Multinational corporations manufacture products in many countries and sell to consumers around the world. Money, technology and raw materials move ever more swiftly across national borders. Along with products and finances, ideas and cultures circulate more freely. As a result, laws, economies and social movements are forming at the international level.
The globalized world sweeps away regulation and undermines local and national politics, just as the consolidation of the nation state swept away local economies, dialects, cultures and political forms. Globalization creates new markets and wealth, even as it causes widespread suffering, disorder and unrest. It is both a source of repression and a catalyst for global movements of social justice and emancipation. The great financial crisis of 2008–09 has revealed the dangers of an unstable, deregulated, global economy but it has also given rise to important global initiatives for change.