In yesterday’s Helsingin Sanomat Int’l Ed, the top story was about Finnish President Tarja Halonen’s hatred toward globalization. Halonen has been on the record as criticizing globalization as an immoral and politically unsustainable system.

The term “Globalization” has become on of those political buzzwords where many people don’t really know the definition of, but they know that’s evil and just plain “bad.” Wikipedia defines globalization by using phrases like “increased connectivity among societies”, “The formation of a global village”, “closer contact between different parts of the world”, “mutual understanding and friendship between world citizens” – So what does Tarja have a against a global village, closer contact within the world, freedom, and mutual understanding? I thought that’s what socialists were all about?

Globalization is one of these concepts that have crossed party lines. It’s not something that the rights and lefts hate, while other rights left love. So what exactly don’t Tarja and others like about globalization?

Control.

It’s all about control. Tarja Halonen is a statist. Tarja comes from a self-sustaining country where all the Finns buy Finnish products, and all the Finnish products are sold to Finns – and her government has her hands in everything. In today’s world, Finland is forced to reach out into the global economy in order to stay afloat – much of which is out of Mother Finland’s control. It’s not the she doesn’t like to see countries like India flurish from globalization, she’s just pissed because the free market is succeeding with this and not a government.