What is ‘Globalisation’?

The recent explosive changes in the world business system constitute a surge forward of capitalism to a global scale. However, despite the dramatic advance of capitalism, it constitutes only the most recent stage in an evolving process that has been under way since human beings' early history. For several thousand years, human history has been organised to an ever-increasing extent around the division of labour, the extension of the scope of the market, and the pursuit of profit. This force has been the central factor in technical progress. Until the early modern period, the main consequence of technical progress was to enable population growth and output more or less to keep pace with each other, advancing together in a complex symbiotic relationship. However, around 200 years ago, a new relationship between population and per capita output emerged. Population growth and per capita output and income began an unprecedented, simultaneous acceleration.

Pre-Modern Capitalism

Capitalism, in the sense of production for profit for the market, is an ancient phenomenon.