Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Globality: An End-State of Globalization


Globality is the end-state of globalization – a hypothetical condition in which the process of globalization is complete or nearly so, barriers have fallen, and "a new global reality" is emerging.
The term was used in 1998 by author and economist Daniel Yergin in a Newsweek article that described the end-state of the globalization process [1], and in his book, Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. Though Yergin was credited with having coined it, the word is in fact much older. William Safire traces the etymology of “globality” in his book No Uncertain Terms[2] and identifies a range of citations as far back as 1942, when it was used as a synonym for “global.” Current use of “globality” as it applies to business – as a description of the current competitive state of world commerce – was not adopted until recently.