摘要：Globalisation is a term that has become fashionable since the 1980s when it began to replace words like `internationalisation' and `transnationalisation' as a suitable term to denote the ever intensifying networks of cross border interaction in all areas of human activity: social, political, cultural, financial and economic. The concept covers an enormous variety of contemporary social change the connections between which are not yet clear. We must be careful not to confuse `globalisation' with the integration of real territorial economies. If we measure the integration of real economies for example by the amount of goods and services that cross frontiers as a percentage of all goods and services that are produced world wide, then it may come as a surprise to learn that the peak year for such world integration of real economies, was the year 1913 when that percentage (the export ratio of production) reached 33%.1 Today, after a long decline that continued till 1990, it is only just back up to 31%.2 Nor must we confuse globalisation with the integration of real economies world-wide. While globalisation has proceeded in the last few decades, the geographical reach of world capitalism has actually receded. For example if we take as an indicator of global reach the percentage share of all five continents in world trade, then we find that the percentage share of two continents, Latin America and Africa, in world trade has actually declined. Likewise, there has been switch of foreign capital flows away from the far-flung empires of the past into a concentration in just three regions of the world economy, the US, Europe and the Far East. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson come up with the arresting statistic that today just 28% of the world population lives in regions which attract 90% of all foreign direct investment flows.
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