Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2009
Summary
The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind. Very few of us realise with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature of the economic organisation by which Western Europe has lived for the last half century. We assume some of the most peculiar and temporary of our late advantages as natural, permanent, and to be depended on, and we lay our plans accordingly. On this sandy and false foundation we scheme our social improvement and dress our political platforms, pursue our animosities and particular ambitions …
John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919)Having lost the comfort of our geographic boundaries, we must in effect rediscover what creates the bond between humans that constitute a community.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, The End of the Nation-StateLabour law and globalization
The defining characteristic of globalization in our modern age has been to challenge the stability and isolation of what is local, without always conferring the benefit of what is universal. Economic growth has lifted millions out of poverty over the past fifteen years, yet the prosperity has been unevenly distributed, and economic inequalities and social exclusion within and among nations have actually deepened. Open societies have emerged, but the erection of democratic national and global institutions to manage the volatility of social and economic change has proven largely elusive.
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- Globalization and the Future of Labour Law , pp. 1 - 12Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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