What is globalization?

Began as early as 1950s, after the WWII, the term “globalization” became popular. The world was divided by “the east” and “the west” and later they joined together after the broke up of Soviet Union. Former Soviet nations soon announced their independence and this process of being an independent country had been influencing countries all over the world. Before long these newly formed nations realized that they could not solely exist. The world was not the same anymore. Thanks to the technology boom that began not long after the war, especially with the invention of the Internet, the world was never as connected as it is now. Therefore, one way for the small countries to compete in a global market is to join together. Soon the names of “NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization)”, “EU (European Union)” as well as the “UN (United Nations)” are increasingly well-known. However, even though joining those kinds of organizations seems to be more competitive, the twenty-first century global competence is never that easy. What nowadays a country is facing is not only itself or how it can stand up within its own region, but also it needs to find a place in the global market. That is when “globalization” becomes an issue. On one hand, it is economically beneficial to rural or less-developed regions, such as South America and South Africa, when we can easily purchase the bananas from Argentina in Wal-Mart. On the other hand this situation also creates a huge conflict when the large multi-national companies find the way to do business is not locally-based anymore: their “colonization” to other countries often affects local small business in a bad way. Therefore globalization, just like everything else, is also a situation that has both sides. It is hard to judge whether globalization is purely an achievement in the human history or absolutely damaging to the human civilization. Globalization is the inevitable result of human and its society development. Just like Friedman said, it is the “inexorable integration of markets, nation-states, and technologies” (Friedman 7-8).

Globalization has been affecting each and every country on the world, making the world getting smaller and smaller. In this blog, globalization will be introduced in three different ways: economically, politically, socially or culturally and technologically.

First and foremost, economically the globalization increase trade and its efficiency but introduces inequality as well. The most tangible and intense way to experience globalization is through economics. With the world is getting smaller the businessmen start to “think outside of the box”. Because the first and usually the only reason why a business exists are to make money, the increasingly small world creates a gradually growing market: that is, to step into the global market. Therefore, a group of convinced economists as well as the ambitious businessmen began to promote the idea of free trade. It is true that in economic theory, the comparative advantage and the economics of scale brings efficiency to free trade. However, in reality this theory is usually not applicable. With the tariff and tax raised by importing countries, they usually cause a trade diversion in which the goods are not always imported from the country that has the highest efficiency of exporting goods. Moreover, the multi-national groups that have been invading to other countries are also criticized by using colonialism. This often raises the issue of child labor, sweatshop and income inequity. Last but not the least, this trade colonialism to less-developed countries can lead to environmental degradation as well. Because usually developed nations have a high environmental requirement, most of the pollution-dominated industries are diverted to less-developed nations where the economic development is the primary goal of the country.

Second, politically the globalization increases the demand for democracy and reduces the role of government. The government is losing control of its political power in the global market. Thanks to the development of mass media, the citizens are getting more involved in the political systems. People begin to take more imitative roles especially in supervising the government, rather than just being controlled. On the other side of the coin, the increasingly explosion to other cultures increases the appreciation of one country’s own culture. This increasingly awareness or the “rise of nationalism” (Hardt 8-25) as mentioned by Hardt also contributes partly to the rising ideology of anti-globalism.

The third way to look at globalization is through the lens of culture. As mentioned above, countries gained the awareness of its own culture through globalization. However, this does not happen one-way because most of the countries exposed in global territory have lost some of its own identity as well. One famous example is actually in the British Museum. During the WWII, some of the antiques of the Acropolis were sold to the British Museum when the British government occupied Greece. After the war, the new Greek government demanded several times to get back their own historical pieces. The British Museum replied that they could take better care of these antiques back in Britain. Also, lots of the identities are lost during the spread out of American culture, or the Americanization. For example, people from all over the world are watching the Hollywood movies all the time and being exposed to the American cultures.

Last but not the least, technology plays a very important role in globalization. One of the biggest catalysts is internet. Technology inventions have always played an important role in globalization. Inventions such as steam engine, electricity and computers have contributed largely to globalization but nothing compared to internet. This simultaneously-human-civilization-database assists globalization in all of the three ways mentioned above: economically it makes the international transactions possible in just a few seconds; politically it makes the public participation in political world feasible and culturally it helps preserve as well as spread out culture. Without internet, globalization would never development to such a scale in such a short period of time. However, technology has two sides as well and internet cannot escape this dilemma. Because of the limitation of access throughout the world, internet actually creates a gap between the rich and the poor and it has been increasing this inequality since the day it was invented. This “digital divide” (Norris 5) as mentioned in Norris essay generates a lot of issues such as whether this “divide” will continue and eventually impede the development of the less-fortunate countries.

In general, globalization represents a trend existed in all contents that the world is getting smaller. Through the discussion above, one can have a comparative understanding of globalization in different contents.

Work Cited:

Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. 2nd. New York City, NY: Anchor Books, 1999. 7-8. Print.

Hardt, Hanno. "Myths for the Masses: An Essay on Mass Communication." Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (2004): 8-25. Print.

Norris, Pippa. "Information Poverty and the Wired World." Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 2000: 1. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 3 Oct. 2010.