This article develops a heterodox, strategic‐relational approach to globalization. This is seen as a multi‐scalar, multi‐temporal, multi‐centric process, involving new forms of time‐space distantiation and compression. As such, it is just one face of a complex re‐scaling of social processes which can also be interpreted from other scalar viewpoints, such as localization, regionalization or triadization. Five interrelated issues are then addressed: (1) the structural and strategic dimensions of globalization seen in temporal as well as spatial terms; (2) the role of globalization, especially in its neoliberal form, in enhancing the ecological dominance of the capitalist economy, i.e. in enhancing the relative primacy of the capital relation in an emerging world society; (3) the significance of the global scale for capitalist reorganization and its links to other scales of activity ?? especially given the relativization of scale rooted in the erosion of the national spatio‐temporal fix associated with Atlantic Fordism; (4) the impact of the new scalar dynamics of globalizing capitalism on the relative primacy and forms of appearance of capital’s inherent contradictions and dilemmas and the problems that this poses for a re‐regularization of capital accumulation on a global scale; and (5) the implications of globalization for the state and politics.