Globalisation And Its Discontents, After 2012

There are a number of grand narratives within which the Olympics  might be evaluated, each of which inscribes the project  in a very different  value nexus. Perhaps the dominant paradigm on the Left  is that of globalisation. The Olympics, and sports in general,  are read as symptomatic of larger economic forces at work in the society, of which  globalisation is   paramount . This is not just down to fact that the Games are a  sporting equivalent of the United Nations Assembly, but that hosting them is the material sign of world city status. Their delivery presupposes a critical mass of facilities, including a networked infrastructure of transport and communications, that is integral to the global economy; a scale of procurement that only the largest companies with global resourcing and supply chains can provide and a level of national affluence sufficient to sustain such a large investment in public resource. Capitalism, according to this view, is the only Game in town and globalisation is its middle name.