Tony, you're talking globaloney.....

In 1992, in the wake of the fall of communism, the American thinker Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the "end of the historical process". We were now all liberal democrats, or becoming so. We were in consequence entering a "post-historical period", he argued, in which the great battles of the past, ideological and otherwise, were effectively over. We came to know soon enough that this thesis, whose vogue was intense but brief, was twaddle. Wars and massacres, a heightened sense of ethnicity, continuing scientific and technological "advances", genetic manipulations, fundamentalist muscle-flexing, ecological changes and all the rest of it have taught us their own lessons. History does not have an "end", in any sense.

Now, a new and equally fashionable thesis is leading us all by the noses: that of "globalisation". It was outlined in all its majesty at the weekend by Tony Blair in Chicago. We live, allegedly, in an essentially new world. It is not, this time, one in which historical evolution has somehow come to an end. Rather, it is one in which the "global" economy, the "global" society, a "global" culture, and "global" citizenship rule the planetary roost. New responsibilities rest on our leaders' shoulders. And new gurus whisper in their ears.

For the ideological father of this thesis, our new Fukuyama, is Professor Anthony Giddens, the Director of the London School of Economics and Mr Blair's favourite intellectual. He has been outlining his theory of globalisation this month as the BBC's Reith lecturer. But the thesis of "globalisation", a mutant form of the "end-of-history" proposition, is, like its predecessor, just twaddle. It is pure globaloney.

National policy decisions, cultural traditions and social conditions remain the important variables in determining a state's economic fortunes. Governments continue, sometimes with justice, to congratulate themselves for making economic choices that are superior to those of their predecessors or neighbours. States must, nevertheless, always be involved in relations wider than their own bounds. Economic autarky and political insulation from other nations are not options. Indeed, they never have been. But governments continue to defend their nations' interests in particularist ways; in democracies they are sacked by their national electorates if they do not.

But what does the thesis of "globalisation" represent? First, it expresses a strong, even apocalyptic, death-wish for the nation-state and the moral order. The nation-state is regarded as basically out of date, having been superseded by "global" forces that dwarf it and which it cannot control. The moral order -- any moral order -- has been overtaken or subsumed by the universal cause of human rights and of individual self-emancipation from restraint. The family, and many other "traditional" social arrangements, are being rendered obsolete under "global" pressures of varying kinds. These institutions are all for the knacker's yard and, so goes the wisdom of the hour, about time too. This is the death-wish.

Secondly, the thesis of "globalisation" provides a cover, or legitimation, for the failures of individual states to tackle their manifold social, economic, ethical and environmental problems. It is highly convenient for some politicians to feel, and to be told, that these problems are beyond their own powers to solve. Thus, if climatic "warming" is "global", as it is, but the individual nation-state is held to be powerless on its own to do anything about it -- say, by reducing its emissions of pollutants and noxious gases -- the burden of obligation can be transposed on to the back of a "global" organisation. By this means practical problem-solving may be postponed sine die. But this is merely another form of moral evasion, in which the global dimension provides a near-perfect alibi for the transference of moral responsibility, and even for entire inaction.

Thirdly, the thesis of "globalisation" is no more than a particular, and limited, construction of reality. A "global" vision is in fact partial and myopic: it sees the wood rather than the trees. It is also a truism. The world is by definition "global", and can be no other. Mercantile and financial greeds, especially, have always been global in their intended purchase. There is nothing new about it today, except in its degree.

Moreover, "global" as the world must be, the sun still rises upon us in the particular place (and nation) where we are. We have, much as before, our exits and our entrances, even if science may interfere. We can change our minds, as we can change -- some of us -- our habitats and habits. But we cannot retrospectively change our particular place of birth, or our particular maternal language, any more than we can change our race, or our colour, or -- despite "gender reassignment" -- our sex.

And only with difficulty can we deny our natural predispositions and talents, our preferences and prejudices, including those in favour of one particular form of local belonging or affiliation over another. The globetrotting politician, banker, tourist, mafioso or intellectual may see, from the air, the global dimension of human existence. But men and women on the ground are confined, and generally secured, by their associations in a particular place and time.

We are not "citizens of the world". We cannot be: the very concept is a contradiction in terms. But then "globalisation", as a theory, is like that. In common with its predecessor, the "end of history", it promises much as an explanatory notion in our dark times, yet, at the last, provides no real illumination at all.