Meanings of a Term – Global Village

Bizarre, n’est-ce pas?

Turning away from teaching at a university in a more or less large city [well, a city with 9 million people is in China not considered to be really large …], in a country that is classified as ‘emerging economy’ in a setting of a joint venture, i.e. the collaboration of a Chinese and Welsh university to debates in a small village in France – 1.200 inhabitants allow to speak of a village.

What makes it bizarre is not so much the huge difference in the settings but the fact that the teaching in the supposed global setting had been very much about  narrowly understood economy, suggesting individuals acting rationally on transparent markets, being completely informed, whereas we discuss in the village – really transparent, a real market with all its imponderables, including that of non-market performances, solidarity, neighbourly support etc.- strategies hat are suitable for new politics and policies in a globalised world.

The internet is there and used in both cases and one wonders if it offers a net sufficiently strong to absorb the tension?

*****

The one meeting is relocated – we go on the river.

The reflection of the trees and bushes in the water make me reflecting on the actual meaning of the relationship between base and superstructure.

The roots as base, more or less rigid in the ground, the stem and strong branches, the leaves … – not moving this calm evening – the firm regulatory framework that is completed by the actual ‘governance’ and mode of life and living regimes [and here].

Or is it the other way rond, the accusation regime being the flexible part, adapting to the changing conditions of utilising capital? Perhaps such ‘flexibility of the accumulation regime is just a temporary matter – during phases of massive change as we see them at the moment?

Bizarre – and interesting – how short the way can be between trees, reflected in a river and ventilating for instance matters of digitisation and sharing economy. surely much shorter than the reflections teaching model economics in the modern ivory tower of wrongly understood curricula.