What needs to happen before anything happens?

Local Economy, or Glocalization

Grokalization, glocalization, and globalization...

Small is beautiful, many small actors gain strength through mutual cooperation.

Glocalization is a competing, not opposing, phenomenon to the homogenizing force of globalization.

It is not just a trend tied to location but a "specializing" model of action that leverages networks and technology.

Glocalization is the simultaneous occurrence of universal and specialized trends in social, political, and economic systems.

According to Roland Robertson, discussions on globalization should consider four focal points: society, individuals, the world system of societies, and all of humanity.

Robertson does not pit the local against the global, but stresses that the local should be seen as part of the global. He emphasizes the importance of glocalization as a strategy for companies in global markets—micromarketing, the idea of selling products based on customization.

Technology, AI and robotics make this increasingly possible.

Glocalization should not be positioned as the opposite of globalization because, without local and grassroots cooperation, the world's major problems cannot be solved.

Glocalization

Small is big—glocalization has already stepped alongside globalization.

The idea of glocalization is to act locally, utilize localities and clusters of expertise, but think globally.

Glocalization is a new opportunity. It is the transformation of the local economy, community structure, self-governance—indeed the entire social life—into a state open to radical technological changes.

In the context of globalization, increasing digitalization, communication networks, and the sharing economy, there is also a trend toward regionalization, localization, downsizing, and closer proximity.

This could extend to almost all forms of cooperation, from consumption to culture, local economies to new distribution and logistics models, and the idea of work itself.

A smart village or city develops differently and through a different process than an industrial-era settlement. The governing city or municipality finally becomes a service: "city as a service."

"More capitalism to capitalism"

Interim Prime Minister Alexander Stubb in 2015 waved the flag for a new worldview of opposition, stating,

“Globalization has altered the political dividing lines of the industrialized world.”

“Instead of left and right, today’s world is divided between those who think globally and those who think locally.”

“Nowadays, ‘globalists’ see the integrating world as an opportunity, while ‘localists’ try to shield themselves from internationalization by turning inward,” Stubb said in Copenhagen.

According to him, labor in Europe is not moving across borders enough. This creates "asymmetry," which slows down economic growth.

A year later, this potential workforce was fleeing from Arabia and Africa to seek jobs and survive through every door in every country. Yet symmetry has not been seen.

The world is in a state of flux, where regionalism, nationality, and territoriality are in motion, regional constructs have been mobilized to serve economic bloc formation, and territoriality is sanctifying economic unions.

The interface of power, as ultimately is the case with culture, is democracy. It concerns identity, but also levels of tolerance and liberalism.

Citizenship remains a central community identity for us, while domicile is another.

Both are changing, altering our concepts of identity. Within them, quick affiliations with and disengagements from virtual free communities change the meanings of belonging in network societies.

Citizenship has always been measured in relation to the community.

We must again ask ourselves who governs us and by what means?

Marcel Foucault puts it like this: "How do we govern others and ourselves, how are we governed, and whom do we allow to govern us acceptably?"

In the idealistic sense of power analysis, the relevance is not only who governs but how governance is exercised, and what effects it has on the autonomy, happiness, and well-being of citizens and the community.

Aristotle:

“The ruler and the ruled must learn different things, and the citizen must know both and participate in both.”

Aristotle said that citizenship is participation in the exercise of power, both as the ruler and as the ruled.

Now we are losing the first.

The collective knowledge of citizens' opposition groups, combined with communication technology, finally makes the challenge of the early philosophers of democracy possible. It creates independence through collaboration, not hoarding for oneself.

We return in communication networks with AI to the Agora—a virtual square not to hear Aristotle but to hear each other.

It is important to remember what has happened alongside globalization: the number of nations has risen from 51 post-war to the current 193. Since 1977, 67 dictatorships have fallen. The Cold War has returned with Putin’s populism, leading other leaders like Orban to try their luck. Power is shifting after the U.S., either to a G2 of the U.S. and China or, more likely, to a constant state of crisis management driven by fluctuating alliances.

Though in some national power transitions the elite have staged internal coups, citizen-driven pressure has been the most impactful force. Networks serve as channels, and spontaneous networks often become the most significant factor.

Revolutions, big and small, often proceed in a different direction than the spontaneous movements aimed for in the beginning.

Therefore, new citizen power also requires new tools—constantly evolving citizen opposition. Traditional citizen institutions tend to struggle in networks and webs.

German social scientist Ulrich Beck said, “Globalization is a complex relationship of economy, culture, and politics, which has radical consequences on lifestyles.”

According to Beck, the breakdown of location also means a radical change in the political environment.

The nation-state is disappearing as a significant actor, replaced by an international political stage. Traditional politicians ally with international environmental and human rights organizations to tame economic activities into acceptable rules.

Work takes new forms: the loss of jobs from the rise in productivity due to automation is answered by citizen work. Citizen work would not only combat unemployment and inactivity but also offer a new form of citizenship in a global society.

George Ritzer, who has sparked much debate, succinctly defined glocalization as “the intertwining of the global and the local, producing unique outcomes in different geographical areas.”

The concept of glocalization simultaneously offers both the possibility of integration and diversity.

The Four Pillars of Glocalization, according to Ritzer:

First, pluralism, the variety of subcultures, and multiculturalism are increasing globally, and glocalization as an approach recognizes cultural differences.

Second, glocalization emphasizes the importance of individuals and groups as creative actors.

Third, social processes appear to be random.

Fourth, consumer goods, media, and major cultural exchange forces are not seen as entirely coercive.

When glocalization is understood in this way, it creates a countercurrent to globalization.

Glocalization fosters diversity through information technology and mobile logistics, producing entirely new forms of civic participation and cultural expressions.

It is crucial that globalization is directed toward a world system of societies and human encounters and not allowed to submit to corporate-driven McDonaldization. This term was introduced by neo-Weberian sociologist George Ritzer in 1993.

Where Max Weber used the bureaucratic model to explain societal change, Ritzer describes globalization as being modeled on the rationalized fast-food restaurant—a paradigm that represents and shapes modern times with its efficiency, calculability, standards, and strict control. The result is the multiplication of sameness—a format that can be repeated endlessly.

When you look around, at social media or TV, or listen to the radio, you know what McDonaldization is -the sameness of products regardless of time or place.

According to Ritzer, the opposite of glocalization is grobalization, which focuses on the imperialist aims of nations, corporations, and organizations, particularly in the pursuit of power and profit growth.

Thus, the producing company may be multinational but exploits microeconomics and locality through standardized product variations based on local customs.

Grobalization involves sub-processes like capitalism, Americanization, and McDonaldization: by Americanization, Ritzer refers to the promotion of U.S. ideas, habits, social models, and the interests of industry and capital worldwide.

Ritzer’s core argument, which has driven neoliberals to rage, is that grobalization promotes "nothing," while glocalization promotes "something"—the search for real things, meanings, and authenticity. By combining the global and the local, glocalization produces unique results by region, in contrast to the standardizing nonsense of grobalization.

Ecological glocalization is an ecosystem that gathers people together inclusively, with doors open, fostering natural heterogeneity, diversity of values, and plural cultures. In contrast, greedy grobalization represents homogenization, conformity, standardization, and uniform profit-seeking—an oppressive ego-system.

Both are parts of globalization but at opposite ends.

“Increasing media-driven consumption and the diverse use of the internet offer large groups of consumers more opportunities to influence global development, potentially more than ever before. The emphasis on ethical and ecological issues is rising as a shared interest, especially if there is genuine concern for the future of the planet.”

It's time to move concerns to tomorrow—indifference has already been exhausted.

The institutional system itself does not correct the world and its problems fast enough to save us. Rebellion consumes its children, but we still must act—perhaps outside the system, but together.

New things are easiest to create in people's networks, from small to large, generating many hypersynergies—positive cycles of good things.

This is a major task ahead.

We have been led to believe that the world economy has gained sacred doctrines that cannot be questioned, no matter what comes.

The most sacred is the doctrine of economic growth.

The idea that the growth of jobs and welfare services is tied to economic growth has been deeply instilled in us, preventing humanity from seeing the forest for the trees.

Regardless of power ideology, the worldview is that only economic growth can guarantee a better future and a welfare society—without growth, there is only misery and death.

We continue with the growth model as the only doctrine, even though the reduction of environmental impact should have started decades ago.

However, the economic system is not final; it has not taken its final form but should evolve—to meet new challenges.

“Economic activity has become more environmentally efficient in recent decades, but studies show that economic growth systematically cancels out efficiency gains.”

Human well-being and quality of life are not the same as gross domestic product.

There has been hope placed in structural changes in the economy, but hopes attached to the service and intangible economy have proven to be overestimated.

Economist Tim Jackson says that there has indeed been some relative decoupling between the economy and environmental impacts. For example, the amount of energy required to produce one dollar has decreased by a third over the past four decades.

Wind power has become a success story. The price of solar panels has plummeted for consumers over the past decade. The best panels in southern sun already generate the energy used to produce them within a year. This means that alongside centralized power plants, consumers now have small productions for their own needs and surplus to share with others.

However, the increased amount of activity has so far eaten up eco-efficiency gains, and since 1990, emissions associated with global energy use have increased by 40 percent.

Jackson wonders in his book, which has also been published in Finnish, why, in our world of studies and reports, no macroeconomic models have been developed to examine how fundamental economic factors such as employment and investment would evolve if capital accumulation were to be deliberately slowed.

What needs to happen before anything happens?