Selina Lee
IDC 4001H
Professor Maciuika
February 2, 2014

The readings address the causes, effects, relationships and other factors of modernization, Berman, and globalization, Beck.  In the beginning of All That is Solid Melts Into Air, Berman says that: “Modernality can be said to unite all mankind.”  Both What is Globolization? and Rocket Machine: How To Build Companies From a Kit also discuss that the change in our society (through modernization and globalization) has created simpler and more efficient methods to connect our corporations and people to other international communities.  In What is Globolization?, Beck makes a point to emphasize the idea that some corporations are using globalization to their advantage, especially because we are a part of the “computer generation”.

All three of these writings focus on different topics but are connected by the foundation of change and the results that trickle down from our governments, corporations and eventually us.  Modernization and globalization in our economy and society is inevitable and will continue as long as we live, hence Berman’s title: All That is Solid Melts Into Air.  All That is Solid Melts Into Air and Rocket Machine: How To Build Companies From a Kit, both seem to see change in a positive light, while What is Globolization? points out the corruption and selfishness that results from change.

What I thought was very interesting was the paradoxes that the articles mentioned.  The paradoxical unity of modernization in All That is Solid Melts Into Air and the political and social paradoxes of a transnational economy (to stimulate growth, unemployment must be produced) in What is Globolization?.  While Beck concentrated on the economic changes that globalization brings, I wanted to read more of the developments and transformation of individuals.  How does globalization and modernization affect the average American earning $30,000 a year?  If we follow Beck’s prediction we may very well become our own gravediggers: undermining the importance of the national state, letting the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer, and downsizing labor to boost profits.