Deep Currents

My colleague Nils Gilman has a wonderful term for the many distasteful activities of illicit economy: deviant globalization. This is globalization’s dark side, the seamy underbelly, and it’s a powerful rising force. Here’He makes the case here in the precis of a presentation he gave recently on the topic at the European Futurists Conference in Lucerne:

A new class of global actors is playing an increasingly important role in globalization: smugglers, warlords, guerrillas, terrorists, gangs, and bandits of all stripes. Since the end of the Cold War, the global illicit economy has consistently grown at twice the rate of the licit global economy. Increasingly, illicit actors will represent not just an economic but a political force. As globalization hollows out traditional nation-states, what will fill the power vacuum in slums and hinterlands will be informal non-state governance structures. These zones will be globally connected, effectively run by local gangs, religious leaders, or quasi-tribal organizations – organizations that will govern without aspiring to statehood.

Written: November 12th, 2008