The objectivity of globalization and the inevitability of its development are determined by the objective laws revealed by historical materialism that the relations of production must adapt to the development of productive forces and the superstructure must adapt to the development of economic base.
The development of global social productive forces has reached an unprecedented new height in the history of human economic development, which has generated enormous energy. The release of energy will inevitably break through the boundaries between countries and nations, leading to economic globalization. "Science and technology are the primary productive forces", which is the most dynamic part in the development of productive forces and the source of power for globalization. The level of science and technology determines the scale and speed of globalization.
The great development of global social productive forces, especially science and technology, will inevitably promote the great adjustment of production relations. Ownership form is the basis of production relations, and the change of ownership form in the process of globalization is highlighted in the large amount of investment and merger and acquisition activities of multinational companies. Multinational companies are all joint-stock companies listed on a global scale. Marx believes that joint-stock companies sublate private capital in capitalist mode of production and transform private capital into social capital, which not only socialized production but also socialized capital. This is a transition point of capitalism to a new mode of production. It can be understood that multinational corporations are an advanced production relationship.
The great adjustment of global production relations and the great change of economic base will inevitably require the great adjustment of superstructure. Mainly the economic system in the superstructure, such as economic relations between countries, economic laws and regulations, economic management system, etc. , must also have carried out the corresponding reform.
The great development of science and technology will inevitably promote the great development of productive forces; The great development of productive forces will inevitably promote the great adjustment of production relations; The great adjustment of production relations will inevitably lead to the great adjustment of superstructure. This series of "inevitability" determines that globalization is an inevitable process of human social and economic development.
Economic globalization refers to the long development process that human economic activities break through national and regional boundaries and gradually integrate into the world economy.
Economic globalization is a historical objective process that is independent of human will. Whether people like it or hate it, welcome it or oppose it, it is developing irreversibly and has merged into a huge trend. Countries with different ideologies and different levels of development will participate sooner or later, or actively or passively.
The objectivity of economic globalization and the inevitability of its development are determined by the objective laws revealed by historical materialism that the relations of production must adapt to the development of productive forces and the superstructure must adapt to the development of economic base.
First, the great development of productive forces, especially science and technology, is the source of power for economic globalization.
Historical materialism reveals that relations of production must adapt to the development law of productive forces, which is the eternal law of human social and economic development. The contradiction between productive forces and production relations is one of the basic contradictions in the history of human social development. Among these contradictions, productivity is the most revolutionary and active factor, and it is usually the main aspect of the contradiction.
At present, the development of global productive forces, especially science and technology, has reached an unprecedented new height in the history of human economic development, which has produced enormous energy that cannot be bound by the boundaries between countries and nations, and the release of energy will inevitably lead to economic globalization.
(A) "Science and technology is the primary productive force", which is the most dynamic part in the development of productive forces and the source of power for economic globalization. Because the spread of any scientific and technological achievements is borderless in the long run, it is doomed that economic development is borderless. The development of science and technology is endless, and its great power is not limited to crossing national borders. It has jumped out of the earth and reached space and other planets. Now people are studying the problem of economic globalization, and the future is no longer a hypothesis or a hypothesis, that is, in a certain era of 2 1 century, people will study the problems of economic space and economic interstellar space.
The Chinese nation has a history of 5,000 years of cultural and scientific development, of which more than 4,000 years have been in the leading position in the world. In this long historical period, China's scientific and technological achievements spread all over the world, benefiting all mankind. Of course, it is still because of the low level of science and technology and the extremely slow dissemination speed that many advanced scientific and technological achievements in ancient China have to go through 5? 10 century (see table 1). Nevertheless, China has made outstanding and great contributions to the development of human society and economy. /kloc-In the 7th century, the British philosopher Bacon commented on the compass, movable type printing and gunpowder invented by China in ancient times, saying: These three great inventions have changed the appearance and state of many things in the world, so many changes have taken place that it seems that no empire, any faction or any planet can exert greater power and influence on human affairs than these technological inventions. China was ahead in science and technology and economy in ancient times. According to Japanese scholars' research, until the17th century, China's GDP accounted for 1/4 of the world, which was equivalent to that of the contemporary United States.
Since industrial revolution in europe, the speed of the dissemination of scientific and technological achievements is unmatched at any time in history. The time from invention to introduction or manufacture of modern scientific and technological achievements in China varies from decades to decades (see Table 2).
The great power of science and technology has promoted the rapid development of economy, making the economies of European and American countries and Japan surpass China in a short historical period. Tracing back to the source of the above historical facts, science and technology are the driving force of economic globalization.
(2) The level of science and technology determines the expansion scale of all aspects of economic globalization. The development of contemporary science and technology, especially information technology, especially network technology, has turned the earth into a village with no time and space distance, and enabled people to truly realize the ideal of "winning thousands of miles away in strategic planning".
The level of scientific and technological development determines the scale of financial globalization, trade globalization, investment globalization and production globalization. According to statistics, in 1999, the global stock market value reached $ 30. 18 trillion, which was greater than the global GDP of $ 30. 1 trillion, and the proportion of global stock market value to GDP increased by more than 1 times. 1998, the total import and export volume in the world was 107537 billion USD, an increase of 54% over 1990; 1999, the global cross-border investment was $827 billion, nearly five times that of 1990; 65,438+0,998: 60,000 global multinational companies accounted for 25% of global output, an increase of 7 percentage points over 65,438+0,990; 1999 The global cross-border M&A amount reached US$ 3.4 trillion, 8.5 times that of 1990.
The level of scientific and technological development restricts the scale of optimal allocation of global resources. The internal motive force of the development of economic globalization is to pursue the maximum material and intangible achievements with the minimum consumption of resources, which inevitably requires the optimal allocation of resources. The distribution of quality and quantity of resources in the world is extremely unbalanced. Therefore, it is natural to go out of one's own country and cross other people's borders to obtain the optimal allocation of resources on a global scale. The scale of transnational resource allocation depends on the level of science and technology.
The level of scientific and technological development restricts the economies of scale achieved worldwide. All activities of global socialized mass production always revolve around the goal of achieving high efficiency at low cost. This inner impulse needs to be expanded continuously. When the scale achieved in a region or a country cannot achieve the highest benefit, the scale expansion will inevitably be carried out on a global scale across national boundaries. The depth and breadth of crossing national boundaries are restricted by the level of science and technology.
The level of scientific and technological development restricts the scale and intensity of competition. When the level of science and technology is low, competition can only be carried out within one country or several countries; The level of contemporary science and technology provides a broad stage and powerful means for competitors, which intensifies the intensity of competition. In order to seize the commanding heights of competition and strive to be in an invincible position, competitors are bound to cross national boundaries and launch on a global scale.
(3) The level of scientific and technological development determines the speed of economic globalization. When human beings are in an agricultural society, the development level of agricultural science and technology determines the economic development level of a country and a nation. It takes hundreds of years for a science and technology to be invented and applied. Due to the extremely slow development of science and technology, the economic development is faltering. Some scholars have studied that in the past 1000 years, the annual growth rate of world per capita GDP in the first 500 years was only 0.05%. Europe's economic development took thousands of years, and it didn't surpass China until after the Industrial Revolution.
The spread of modern scientific and technological achievements has been greatly accelerated: 19 century needs 40? 50 years, 30 in the early 20th century? 40 years, the medium-term needs 10 years, and the second half needs about 4? Five years, and in the past 20 years, only 3? Four years. The accelerated spread of scientific and technological achievements has promoted the accelerated development of the economy. In the recent less than 200 years, the annual growth rate of per capita GDP has increased to 1. 17%, which is 23.4 times that of the previous 500 years. In the last ten years, it has increased to 3. 1%, 2.7 times that of the last 200 years.
Contemporary science and technology, especially information technology, especially network technology, seems to be developing at lightning speed. According to statistics, from 65438 to 0999, there are about 90 million computers and 260 million netizens on the Internet, and the annual growth rate will double. In 1999, the number of netizens in China has reached 8.9 million, and the number of websites has reached 15000, which is 4 times and 0/0 times higher than 197 respectively, and it is doubled every six months. If this development continues, China will become one of the largest Internet markets in the world in the new century, which also indicates that China has rapidly integrated into the tide of economic globalization.
Powerful scientific and technological forces have promoted the rapid development of economic globalization. In the 1990s, global transnational investment and transnational mergers and acquisitions grew at an average annual rate of 16.5% and 23.9% respectively. The highest years were 87.5% (1994) and 54.3% (1998) respectively. The annual growth rate of global GDP increased from 2% in the early 1990s to over 3% in the late 1990s, which attracted worldwide attention (see tables 3 and 4).
Second, the global development of productivity, science and technology will inevitably lead to the global adjustment of production relations.
The great development of global social productive forces, especially science and technology, will inevitably promote the global adjustment of production relations.
As we all know, the form of ownership is the basis of production relations. In the process of economic globalization, the transformation of ownership forms is highlighted in the massive investment and M&A activities of multinational corporations. In the process of capitalist development, M&A's activities have been going on continuously, wave after wave. From the development process of socialized mass production, handicraft workshop stage is better than simple cooperation stage, and machine industry stage is better than handicraft workshop stage; From the development process of market economy model, production monopoly stage is better than free competition stage, production internationalization stage is better than production monopoly stage, and globalization stage is better than internationalization stage.
19 At the end of the 20th century, European and American countries started the merger and acquisition activities of monopoly capitalism, which developed mainly through the accumulation and concentration of capital. Since the 1920s, M&A craze has become higher and higher, with larger scale and shorter interval. Through the big fish eat small fish, small fish eat big fish, small fish eat small fish, the horizontal merger between enterprises with the same production and operation has developed into vertical merger between enterprises with the same production and operation, resulting in a number of large enterprises across regions, departments and industries.
Compared with historical mergers and acquisitions, economic globalization has shown remarkable characteristics: first, transnational and transcontinental mergers and acquisitions; The second is the alliance between the strong and the strong; Third, the proportion of knowledge assets and intangible assets is increasing; Fourth, M&A is large in scale, fast in speed and high in frequency.
In the process of economic globalization, governments or people in developed countries have generally formulated merger and acquisition strategies. The so-called "transnational economic nationalization M&A" strategy put forward by the United States expands transnational and transcontinental M&A to Europe, Asia and Latin America, and is scheduled to focus on China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand and Argentina 16 developing countries. The investment M&A strategy of EU is: transnational M&A in the form of enterprise merger, association or acquisition; Outside the alliance, it is to go out of the "alliance gate", take Central and Eastern Europe nearby, explore North and South America in the west, and enter Asia in the east to implement global mergers and acquisitions.
The wave of mergers and acquisitions in economic globalization is getting better every year. According to the statistics of Thomson Financial Securities Data Company, the total amount of global corporate mergers and acquisitions in 1998 was 2.5 trillion US dollars, and it soared to 3.4 trillion US dollars in 1999, a surge of 36% over 1998. In the first half of 1990' s, M&A's activities were mainly concentrated in civil fields such as production and circulation, and expanded to military industry, communication and media in the second half. For example, the merger of French aerospace company Matra and German aerospace company in Europe is an important progress in European economic integration. The newly established aerospace company has an annual turnover of 22 billion euros, ranking first in Europe and third in the world. At the beginning of the new year, AOL and time warner Inc Inc. merged to form a huge Internet and media group. The assets of the new company reached $350 billion, which dwarfed all previous mergers and acquisitions.
Global M&A of multinational corporations seems to be the subjective behavior of decision makers of multinational corporations, but its essence is the change of ownership relations, which is determined by the objective law that production relations must adapt to the development of productive forces, and it is a major adjustment of production relations on a global scale.
Now there are more than 60,000 multinational companies in the world, all of which are joint-stock companies listed on a global scale. So what needs to be further studied is the ownership nature of multinational corporations? Our wisdom is not enough, so we need to consult the ancestors of Marxism. Marx believes that the emergence of joint-stock companies is an inevitable form for the development of productive forces to promote the adjustment of production relations. "Based on socialized mass production and social concentration of means of production and labor, the capital here directly obtains the form of social capital (the capital directly combined by each individual), which is opposite to private capital. As a social enterprise, its enterprises are opposed to private enterprises. That is to abandon private capital within the limits of the capitalist mode of production itself. " "This is the result of the highest development of capitalist production and an inevitable transition point. In order to convert capital into the ownership of producers, it is no longer regarded as the private property of a single separated producer, but as all their property in the same production, which is direct social property. " "The joint-stock system will abandon the capitalist private industry on the basis of the capitalist system itself; The more it expands and invades new production sectors, the more it will destroy private industry to the same extent. " "This is the sublation of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production and a contradiction of self-sublation, which is clearly manifested as a simple transition point to a new mode of production." (1) Here, Marx's "sublation" includes private capital, private enterprise, private property and private industry, and transforms them into social capital, social enterprise, social property and social industry.
After consulting Marx's exposition, can we understand the ownership nature of multinational corporations in this way: the ownership nature of multinational corporations is owned by society and expanded society, not a country or a region, but a global society, and it is a transition point to new production forms. Therefore, multinational corporations are an advanced production relationship.
Third, the global adjustment of production relations will inevitably promote the global adjustment of superstructure.
The development of economic globalization, the great adjustment of production relations and the great change of economic base will inevitably require the great adjustment of superstructure. Superstructure is a complex system, including political system, ideology, economic system, laws and regulations, literature and art, etc. This paper only discusses the changes of economic system that have occurred in practice, such as economic relations between countries, economic management system, economic legal norms and so on.
(1) domestic reform. In order to adapt to economic globalization, many countries have reformed their management systems, especially financial management systems. In the early 1970s, the Bretton Woods system, represented by the dollar, collapsed. Since the mid-1980s, the United States has reformed the financial industry under the guidance of the Chicago School's theory of liberal capitalism. The main goal is to reduce government intervention, relax the strict management of anti-trust law and promote capital flow. From 65438 to 0986, Britain began to implement the banking reform, relaxed the government's control over the financial industry and lifted the restrictions on capital flow, in an attempt to revive London's position as a world financial center. From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, France carried out many financial reforms. Germany carried out many capital market reforms throughout the 1990s. The financial reform in the United States and Europe has also been followed by other continents: Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries and regions in Asia, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania have all taken the steps of financial reform to some extent and actively participated in the trend of economic globalization.
(2) Reform within the African continent. Since 1990s, with the development of economic globalization, the reform of management system has jumped out of the country and started on the African continent. The reform of the European Union is the most perfect in Europe and even in the world. First of all, the establishment of the euro and the European Central Bank indicates that the EU has achieved the effectiveness of integration on the basis of "agricultural convergence" and "customs union", and the liberalization of service trade in the euro zone is more thorough. Secondly, the EU has abolished tariff barriers, which is the largest tariff-free group in the world at present, and the foreign MFN tariff rate has dropped below 3%. In order to stimulate the free flow of capital, the transit inspection of people and goods was also cancelled. These reforms have accelerated the pace of economic globalization in the EU.
NAFTA integration is progressing smoothly, and the US-Canada tariff was completely abolished at 1998; Mexico's average tariff rate dropped to 2. 1%. These achievements set a precedent for the establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
10 the establishment of the ASEAN countries and the south Asian regional association shows that Asia has made great progress in the process of regional integration. The Southern African Development Community was founded in 1992 and consists of 12 countries. At the summit held in 1996, * * signed an agreement to realize trade liberalization within eight years. The West African Economic and Monetary Union has eight member countries, and the internal import tax on agricultural and livestock products has been comprehensively lowered since July1996; 1the second summit held in 1997 decided to reduce the import tariff of industrial products by 60% and strive to reduce it completely as soon as possible. China-Europe Free Trade Area (CEFTA) has six member countries at the beginning of its establishment, and its goal is to establish a tariff-free free free trade area.
(3) Global reform is also proceeding rapidly. OECD is a worldwide organization spanning Europe, America, Asia and Oceania. The 29 member countries participating in the organization unanimously decided to actively promote investment liberalization on a global scale. Loose organizations such as Asia-Europe Meeting, Transatlantic Free Trade and G-24 have strengthened the dialogue on economic integration and liberalization. APEC spans three continents: Asia, the United States and the ocean, and has made substantial progress in the field of trade and investment liberalization. Its goal is to eliminate all kinds of tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers in developed countries in 20 10 and all kinds of tariff barriers in developing countries in 2020; The ninth and tenth ministerial meetings of the organization decided to start tariff reduction and exemption in nine industries, including environmental protection products and services, fishery products, forestry products, medical devices, telecommunications, energy, toys, jewelry and chemical products, in order to realize trade liberalization ahead of schedule; The 9th and 10th Ministerial Conferences also suggested that countries should prepare for the early liberalization of six industries, including food, rubber, fertilizer, automobile, civil aircraft and oilseed products. In addition, ministers of many countries have also announced unilateral tariff reduction measures. In this way, from 1989 to 1996, the average tariff of APEC decreased from 15.4% to 9. 1%.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the largest and most extensive economic organization in the world today. 130 More than 30 countries and regions have joined the organization, and it has been praised as the economic United Nations by the world. The main functions of the organization are: (1) to formulate international economic and trade rules and supervise their implementation; (2) Organizing member countries to open their markets; (3) Establish a mechanism for coordinating and resolving economic and trade disputes among members. It can be seen that the WTO is the organizer, executor, supervisor and referee of economic globalization. The World Economic and Trade Organization is the inevitable product of the development of economic globalization, and its appearance and work will inevitably promote the development of economic globalization.
Fourth, the inevitability of globalization and the instability and instability of development.
The great development of global science and technology will inevitably promote the great development of global productivity. The great adjustment of global production relations and the great change of economic base will inevitably lead to the great adjustment of global superstructure. This series of "inevitability" determines that economic globalization is an inevitable process of human social and economic development. This is the inevitable logic for us to understand economic globalization.
However, globalization is a historical development trend, not a ripe fruit that can be easily obtained. It is undeniable that contemporary economic globalization is dominated by global capitalism. Therefore, in the process of economic globalization, the inherent contradictions of capitalism are also inseparable. Regardless of ideological contradictions, from a macro perspective, there are contradictions between developed countries and developing countries, contradictions between developed countries and contradictions between developing countries. Microscopically, there are contradictions between capital and labor, between poverty and wealth, between blindness and planning, between undermining speculation and economic stability, and so on. These contradictions show that the road of economic globalization is tortuous and rugged. When the contradiction is sharp, economic globalization develops slowly, and even temporarily stagnates; When contradictions ease, economic globalization develops rapidly. No matter in what state, the historical trend of economic globalization is inevitable and unchangeable.
Freedom is the necessity of being recognized. Recognizing the inevitability of economic globalization means that we have more freedom in the general trend of economic globalization. A country and a nation can only master and apply the laws of economic globalization and serve their own and national interests, but cannot and should not prevent and restrict the development of economic globalization.
Namely economic globalization.