tion. During the conference, speakers noted that the hopes raised by the end of the Cold War had not been realized in developing nations. There, the majority of people live as they did before 1989. The finance minister of South Africa, Trevor Manuel, was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “The thing about globalization is that, if you blink, you miss it entirely.”17 Mr. Manuel pointed out that even countries such as South Africa, whose policies would seem to pass muster for increased investment by multinational companies, have watched from the sidelines as the rich have become richer.18 George Soros, in attendance in Monterrey, explained. “The trend of globalization is that surplus capital is moving from the periphery countries to the center, which is the United States.”19 The solution to the problem, according to many participants in the conference, is an increase in foreign aid, though not using the same model which existed between rich and poor countries before 1989. Instead of pouring unlimited foreign aid into developing nations or waving the “trade not aid” banner of the 1990s, President Jacques Chirac of France advocated “aid for trade.” “There’s no creation of wealth without the necessary infrastructure,” he stated, “and that infrastructure demands outside aid.”20 While pundits gathered at conferences around the world to consider such questions, our graduates were sending us dayto-day accounts of their experiences with the global phenomenon in the countries where they live and work. We would love to bring them together in Straus some Graduates’ Day in the same manner people with a vested interest in the topic gathered in New York, Porto Alegre, and Monterrey, for their stories were colorful, sometimes troubling, often hilarious. Since that meeting will have to remain a tempting possibility, at least for now, perhaps the time has come to let them weigh in here. What happened when they tried to define globalization, for themselves and for us? As we noted earlier, investment bankers
“ ‘ ’ , , , , , , , . ” — ’ have a clear sense of what globalization means, so we might turn to one of them to begin our discussion. Writing from London, Tara Connolly ’90 offers an excellent description of the business model which lies at the heart of the phenomenon. “Companies are seizing the opportunity to capture incremental revenues by replicating their established business models outside of their home countries or to reduce their cost of production by allocating resources internationally.” Furthermore, as Connolly notes, “Embracing globalization has become a competitive imperative.” Tonia Simmonds Soto ’86, a stay-at-home mother in Puerto Rico, admits that she once thought of globalization as a business model but has since come to think of it more as a state of mind. She feels people have concluded that, if businesses can move freely across borders, seeing themselves as global presences, so can human beings. “I always thought of globalism as a business model, which is what it probably started as, but I’ve frequently heard of regular people here re-locating to the ‘mainland’ for job opportunities. In Jamaica, which I visited recently, many of my peers from high school, who I thought were well established there, have emigrated to the United States for school, a ‘different look,’ or maybe the weather. For all intents and purposes, people seem to be empowered to seek a life elsewhere.” Philip Rand ’57, who has lived in Rome for 30 years, also feels that the business model quickly translates into a way of thinking, but, unlike Soto, he worries that adopting global business practices in a personal manner can lead to viewing all elements of a society through the lens of trade. “The major impulse toward global-
ism probably comes from multinational corporations in search of raw materials, markets and cheap labor,” he writes. “If this assumption is correct, one could easily perceive that globalism conveys the values of these entities: buying and selling as the center of life with all that they involve: persuasion, advertising, a focus on the acquisition and handling of money, the myth of economic growth as essential to the fulfilling of wants and needs, the pressure to educate and evaluate human beings for their productivity. These values suggest the need to place gainful employment at the top of life’s priorities, which has not necessarily been the case, traditionally, in many cultures.” Rand’s inability to discuss globalization without raising cultural issues is one he shares with many of our respondents. David Ketchum ’79, who has spent most of the past 20 years helping companies establish themselves around the world, including opening the first Pizza Hut in Moscow and re-launching Pepsi in postcommunist Poland, realized the cultural implications of his work very quickly. “These business thrusts into new markets also had obvious cultural overtones, and, as intriguing as it was to watch Russians try their first bites of pizza, it struck me then that the spread of international business also functions as a conduit for cultural change.” Like Pico Iyer, Ketchum knows firsthand how American culture has been transmitted by American business. In a witty observation about a career that has shown him many absurdist moments, he writes: “Certain ingredients of Americanism at its ‘molecular’ level, such as sugar water, caf-
7 Milton Magazine