Epilogue

Abstract

The previous chapter showed that the world is filled with enforcement mechanisms. Those that accompany globalization create a systemic bias in the world economy, which makes it relatively easy for Third World states to comply with neoliberal norms but renders defiance difficult. Consequently, more states will comply than resist. This, in turn, means that more and more economies will be integrated into the neoliberal world economy, and all those indicators that scholars have found to be a mark of globalization increase in their numeric value: There will be greater volumes of cross-border communication, greater mobility of capital, and stronger flows of goods from country to country. At the same time, large parts of the world population find themselves incapable of shaping their institutional surroundings and subjected to rules that were not of their making. As much as we privileged First World citizens greet the ability to communicate with distant peers, download music at the push of a button, or upload our life’s story to Facebook, and as much as we appreciate that computing technology eases workflows in Third World countries, we should also recognize that the IT revolution has had a darker, crippling side.