PAST EFFORTS AT JOINDER

ECONOMIC

Mankind's proclivity toward, and consequent steps that are leading to the achievement of, globalization and unification have been a factor in history for many years.  In early times, these attempts were obviously not conscious efforts to attain such specific results; but the net effects nevertheless bore resemblance to what would later emerge as society's more conscious steps toward unification.  These earlier efforts frequently took place throughout our world in ways that were primarily economic in orientation and effect. 

As has been proposed earlier, the colonial endeavors exercised by numerous countries during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, crossing oceans and borders as they did, though motivated by desires for wealth and conquest, actually at the same time constitute an early form of international joinder and consolidation. 

Contemporaneously in Europe during this period, the Commercial Revolution spawned a capitalist economy in many countries, wherein focus shifted from town-oriented to nation-oriented concerns and activities.  As a subsequent step, these commercial nations themselves became mutually involved and associated economically, as people within the seperate countries did more and more business with each other.  As Montesquieu observed in his Spirit of the Laws, when nations thus became "reciprocally dependent...their union is founded on their mutual necessities."  Thus, on account of these necessities, people of numerous nations developed more and closer ties and relationships, business and otherwise, as time marched forward. 

During this era, and specifically during the eighteenth century, the age which we refer to as the Enlightenment arose in Europe.  Here a group of thinkers who came to be called "political economists" looked to the state as a regulatory and enforcing factor in assistance of the economic climate.  But they were by no means "nationalists."  Rather, they have been labeled "universalists," who looked to the state to rise above local regulation,  promote law and order, maintain the sanctity of contracts, and preserve a free and open market.  In a phrase, they "believed in the unity of mankind under a natural law of right and reason."  (Palmer and Colton, A History of the Modern World)

A quintessential illustration of this is found in the description given by said historians Palmer and Colton of the year 1870, which they portrays as a time of unprecedented economic world unity.  They speak of a "true world market," wherein "goods, services, money, capital, [and] people moved back and forth almost without regard to national boundaries."  Moreover, during this time, we are told, the purchase and sale of goods took place at a set of "uniform world prices." ( Palmer and Colton, op. cit.,)

Then, further evidences of unity began to appear.  In the early part of the twentieth century, business mergers became the order of the day.  Many companies in the same field formed combinations for the purpose of avoiding wasteful and harmful competition.  Workers who were employees of these companies also began to organize and to bargain as a group with their employers.  Similar activities were exhibited on the part of their agricultural counterparts as well; as the turn of the century witnessed the formation of cooperatives among farmers, providing advantages of sharing certain expenses and eliminating the need for midedlemen. 

With economic activity becoming an economic phenomenon and endeavor, the problems connected with such economic pursuits also began to exhibit themselves on a global scale as well.  Thus, by reason of one such concern,  an international conference was held in Paris in September of 1910 to deal with the growing challenge of worldwide unemployment.  This represented an early example of an international forum being convened for the purpose of addressing something perceived to be an international economic problem.

In October, 1927, the New York Stock Exchange expanded its functions to become a world stock exchange.  Corporate stocks traded on Wall Street bore worldwide implication and effect, constituting but another extension of man's business enterprise onto an international stage.

Although Europe was long divided into numerous poolitical subdivisions, nation-states, factional areas within nations, and factional areas that straddled national boundary lines, that which would be called "European civilization" was, and is still, somewhat considered to constitute a unity.  Thus, Europeans appear to view themselves as having more in common with, than contrast to, other Europeans.  In particular, there has from an early day been a consciousness of an economic unity within Europe and among its inhabitants.  This feeling has grown apparently stronger over rece
nt decades, culminating in the beginnings of a European Economic Community (whose development will be traced later).