Running Head: Globalization- Moving Forward or Moving Backwards?

With 35 million people, Tokyo gets the trophy for being the world’s largest city. Second place goes to Bombay with 22. 2 million people and New Delhi follows that with 20. 9 million (McKinnon, 444). It is no question that the world is home for billions of people and the number is growing. The world today is very different from what it was years ago. Through new technologies, we are able to communicate with people in a matter of seconds. The Internet connects people to do business internationally and quick. It has reduced the traditional problems you get with trading. It is now very easy to trade goods and services around the world. Because of this, markets are more open and competition is bigger. Investment has changed with online banking. It allows people to move their money internationally. Globalization is a process where global connections become thicker and it creates relationships between many people in vast distances. Globalization is a system where people aren’t in their own little villages anymore but they are brought together by trade or diplomatic relations. Globalization represents a change in human organization; there are both positive and negative effects of globalization. As our world with new technologies begin to march forward, many countries are being left behind. For example, economic reforms have transformed India into the second fastest growing largest economy. According to India: Rich vs. Poor, they mentioned India's economic growth rate in the year 2007 to 2008 is 9. 1% compared to the United States' growth rate in 2007 to 2008 is 2. 2%. India’s economic growth rate is supposed to be even higher in the next few years. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The Indian rupee has even grown stronger than the United States dollar (Roskins, 467). With all this said, India seems like its on track to be a dominating world power. However, India suffers from high levels of illiteracy, malnutrition, and gender inequality. India has more poor people than the continent of Africa. We have always lived in a world that has created hierarchies. We have rich and poor, affluent and less affluent, developed and developing, and third world countries. Whatever system we use, the gap between rich and poor will be very distinct. According to a report in the New York Times, technology and Internet access will intensify the difference between rich and poor countries (Miller). This gap has always increased over the years because it is a byproduct of globalization. In 2005, World Bank estimates that 1. 1 billion people in the world lived in extreme poverty. The definition of extreme poverty would be poverty that kills and that people who live under extreme poverty may live off of a dollar a day. More than 8 million people die each year because of poverty. Many times it’s from preventable diseases. For example, approximately 3 million people in Africa die of malaria each year. This situation in Africa has worsened over the last two decades. Forbes magazine has published that there are 358 billionaires in the world. Their combined net worth goes past the combined net worth of the worlds poorest 2 and a half billion people. Globalization goes all the way back to beginning. When people built roads it made the world so much smaller, but at the same time easier. Wheels and boats led to changes in transportation. Humans walked first, then came horses and carriages, after that the invention of bikes came along and soon after that was the automobile. Soon traveling did not take days and months, but in a couple of hours you could get from point A to point B. Another example would be writing with ink to printing books; all of these mentioned were a huge milestone for the human race. From the inventions of these things, more people were able to learn more things about the world. We are no longer stuck in villages, knowing the same people and same traditions. Today, globalization continues with the Internet. Now we can get information in a matter of seconds. People everywhere are connecting through social networking sites, blogs and video sites. We are able to â€Å"outsource† jobs. Outsourcing is when you take a job and handing it to a third party. Everything from clothes to technological jobs are getting taken overseas in the United States. Many companies use outsourcing to decrease the cost of labor (O’ Neil). Education ties into outsourcing because it is different in other countries. Many jobs move over to India because the educated middle class in India has a significantly better mathematical training than students in the United States. From 2000 to 2015, an estimated three million American jobs will have been outsourced. A kid playing a Wii in the middle of America calls a help line in India for troubleshooting on his Wii. We are now getting closer and closer to each other even if we live thousands of miles apart. The causes of poverty in the world’s poorest nations may be complicated. Causes range from where the country is located, diseases, civil war, and natural disasters. It may be things we take for granted such as a lack of clean water, lack of education, or lack of an effective health care system. Many poor nations have corrupt governments as well. Some problems may date back to colonialism, farm subsidies, cultural and historical reasons, or problems with institutions such as World Bank. A lot of times the reason why many countries are in deep poverty is because of colonialism. What happens is that western nations stepped in and stole the riches of their colonies. By doing this, the western countries gained money, and left the country they invaded with nothing else. Dependent development is when a less developed country relies on a modernized country. They act as equal partners but some nations could impose unequal exchanges on others and weaken the economic development so they could make their development stronger or more advanced. Dependent development impacts organization in developing nations because they could mess with their system so they could actually get ahead (O’Neil). An example would be Latin America. After WWII, radicals thought of the dependency theory, which said that the less developed countries is dependent economically in the capital, products and policies of the First World. If they could get out of control of US corporations, they could eliminate poverty. Western countries have taken gold from Peru, rubber from Brazil, tea from India, and cocoa from West Africa. Many times, countries struggled to get out of rule from the countries that took over. When they left, the Western country left them with many problems that the new country could not get out of easily. An example could be India. When the British left them, India has faced challenges such as religious violence, discrimination against certain types of castes, terrorism, and regional separatist insurgencies (Roskins, 449). Some may put the blame on farm subsidies and other trade barriers. Farm subsidies have the effect of transferring income from the general taxpayers to the farm owners. The world’s wealthiest nations give more than 300 billion dollars of subsidies to their farmers every year (McKinnon, 446). By doing this, it makes it difficult for poor farmers to compete with the big Western farmers because in some cases, the subsidy goes to the big industrialized farms. However, if you get rid of these subsidies, it may not help out poor farmers either. If there are industrialized farms in developing nations, poor people who would have worked in the small farms wouldn’t be able to work in the bigger farms because they would be replaced with machinery. So the poor people would move to cities where they may not find jobs. Another factor may be cultural or historical. Some reasons why Arab nations are poor may be because they are not advanced economically in modern times. Arab nations may be behind because of the way they treat their people. Many Arab nations look down on free speech, they don’t have good quality education, and there is a shortage of women’s rights. For example, having gender equalities in a country reduces economic growth. By having gender inequalities, it results in a wide gap between the opposite sexes. There are still 65 million Arab adults who are illiterate, and two thirds of them are women (Friedman). In India, women also suffer from high mortality rates. An example could be that their healthcare favors boys. Boys usually get more access to food and medicine and they get it before girls. Girls don’t get first priority and this results in many children, a lot of them girls, getting sick and dying from malnutrition (Hopkins). The World Trade Organization, International Money Fund, and World Bank are usually the most criticized when it comes to the issue of globalization. Some people believe that big business are looking out for themselves only and expand the world markets for their own interests. Some of the policies of the World Bank have harmed the development of Third World countries rather than help it. The World Bank contains high interest rates, which harm some companies. Their trade liberalization made some countries poorer and unable to compete with the global market. Also, the liberalization of capital markets drove smaller banks out of business. Not all-financial aid given to poor people doesn’t actually go directly to the people. The World Trade Organization is typically the target of anti globalization protests. People against globalization believe that the World Trade Organization neglects labor and human rights, only serves the interests of big corporations, increases inequality, and undermines national independence (McKinnon, 447). Some people may say that globalization will create a monopoly for countries that dominate in businesses. Because of the unequal relationships some countries will be left behind and the ones ahead will dominate the world economy. Another negative is the outsourcing of jobs. It lowers standards and weakens regulations in order to keep or attract business. Everything will rely on each other and when the dominant country falls apart so will the whole globe. Some may argue that as globalization increases, the world population has a wider gap between rich and poor. Globalization will create a greater chance for countries to have crises and problems. It will affect everyone because everything is so close knit compared to before. Some people who support anti globalization believe that globalization will destroy old institutions, traditions, and cultures. Individuality and collective identity are giving way as globalization proceeds. As developing countries accept Western influence, they will throw out what used to mean a lot to them, and accept someone else’s cultures. As societies trade their own cultures institutions for a common global society, what used to be shaped by values and tradition will now be shaped by materialism and consumption. The things that make the society different such as the language, music, food, history, values and norms will be taken, maybe changed, and will be sold around the world. Things (such as products) that did not make the cut, will be taken and forgotten because new things that were more appealing to people around the world will come in and take over. An article titled â€Å"McWorld† by Benjamin Barber explains the struggle of globalization and corporate control versus Jihad, which is tradition and traditional values. Barber believed that there were four imperatives to â€Å"McWorld†. They are: A market imperative, a resource imperative, an information-technology imperative, and an ecological imperative. The market imperative says that all national economies are vulnerable of larger, transnational markets. In these markets, there are free trades, the currency is convertible, and access to banking is open. The resource imperative is when countries will use each other's resources. After all, everyone needs something that they don't have. Every nation has something and some nations don't have anything that they need. The information technology imperative says that technology will connect everyone. Business, banking and commerce depend on information flow and you do these now through technologies. The ecological imperative is when nations ruin natural resources for things that they need. We all depend on each other, so if you tear down a rainforest to get resources, another country may use those resources. This ecological consciousness has meant for greater awareness but to inequality because the nations that are modernized may not want to use their resources to help the nations that are not modernized. Barber concludes that traditional cultures or big corporations support democracy. (O’Neil) The term â€Å"McWorld† may come from McDonalds, which is the fast food chain that gets criticized a lot. McDonalds has opened franchises in over 100 different countries. The symbol is recognized almost everywhere you go: from a small town in the United States to a city in China, you will be able to find a McDonalds almost anywhere you travel. It is controversial when it comes to globalization becomes it associates itself with deforestation, harvesting of animals, and a promotion of junk food. Many people believe that McDonalds is destructive towards many cultures that it has been introduced to. McDonalds gets criticized for destroying the practice of a home cooked meal and many countries, especially the United States, are dealing with problems such as obesity in adults and children (O’Neil). Since McDonalds is everywhere, it has become the model of getting rid of individuality. Some critics against globalization believe that it will overwhelm people with countless choices, ideas, values, and information that may be hard for some cultures to understand. As we move closer and closer together, everything seems to rely on each other. If our world truly globalizes, the struggle of freedom and equality will shift from domestic to international. Globalization may lead to greater conflict and chaos. On the other hand, economic globalization also applies to labor. Globalization can help people move and want to migrate. International economic connections, goods and services are expanding; people want to move where the money is. Countries get to bring out what they produce best and throw away things that aren't as popular. Transnational corporations take advantage of new markets and new opportunities. As a result wealth is to be diffused effectively through open markets for goods, labor and capital. Globalization is supposed to take people out of poverty and allow everyone to be a part of the global marketplace for goods and labor. If you look at it this way, globalization is seen to be positive because you bring billions of people out of poverty and produce affluence by letting more people be part of the global marketplace. As globalization has increased over the past quarter century, the percentage of the world’s population that has lives in poverty has declined. People’s life expectancy has risen, especially in part of the world that globalization is a big deal such as China and India, compared with the countries that are not so globalized, such as Africa (O’Neil). Globalization has opened up bigger communications. It has introduced companies into countries, and has helped many people get out of poverty. Globalization has provided opportunities for the workingman and also women. Many women work now because of globalization, and it was able to provide them with pay where they can support their families. Globalization can promote equality for people. Globalization forces businesses to compete on a bigger scale and the market becomes bigger. The competition is greater and will give consumers more choices. I believe globalization is not always a good thing. I believe that globalization will create monopolies for some companies. I don’t think it will be fair when it comes to competition. It will give people more choices, but I don’t think the quality of goods that we get will be of the best quality. The currency isn’t the same throughout the whole world, so the money that is distributed to some people will be different , because of this I think equality will be harder to reach because some people in countries that are more modernized will be getting paid a lot more than countries that are behind. I think it will eliminate small businesses in the United States and it will be hard for small business owners to compete in the global market. Globalization will eliminate individuality in many things such as goods. I think many cultures will forget their own traditions as well, as they welcome in new ideas. As for the whole world, I think that globalization will increase dependence on other countries. All the countries will rely on each other. If someone’s market crashes, especially from a dominating world paper such as the United States, everyone else’s market will crash. I feel that as our world becomes more advanced, we are consumed in a materialistic way of thinking and its almost as if we are moving backwards rather than moving forwards. We value things that are so obsolete such as materials like diamond rings. It seems to put a price tag on people and in this sense we are almost tribal. I believe globalization will truly take over. Our world is getting smaller and smaller everyday. What we do here, in the United States, definitely will affect other people elsewhere.