Globalization
It’s hard to find more widespread and controversial topic to discuss
than the topic of globalization. Dozens of conferences, meetings, books and
articles are devoted to it. It involves people of all walks of life: scientists,
politicians, businessmen, journalists, religious figures and people of art speak
and argue about it constantly.
Speaking about the origin of this phenomenon, it’s necessary to admit
that some of the features of modern globalization appeared rather long time
ago. The roots of this process go back to the times when formation of colonial
empires laid the foundation of the first basis of international economical relations
of this thousand of years. However, modern international relations that lay
in the basis of globalization are different from those that were formed at the
beginning of the era of Great Geographical Discoveries and formation of colonial
empires.
At the epoch of colonialism the relations were mainly formed between empires
and their colonies; they were practically represented by exchange of ready-made
goods and products made in empire for raw materials and other colonial goods.
The essential principles of contemporary global system are built on commodity-money
relations between developed countries of the world.
As the World Bank states: ‘Globalization – the growing integration
of economies and societies around the world – has been one of the most
hotly debated topics in international economics over the past few years. Rapid
growth and poverty reduction in China, India, and other countries that were
poor 20 years ago, has been a positive aspect of globalization. But globalization
has also generated significant international opposition over concerns that it
has increased inequality and environmental degradation’ . Globalization
is viewed not as the final stage of human progress, but rather an ideology ‘imposed
on the world by transnational corporations and their fellows in governments
and universities. These forces have elevated theories about market economics,
free trade, consumer choice and economic ‘efficiency’ to the level
of a religion – indeed, to the level of scientific fact, akin to the laws
of physics – because it boosts their profits and expands their political
control’ . The main globalization directions are promoting free trade
which would lead to the liberalization of markets and their efficient functioning
due to the competitive advantages, liberalization of foreign direct investments
to increase the flow of capitals to the developing countries from the international
financial markets (Agosin, 125), which of course finds reflection in the nature
of multicultural and multination relations.
There are many different opinions on the matter of globalization. Some people
view it as a favorable process that will lead to high economical development
of all countries. Other people treat it with animosity and fright. They think
that globalization will increase inequality between countries making some countries
extremely poor and some extremely rich. The process of globalization gives us
wide range of opportunities for the development of the world in a whole, but
the process of development is uneven in different countries. Some countries
join the global economy and integrate more quickly than other ones do. Countries
that have been able to integrate into global economy display faster economical
growth with decreased level of poverty, while the others are still trying to
struggle against burning problems: poverty, low standard of living, corruption,
environmental pollution and others.
So, what is the meaning of globalization? From the view point of politics and
economics, globalization is the process of denationalization of markets, politics
that leads to the raising of global economy. Globalization is a general meaning
of the complex of relations between people, businesses, institutions and markets
that appears in widening of production lines, technologies and financial instruments,
in inevitable growth and strengthening of influence of international institutions,
in global activity of international corporations, in considerably widening of
size of the communicational and informational resources via Internet. (Barnet,
123)
Also the term globalization can be implied as the stable transformation of world
space into one unified zone, where capital, goods and services can move without
any obstruction. Hence, globalization implies formation of international political,
scientific, economical and cultural space, so-called “global economy”.
Generally speaking there is nothing unusual about globalization. This term has
appeared in common usage since the 1980s to show technological progress that
has made international transactions easier and faster, both in the field of
trade and finance. It has opened national borders of many different countries
that were closed for centuries; it has made it easier and more efficient to
communicate between cities, countries and continents. With the help of globalization
markets became more effective, because globalization also promotes free competition
which as we know makes the producers of goods and services provide consumers
with better quality of their products in order to attract them. Competition
is also one of the moving forces of technological progress. Creating united
economical space globalization helps people to get a wider choice of import
and export markets to use. (Barnet, 127)
So, to make a conclusion and give a clear definition of globalization we may
say that globalization is a runaway integration of countries, economies, cultures,
societies and all other aspects of people’s lives.
Now, let’s take a closer look to the economical aspect of globalization.
The roots of globalization go back to the process of internationalization which
has been developing in two directions- inside and outside. The development inside
occurs when a certain country uses foreign good, services, technology and capital
in the sphere of its own internal consumption. The development outside is characterized
by predominance of orientation of countries towards world market. The main result
of this process is not only interdependency of countries but also the integration
of markets. There have been found several resources of globalizations during
latest decades. One of them is technological progress that led to rapid reduction
of transport and communication expenses and considerable reduction of expenses
of processing, storage and usage of information. Informational services are
directly connected with the progress in electronics and invention of electronic
mail, as we call it “email”.
The second resource of globalization is liberalization of trade that caused
the limitation of policy of protectionism and made global trade freer. As the
result of it a lot of taxes and rates have been reduced, and a lot of trade
barriers have been eliminated at the markets of goods and services. Other means
of liberalization led to faster flow of capital and other factors of production.
The third resource of the process of globalization was the creation of international
companies and corporations in which the level of production, consumption, export,
import and income of a country depends on the decision of international centers
situated beyond the certain country’s borders. (James, 45)
There are also some aspects of globalization, such as international trade, about
which we’ve already spoken, capital movements, movement of people and
spread of knowledge. The levels of these aspects are different in different
countries. Of course highly-developed countries which integrated quickly have
their aspects of globalization at a very high level. But what about countries
that are just developing?
During the 20th century, global per capita GDP (gross domestic product) rose
considerably, but with definite variation among countries. It is clear that
the income gap between rich and poor countries has been widening for many years.
And now it is hard for the developing countries to catch up and to integrate
with the richer ones.
As we have touched the economical aspect of globalization it’s also necessary
to take a look at the political aspect. What should do government? Should it
influence the process of globalization or should it just stay away and watch?
From my point of view government should carry out policy that will encourage
integration into the global economy, but also it should take measures to help
those who were negatively affected by the integration and globalization, for
example, old companies and industries. In a whole the economy will be successful
when the government pursues policy that supports globalization by encouraging
to having open economy. Government should pay its attention to two important
points. The first one is education and professional training, to be sure that
workers have the opportunity to receive the right skills; and provide people
with strong social safety to help people who don’t have a job.
Some people believe that globalization helps to promote democracy in the world.
They are known as so-called pro-globalists. They think that the first part of
the process of globalization, which was represented by the liberation of market,
should be continued by a phase of creating world democratical institutions that
will represent the volition of all citizens of the world. So, globalization
is not only a process of liberalization of markets and opening borders of the
countries, but it is also a process of development of democracy in the countries
that are only stepping into the democratic world.
Speaking about globalization of cultures as one of the aspects of world globalization
I must say that it’s also as important as the globalization of world economy.
Of course, it doesn’t touch the standards of living in different countries
or the rate of exchange of their currencies, but still we can not omit this
point. Nowadays we all have access to the Internet and of course television
and radio, that’s why we can get irrefragable amount of information about
foreign countries and their cultures. To be well-informed of culture of a foreign
country doesn’t mean to understand or accept it. It’s is impossible
to have the same understanding of culture between people of different cultures.
Even close cultures have differences between them that can not be and shouldn’t
be erased by globalization. The majority of people noticed that over the past
5-10 years, foreign movies, television programs and music have become more available.
That’s why in many of those countries, the globalization of culture has
been rather intensive because people had more opportunities to learn about other
cultures. (Roberson, 64)
Though some argue that there may be positive affects of globalization through
spreading Western business values and cultural views throughout the world, the
price of lost national identities and economic dependence of the future of developing
countries on their willingness to adopt Western business culture and practices
does not make it worth in many cases. Today one of the aims of globalization
is providing balance of energy resources among all the countries in order to
avoid energy crisis and stagnation. From this point globalization of national
economies is very important. From the other side, it is of course obvious that
developing countries with undeveloped industry and old technologies would benefit
less from globalization as their products are more likely to suffer from open
competition. This will first of all result on the economies and political situation
of such countries, which makes globalization to be a risky process even for
national sovereignty of some countries. It’s enough to remind example
of Latin American countries which are called “banana republics”
for more than 100 years because of dependence from American corporations. But
in terms of global economy such practices are unacceptable due to a number of
reasons. First of all, penetration of American and European capital to Latin
America economies occurred under different conditions which exist today. From
another point of view, rapidly developing countries rich in mineral resources
have a high potential of creating alternative economical transnational organizations,
where energy resources and products will be sold according to external price
policies, which in many respects creates danger for the rest of globalized economy.
Another very important and dangerous counter globalist tendency today is the
spread of international Muslim terrorist, which opposes the spread of western
values and stands for the shift towards cannons of Islam. That’s why a
special role in globalizing community has to be paid to the preservation of
national cultural uniqueness and identities, investments into national culture
and ethnic studies. Only such practices will result equal benefits from globalization
either for the USA or some small European or African country. Otherwise, both
the economic and social consequences can be irreversible and it will not be
difficult in the future generations to imagine a child in Tibet dreaming of
Michael Jordan tennis shoes as the present for Christmas/
References:
1. Agosin, M. (1999). Globalization, liberalization and sustainable development:
analytical perspectives, UNCTAD/UNDP, occasional paper, 125.
2. Barnet, J. (2000). Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World
Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
3. James, J. (1999). Globalization, Information Technology and Development.
New York: St. Martin’s Press.
4. Robertson, R.(2002) Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London:
Sage.
5. Walljasper, J. (1996). Cultural Effects of Economic Globalization.http://globalgroup3.blogspot.com/2004/10/cultural-effects-of-economic.html>
6. World Bank, <http://www1.worldbank.org/economicpolicy
