Globalization

Is Globalization a Good Thing' A homesick American traveling in another country would not need to feel homesick for long as he/she would soon begin to notice many sights similar to those back home. In order to get over his/her homesickness, the American would easily be able to find some comfort in that country’s version of McDonalds, or in the bright glaring lights, reminiscent of Times Square, which would comfort a traveling New Yorker. Some Americans would be surprised to know that McDonalds, an American company, can be found in more than 100 countries around the world. However, McDonalds is just a small part of ever growing global integration movement. (Hoovers) This “phenomenon” or “movement” is called globalization. Merriam Webster’s online dictionary defines globalization as, “:the act or process of globalizing: the state of being globalized; especially: the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markers.” (Merriam Webster‘s) Globalization primarily affects the economies of the world; however, it also affects the cultures and politics of many countries. Though globalization is not by any means a new term, nor a new phenomenon, it is now being reviewed critically worldwide for its benefits or lack thereof. One benefit of globalization is supposed to be the birth of a “global” nation where the entire planet is seamlessly connected technologically, economically, and politically while preserving cultural differences. The other benefits include greater accessibility to democracy, economic freedom, ideas, and material goods on a universal level. These are the benefits that idealistically globalization is supposed to bring about. Globalization is supposed to benefit everyone across the board, yet in practice it is quite the opposite. (Globalisation Yes, Globalisation No) The reason for this re-questioning of globalization is due to the fact that while globalization has several positive aspects, it has now become more negative than positive and a reform is needed. Globalization negatively affects cultures, economies, and politics from all around the world. It creates an homogenization of cultures which causes indigenous cultures to fade away; gives an economic advantage to wealthy countries and creates even more economically dependent third world countries; and creates a ruthless global political environment. Rather than being a source of good for the world and bring more stability to the world, globalization favors the rich and helps them become richer and creates even more poverty in the world. This “phenomenon” is not very humane or advantageous as more people suffer from it then benefit from it. Globalization is very damaging culturally to many countries around the world. The reason for this is due to the fact that a particular set of cultures, which are the western cultures, drive globalization. By virtue of being the drivers and most vocal proponents of globalization, the western culture is continuously being exported to other countries. Though the exportation of the western culture is not a negative thing, an over-saturation of it is. This over-saturation also comes with the message that these western cultures are more preferable and much more valuable than these non-western cultures. This creates a feeling of shame for many of these non-western cultures, so they do whatever they can in order to “fit in”. These actions are often drastic, such as changing their natural skin tones through bleaching creams which are often toxic; suppressing native languages just to promote English; tossing away native traditions just to become like the westerners they see on tv, among many other self-destructive actions. (The Economics of Happiness) Helena Norberg-Hodge is an renowned environmentalist who has spent her life speaking out against the negative aspects of globalization. She is also the founder of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, “a non-profit organization concerned with the protection of both biological and cultural diversity.” (ISEC) Throughout her travels, Helena Norber-Hodge has been able to provide persuasive arguments as to why globalization should be set aside or toned down in favor of local economies, and cultures. Helena Norber-Hodge uses her account of the Ladakh town she had visited during her travels. When she first met the Ladakhis, she described them as the happiest people she had ever encountered, and that despite harsh environmental conditions, they had a high standard of living. The Ladkhis had been able to be happy because of their remoteness from the global economy. The Ladkhis had been sheltered by the Indian government from outside influence, and allowed to live the way they wanted. When Helena returned to Ladakhis three years later, she found an altogether different situation. “….in 1975, the Indian government abruptly opened Ladakh to imported food and consumer goods, to tourism and the global media, to western education and other trappings of the ‘development’ process. Romanticized impressions of the West gleaned from media, advertising and fleeting encounters with tourists had an immediate and profound impact on the Ladakhis. The sanitised and glamorized images of the urban consumer culture created the illusion that people outside Ladakh enjoyed infinite wealth and leisure. By contrast, working in the fields and providing for one’s own needs seemed backward and primitive. Suddenly, everything from their food and clothing to their houses and language seemed inferior. The young were particularly affected, quickly succumbing to a sense of insecurity and self-rejection. The use of a dangerous skin-lightening cream called “Fair and lovely” became widespread, symbolizing the newly-created need to imitate the distant role models-western, urban, blonde- provided by the media”. (The Economics of Happiness) This quote gives an accurate picture of the damage that is being inflicted on non-western cultures everywhere. The western cultural export arrives in many countries and gradually or rapidly supplants the indigenous culture by making it appear “backwards” and old fashioned to the people of that country. This message is constantly reinforced until the indigenous person, which is usually a young person, is shamed into renouncing any connection to their culture by any means necessary. Economically, globalization has been a disaster for much of the world. Though trade has long been a global process even before the Industrial Revolution, never has it been so forcibly imposed as in the present day. In the past, trade at its foundation was local, and then expanded outward. One of the ways that local trade would be incorporated into larger networks of trade would be at first voluntarily where local goods would be sold by traveling merchants. Local trade would be forcibly expanded by such as foreign, more powerful countries, which would use the occupied land or town for their profit in their larger trade networks. The biggest examples of both benign and malignant forms of past global trade are the Silk Road, and the Triangular Trade. (The European “Age of Discovery) A major part of the economic globalization that is sweeping the world is capitalism. There is not a lot of focus placed on the capitalistic part of globalization, however it is the underlying foundation and motivation of this movement. It can reasonably be argued that beginnings of capitalism started with the European Age of Discovery. During this time the leading European countries, Portugal, France, Spain, among others were in competition with each other. Through sea exploration, they were able to travel to many lands in the Americas, and in Africa and bring back or use whatever they could to get the lead in the race for power. These countries would go on to strip millions of Africans from their homes and plant them wherever they could in order to have them slave away for free on brutal plantation and make high profits from them. Africans were not the only ones to be included in this economic “process” as Native Americans were also included at the cost of having several of their tribes completely wiped out. (Buckman) There are four general and obvious differences between the global trade of the past and the global trade of the present. The first is that there is not the same level of violence as was involved in Triangular Trade. In the present day, instead of plantations there are factories, and sweat shops. In the plantations the slaves died, in the factories and sweatshops, the workers have less of a chance of dying but still do not have lives equal to the amount of work they put in. The mechanisms are different but the mentality is the same. This mentality is one where those who are not struggling to make ends meet and are actually quite wealthy capitalize on “resources” such as people, to push themselves forward in the race that is economic globalization. In today’s world it is very easy to see the discrepancy between the First-World countries and those that are “developing”. The countries that are “developing” are in poverty and are struggling to stay afloat and one day participate in the global economy. The First World countries have so much that they can participate in the global economic competition. These wealthy countries often notice the “developing” countries struggling, and give them loans with interest to aid them in their “development” while also keeping an eye out for any natural resources these “developing” countries may have. What unfortunately seems to happen is that these countries which are already struggling are not able to pay off these loans and start accruing interest on their loans, causing them to sink further. (Globalisation, Yes, Globalisation, No) Oftentimes, First World countries decide to speed up the process and initiate prematurely “developing” countries into the highly competitive global trade. The problem with this initiation is that these countries usually have very little to offer in the competition, and the very little that they do have is already being produced elsewhere for far cheaper. On top of having little to offer, these “developing” countries have little to survive on, and rely heavily on imports from the First World countries. This creates a sort of economic vacuum, which is contrary to the image of economic freedom and stability projected by proponents of globalization. The important consequence of economic globalization is that due to competition, there is a global willingness to ignore the plight of others unless not doing so would lead to a profit. This malignant willingness to either to harm or stand by while it is being done has lead to many problems, most notably terrorism. It can be argued that Arabic terrorism is a physical manifestation of discontent, and despair stemming from poverty. (Globalisation and Terror) Politically, globalization has also changed the world for the worse as it has given an enormous amount of power to multinational corporations, which in turn manipulate politics. One of the ways in which multinational corporations manipulate politics is buy putting their money behind candidates who have their agendas at heart. These multinational corporations often have more money than most countries. In fact, out of the 100 biggest economies in the world fifty one are multinational companies. A common American expression is, “Money makes the world go round”; in the case of multinational corporations this is very true. Multinational corporations by virtue of having such a vast concentration of the worlds wealth have invested themselves with an incredible amount of power. These corporations have used their wealth not only to make the world “go round” but also to make it stop. Corporate Watch, an organization dedicated to making sure that corporations do not abuse human rights around the world, found that, “as corporate concentration has risen, corporate profits have soared, yet workers and communities are getting a shrinking piece of the growing pie”. (Anderston) Corporate Watch is a company that keeps excellent statistics; from which they were able to notice that, “…Not only are the world’s largest corporations cutting workers, their CEOs often benefit financially from the job cuts.” (Anderston) Globalization is a economical, cultural, political process through which economies stabilize each other, cultural ideas are exchanged and supplement each other, and finally political entities act as one for the benefit of the globe as a whole. This is the idealistic version of globalization. The real globalization has benefits such as almost instantaneous transference of ideas via internet, and wealthy countries, and corporations are able to add to their wealth. One detriment to globalization are that it is based on capitalism which views human beings as resources, and works to utilize them rather than provide them with fundamental needs/rights. To create a better form of globalization there would need to be more emphasis on local economies, and more economic, and political policies to protect the interests and rights of human beings. The minority which truly profits from globalization are already rich while those who are poor suffer from it. The other big detriment to globalization is that indigenous cultures are squashed in favor of a materialistic western ideal. While globalization at its foundation is not a bad thing, and actually inevitable, the modern globalization is more like a race where few have horses to ride and many more are trampled underneath.