Going Global [Guest Post]

a guest post by Daniel H.

During these past few weeks, we’ve all seen the economy have its ups and downs, and if nothing else, we’ve been reminded of Thomas Friedman’s idea that the world is becoming increasingly flat, (and that our markets are no longer insulated from outside shocks). Another Friedman (Milton) reminds us that this sort of open capitalism, of the laissez-faire variety, promotes political freedom. But does the open market have a darker side, one which undermines the freedoms which come from our communal responsibility to one another?

What I mean by this: If all our money is continually in flux, in markets all over the world, in the U.S., in Asia, in Europe, and elsewhere, who follows our spending habits, who provides checks and balances for how we spend out money, to help us become more fiscally responsible people? Most likely, no one. We are able to spread out our finances, through multiple areas, and create portfolios that are as complex and discreet as we’d like them to be.

And while I do not believe these things to be bad in and of themselves, I put forward this idea to ask a bigger-picture question: What happened to the days when people made some of their financial decisions based on what their community might think? Were they held to a higher degree of fiscal responsibility, more prone to avoid extravagance and more likely to ask for help earlier if financial trouble loomed in the future? I hope that as the world continues to flatten, we might recover some of this neighborly accountability for ourselves, and we might encourage it in our communities. I don’t believe we can slow down this kind of change that I mentioned, this shift towards a flattened, global economy of ever-connected, increasingly anonymous (and perhaps increasingly irresponsible) consumers, though if we can begin to think about it in a different way, we might avoid some of the problems it could deliver.

(image courtesy of WikiMedia)