Globalization: a theoretical reflection
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and situate globalization within the context of different theoretical perspectives, with a view to developing a theoretical framework for understanding and interpreting this phenomenon.Design/methodology/approach – In the light of historical and empirical evidence, this paper uses the idea of parallax to explore, synthesize and interpret globalization. Evidence is marshalled in order to enable comparative assessments on the merits of the globalized system to take place.Findings – A materialist approach is identified as appropriate for aiding and deepening our understanding of the processes at work. It best captures the complexities and contradictions in the global economy.Originality/value – This paper develops a critique that locates globalization within the process of accumulation and teases out its attendant crises and efforts to restore profitability. The materialist approach developed here may be successfully applied in a holistic manner.
Economics and ‘excess’: implications for understanding and combating climate change
This paper contends that concerns with excess, alongside scarcity, have been present in the work of key analysts in economic thought, from Adam Smith to today's models of 'resource curses'. In the context of climate change, Bataille's vision of the 'accursed share' raises an important issue on how to use 'excess' of human energy without further damaging the physical environment on which human activity depends and the extent to which US decision-making after the Second World War is likely to impact on the attainment of a possible sustainable global order. For him, institutional decisions underpinning global redistribution, known as the Marshall Plan, were a much more rational response to the challenges of that time than the more timid decisions that produced the Bretton Woods institutions. From the 1970s, growing concerns about the impact of human (production) activity on the earth's physical environment, notably climate change, raised these issues anew.
A Study of the Changes Over Time in State Anxiety in a Computer-Assisted Instructional Program
The purposes of this study were to analyze (1) the changes over time in the state anxiety level of children in a computer-assisted program of reading instruction and in classroom reading instruction, (2) the changes in state anxiety patterns as related to gender, achievement level, and ethnicity, and (3) the difference in anxiety levels of the students while in computer-assisted reading instruction and classroom reading instruction.