Forests - Environmental Transformations - page 86

increasing amounts of goods are being purchased
and used in countries that are a long way from
the places in which they were grown or made. A
final, if often obscured, aspect of economic
globalization is the ease and speed with which
financial transactions can now travel around the
planet. The financial dimension of globalization
is critical as it enables large sums of money to be
drawn together and invested into the economic
ventures that drive the aforementioned processes
of production and consumption (see Harvey,
2006). But globalization is not merely a set of
economic processes; it is also inherently political
(see Stiglitz, 2002). A series of international
organizations have been formed in order to oversee
and regulate the economic globalization process.
These organizations include the World Trade
Organization (which regulates international
trade), the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank (which provide financial support and
investment for countries in order for them
participate in the global market place).
So it is possible to identify the presence of
globalization on the basis of globalized forms
of economic activity and related global political
institutions. But these identifying markers of
globalization tell us very little about why globaliza-
tion exists. In many respects, globalization is the
outcome of an international community that is
dedicated to market-oriented forms of society.
Market-oriented societies are based on the
assumption that the free market place is simul-
taneously the most efficient way of producing and
circulating goods and of preserving personal
freedom (see Hayek, 1960; Friedman, 1982). In the
first instance, those who advocate market-oriented
forms of social organization claim that it is the
most effective way to ensure that people get
what they want, in the quantities that they want
it, and at the most reasonable price. The reason
for this, it is claimed, is that in a free market
place entrepreneurs are given the necessary free-
doms to follow their profit-making instincts by
making products that consumers appear to prefer.
Furthermore, because they are competing with

other producers within the market place, such
entrepreneurs have a clear incentive to search for
innovative ways to produce better goods at lower
prices. In the second instance, the market place is
seen as a place within which personal freedom can
be preserved. As long as market exchange is
voluntary (which, as we will see later, is often not
the case), it can enable effective social coordination
without requiring oppressive forms of coercion
(Friedman, 1982: 13). In a market-oriented society,
consumers can choose which goods they wish to
buy from who, and who they wish to sell their
labour to in the workplace. If they are unhappy
with the goods they buy, or the conditions of their
work, they can choose to shop and work elsewhere
(or at least it is argued so).
The expanded economic freedoms associated
with globalization support these market-based
visions of society in important ways. First,
globalization can be seen to increase the field of
competition of those making and supply goods and
services to consumers (although this is not always
the case, see Box 5.2 on Joseph Stiglitz below).
Second, globalization expands the market place
within which successful entrepreneurs can sell
their products and services. Third, globalization
makes it easier for investment to flow to successful
economic enterprises in diverse geographical
locations, which makes it easier for enterprises to
grow.

5.3.2 The multinational corporation
If globalization embodies an increasingly signifi-
cant way of organizing economic life in the twenty-
first century, there is one type of organization with
which it is particularly synonymous: the multi-
national corporation. Multinational corporations
(hereafter MNCs) come in a range of forms and
sizes, but they have one thing in common. What
connects MNCs is their ability to organize their
economic activity at an international scale, and to
be able to move these activities between a range of
different countries. The geographical flexibility of
MNCs provides them with significant economic