the rule of law and morality. Marketization within any country matures as the legal environment gradually matures. International marketization is not carried out under the rule of law, so it cannot be "mature". As long as there is no world government, the so-called legalization of the international market is simply impossible. When legislation, judiciary and law enforcement are all under one roof, only idealists can hope for fairness, and only those countries that are most capable of profiting from injustice can talk about how fair the international order is. Without a global government based on the rule of law, the so-called "global governance" cannot be governance that embodies international justice.

2． The globalization of national gains and losses cannot be predicted. It is difficult to talk abstractly about the conditions for gaining or losing from globalization. Strong countries, weak countries, big countries, and small countries may all benefit, and they may all suffer losses. Traditional China was defeated by globalization, but it also rose rapidly from globalization. The British Empire rose from globalization and also declined from globalization. At present, although the United States has always been the biggest beneficiary of globalization, it is showing a tendency to be indifferent to globalization because the United States is beginning to feel the costs.

3. Globalization that stimulates the pursuit of difference. The "convergence" caused by globalization is shallow, but the "difference" caused by globalization is profound. The pursuit of difference is the most profound feature of the era of globalization. There is nothing human about globalized capital. It brings about drastic social changes and stimulates the rise of various ideologies. It is also bound to be accompanied by fierce conflicts between social groups, ideologies and even nation-states.

Globalization in the past brought prosperity and progress, as well as great revolutions, civil wars, and "world wars."

4. Promote nationalism and the globalization of national boundaries. There is no doubt that all forms of internationalism in modern times have emerged from globalization. However, globalization has brought about stronger nationalism, brought about passports and customs, brought about barriers to personnel exchanges, brought about "sacred and inviolable" national boundaries, brought about more advanced weapons and more powerful of national defense. In past globalizations, it was not internationalism that won, but nationalism, especially nationalism. Today we see the rise of the doctrine of the "United States of Europe", the use of a European currency, the consolidation of European borders, the establishment of European customs, and the unification of European defense. What spurred this new “Western European nationalism”? The United States, Japan, Western Europe...which one is still talking about internationalism? When people have extended the battlefield of border security to outer space, who can say that globalization will eliminate national borders? Once upon a time, the Olympics and the World Cup, which were established for universal joy, actually became the arena of national competition. Competition between countries even became the capital of competition within nation-states.

Conclusion

For the sake of "economic benefits", people have moved from the vast, scattered and self-sufficient villages into the city. They live densely together, close at hand, and depend on each other, but they can only survive by calculating, competing, and striving against each other. The people in the city look the same, but everyone is pursuing difference from the bottom of their hearts. Only difference can stand out in the competition for survival. Brutal market competition has gradually turned more and more "villagers" into people who lack a sense of morality and a sense of justice. They worship all the "civilization" brought by capital, or simply worship capital itself. It is easy to forget that the lives of poor people in Afghanistan are equal to those in the World Trade Center. They would light candles in memory of the more than 2,000 "civilized" lives in New York, but they would never think of burning a stick of incense for the more than 4,000 "barbaric" martyrs in Afghanistan. Human beings can blatantly claim that selfishness and predatory behavior are part of their nature and can lead to "the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people." Such humans have no choice but to replace the fences that separate homes with steel security doors, and replace the elders who mediate neighborhood disputes with police armed to the teeth. When the poor and vast global village turns into a prosperous and small global city, each "national interest" will naturally become the highest criterion of international relations, and force will naturally become the prerequisite for security and order

When internationalization begins to trend In referring to such a process, today's globalization is used to distinguish a series of trends, many of which became particularly prominent after World War II. They include:

Growth in the number of common standards worldwide, such as copyright law

International trade is growing faster than the world economy

< p>The growth of shares in the world economy controlled by multinational corporations

The development of the global financial system

More international cultural influence, for example through the export of Hollywood films

The decrease in cultural diversity

The development of international tourism

The increasing number of shared information resources through technologies such as the Internet and telephone

Growth in immigration, including illegal immigration

Many trends are viewed as positive by various pro-globalization groups, and in many cases globalization is favored by governments and others. Promote actively. For example, there is this economic theory: Comparative advantage allows free trade to make resource allocation more efficient and beneficial to both parties involved in trade.

After World War II, barriers to international trade have been significantly reduced through many international organizations such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In particular, the World Trade Organization, which evolved from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade:

Promote free trade

Goods: reduce or eliminate tariffs; establish free trade areas to reduce tariffs

Funding: Reduce or eliminate capital controls (funding controls will affect trade development)

Reduce and eliminate subsidies and subsidies to local industries (to achieve fair trade)

Intellectual Property Rights Protection

Harmonization of IP laws between countries (usually by adding more restrictions)

Recognition of IP restrictions across national borders (e.g. patents granted in China Can be recognized in the United States)

There are also many anti-globalization movements that believe these are harmful.

Globalization in Questioning

There are still academic discussions on whether globalization is a real phenomenon or just a theory. Although the term has become widely used, some scholars argue that the phenomenon occurred in other historical periods. In addition, many people have noticed that the phenomena that lead us to believe that we are in a process of globalization, such as the growth of international trade and the increasingly important role of multinational corporations, were not planned when they were first established. . Therefore, many scholars prefer to use "internationalization" instead of "globalization". Simply put, the difference between them is that the role of the state is more important in internationalization. In other words, globalization is deeper than internationalization.

Therefore, these scholars believe that national borders are far from disappearing, and therefore, complete globalization has not yet begun, and may not begin—from a historical perspective, internationalization has never become global.