US culture charmed the world starting in the 1950’s, building on both the heroism America earned during World War II, but also on the dazzle of America’s relative economic success. Levis, Hollywood movies, and more, inspired the aspirations of many across the world, but only some US multinationals were able to capitalize on the expanding global stage. It was only in the 1950’s that multi-national firms arose, and the law firm of x&x carved out a niche for itself, first representing United Fruit Company, and from there pretty much all the multinataional firms (Kinzer 2014) in international law, advising multi-national firms. The coming of inexpensive telecommunications and mass air travel opened the world many more corporations, which began to expand globally in search of opportunities, both to find new markets for sales, and as sources for supply chains. The Vietnam war brought a far corner of the world into every American’s living room with the nightly news. International travel became accessible to upper middle-class folks in developed countries, and their horizons of consciousness expanded greatly. And now with the internet, anyone with access, anywhere, can be not only aware of the entire planet, but able to act upon it.
Sociologsts distinguish between a the “act” of participating in a globalized world and “cosmopolitanized space of action”. We now have a cosmopolitanized space of action (Beck 2016). There’s a “transformation of the reference horizon and the coordinates of action”. According to Beck, it is the differences in cultures across the global stage, within the context of a globalized space of action, that drives cultures to converge. Once of the space of action became globalized, the convergence of cultures and consciousness follow. Opportunities arise overseas that might not be available locally, either because of legal restrictions or economic conditions, for example, and people reach abroad. Their consciousness becomes global, global cultures intermix, and a unified globalized culture takes shape at a higher aggregated level. Cultural differences drive a homogenization. As with entropy, the complexity contained in diversity diminishes, but stability is enhanced.