Sceptics charge that hyperglobalist

Sceptics charge that hyperglobalist accounts of globalization are
smoke-screens set up to obfuscate the real intentions of the powerful
capitalist elite. Capitalist national governments, principally those of
the G8, are the primary designers of the new global economy. This
select group of core countries insist upon free-market reform in poorer
countries – claiming that this is necessary for survival in the context of
inevitable globalization. Simultaneously, these vociferous proponents
of free-market reform are themselves the most protectionist. In this
way, sceptics view globalization as an ‘agenda’ (Firth, 2000) or a
‘project’ (McMichael, 2004) which seeks actively to wedge open spaces
of opportunity for capital emanating from the advanced capitalist
economies (Hirst, 1997). This agenda came about as a result of US-led
reconstruction of the global economic order following the Second
World War which created a new agenda of liberalization – designed
largely in the interests of the dominant powers at the time (Gilpin,
2001) (see Chapter 4). Neo-Marxists have seen recent ‘globalization’
as another phase in the expansion of Western imperialism where national
governments act as the agents and conduits for monopoly capital
(Firth, 2000).