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Globalization

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Economics

   A KFC franchise in Kuwait.
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   A KFC franchise in Kuwait.

   Globalisation or globalization is an umbrella term for a complex series
   of economic, social, technological, cultural and political changes seen
   as increasing interdependence, integration and interaction among people
   and companies in disparate locations. As a term 'globalization' has
   been used as early as 1944 but economists began applying it around
   1981. Theodore Levitt is usually credited with its coining through the
   article he wrote in 1983 for the Harvard Business Review entitled
   "Globalization of markets". The more encompassing phenomenon has been
   perceived in the context of sociological study on a worldwide scale.

   " Globalization " was first defined at the University of Pittsburgh by
   sociologist Roland Robertson as " The compression of the world and the
   intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole. "
   (Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture 1992)

   The term "globalization" is used to refer to these collective changes
   as a process, or else as the cause of turbulent change. The distinct
   uses include:
     * Economically, socially and ecologically positive: As an engine of
       commerce; one which brings an increased standard of living —
       prosperity to developing countries and further wealth to First
       World and Third World countries.

     * Economically, socially, and ecologically negative: As an engine of
       " corporate imperialism"; one which tramples over the human rights
       of developing societies, claims to bring prosperity, yet often
       simply amounts to plundering and profiteering. Negative effects
       include cultural assimilation via cultural imperialism, the export
       of artificial wants, and the destruction or inhibition of authentic
       local and global community, ecology and cultures.

   A typical - but restrictive - definition can be taken from the
   International Monetary Fund, which stresses the growing economic
   interdependence of countries worldwide through increasing volume and
   variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services, free
   international capital flows, and more rapid and widespread diffusion of
   technology.

   While being a complex and multifaceted array of phenomena,
   globalization can be broken down into separate aspects:
     * industrial globalization (alias transnationalization) - rise and
       expansion of multinational enterprises
     * financial globalization - emergence of worldwide financial markets
       and better access to external financing for corporate, national and
       subnational borrowers
     * political globalization - spread of political sphere of interests
       to the regions and countries outside the neighbourhood of political
       (state and non-state) actors
     * informational globalization - increase in information flows between
       geographically remote locations
     * cultural globalization - growth of cross-cultural contacts

Characteristics

   Globalization/internationalisation has become identified with a number
   of trends, most of which may have developed or accelerated since World
   War II. These include greater international movement of commodities,
   money, information, and people; and the development of technology,
   organizations, legal systems, and infrastructures to allow this
   movement. The actual existence of some of these trends is debated.
     * Economically
          + Increase in international trade at a much faster rate than the
            growth in the world economy
          + Increase in international flow of capital including foreign
            direct investment
          + Creation of international agreements leading to organizations
            like the WTO and economic cartels such as OPEC
          + Development of global financial systems
          + Increased role of international organizations such as WTO,
            WIPO, IMF that deal with international transactions
          + Increase of economic practices like outsourcing and offshoring
            by multinational corporations
     * Culturally
          + Greater international cultural exchange,
          + Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual access to
            cultural diversity, for example through the export of
            Hollywood and Bollywood movies. However, the imported culture
            can easily supplant the local culture, causing reduction in
            diversity through hybridization or even assimilation. The most
            prominent form of this is Westernization, but Sinicization of
            cultures also takes place.
          + Greater international travel and tourism
          + Greater immigration, including illegal immigration
          + Spread of local consumer products (e.g., food) to other
            countries (often adapted to their culture)
          + World-wide fads and pop culture such as Pokémon, Sudoku, Numa
            Numa, Origami, Idol series, YouTube, MySpace, and many others.
          + World-wide sporting events such as FIFA World Cup and the
            Olympic Games.
          + Formation or development of a set of universal values
     * Technical/legal
          + Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and
            greater transborder data flow, using such technologies as the
            Internet, communication satellites, submarine fibre optic
            cable, and wireless telephones
          + Increase in the number of standards applied globally; e.g.
            copyright laws and patents
          + The push by many advocates for an international criminal court
            and international justice movements (see the International
            Criminal Court and International Court of Justice
            respectively).

   It is often argued that even terrorism has undergone globalization,
   with attacks in foreign countries that have no direct relation with the
   own country.

   Since World War II, barriers to international trade have been
   considerably lowered through international agreements such as the
   General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Particular initiatives
   carried out as a result of GATT and the WTO, for which GATT is the
   foundation, have included:
     * Promotion of free trade
          + Of goods:
               o Reduction or elimination of tariffs; construction of free
                 trade zones with small or no tariffs
               o Reduced transportation costs, especially from development
                 of containerization for ocean shipping.
          + Of capital: reduction or elimination of capital controls
          + Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for
            local businesses
     * Intellectual property restrictions
          + Harmonization of intellectual property laws across nations
            (generally speaking, with more restrictions)
          + Supranational recognition of intellectual property
            restrictions (e.g. patents granted by China would be
            recognized in the US)

Historical precedents

   Although the term "globalization' was coined in the latter half of the
   twentieth century, and the term and its concepts did not permeate
   popular consciousness until the latter half of the 1980's; various
   social scientists have tried to demonstrate continuity between
   contemporary trends of globalization and earlier periods. Earlier forms
   of globalization existed during the Mongol Empire, when there was
   greater integration along the Silk Road. Liberalization in the 19th
   century is often called "The First Era of Globalization", a period
   characterised by rapid growth in international trade and investment,
   between the European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the
   United States.

   The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning
   with the first World War, and later collapsed during the gold standard
   crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Countries that engaged in
   that era of globalization, including the European core, some of the
   European periphery and various European American and Oceanic offshoots,
   prospered. Inequality between those states fell, as goods, capital and
   labour flowed freely between nations.

   Globalization in the era since World War II has been driven by advances
   in technology which have reduced the costs of trade, and trade
   negotiation rounds, originally under the auspices of GATT, which led to
   a series of agreements to remove restrictions on free trade. The
   Uruguay round (1984 to 1995) led to a treaty to create the World Trade
   Organization (WTO), to mediate trade disputes. Other bi- and trilateral
   trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and
   the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have also been signed
   in pursuit of the goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.

   The world increasingly is confronted by problems that can not be solved
   by individual nation-states acting alone. Examples include
   cross-boundary air and water pollution, over-fishing of the oceans and
   other degradations of the natural environment, regulation of
   outer-space, global warming, international terrorist networks, global
   trade and finance, and so on. Solutions to these problems necessitate
   new forms of cooperation and the creation of new global institutions.
   Since the end of WWII, following the advent of the UN and the Bretton
   Woods institutions, there has been an explosion in the reach and power
   of Transnational corporations and the rapid growth of global civil
   society.

Anti-globalization

   Critics of the economic aspects of globalization contend that it is
   not, as its proponents tend to imply, an inexorable process which flows
   naturally from the economic needs of everyone. The critics typically
   emphasize that globalization is a process that is mediated according to
   corporate interests, and typically raise the possibility of alternative
   global institutions and policies, which they believe address the moral
   claims of poor and working classes throughout the globe, as well as
   environmental concerns in a more equitable way.

   In terms of the controversial global migration issue, disputes revolve
   around both its causes, whether and to what extent it is voluntary or
   involuntary, necessary or unnecessary; and its effects, whether
   beneficial, or socially and environmentally costly. Proponents tend to
   see migration simply as a process whereby white and blue collar workers
   may go from one country to another to provide their services, while
   critics tend to emphasize negative causes such as economic, political,
   and environmental insecurity, and cite as one notable effect, the link
   between migration and the enormous growth of urban slums in developing
   countries. According to "The Challenge of Slums," a 2003 UN-Habitat
   report, "the cyclical nature of capitalism, increased demand for
   skilled versus unskilled labour, and the negative effects of
   globalization — in particular, global economic booms and busts that
   ratchet up inequality and distribute new wealth unevenly — contribute
   to the enormous growth of slums."

   Various aspects of globalization are seen as harmful by public-interest
   activists as well as strong state nationalists. This movement has no
   unified name. "Anti-globalization" is the media's preferred term; it
   can lead to some confusion, as activists typically oppose certain
   aspects or forms of globalization, not globalization per se. Activists
   themselves, for example Noam Chomsky, have said that this name is
   meaningless as the aim of the movement is to globalize justice. Indeed,
   the global justice movement is a common name. Many activists also unite
   under the slogan "another world is possible", which has given rise to
   names such as altermondialisme in French.

   There are a wide variety of kinds of "anti-globalization". In general,
   critics claim that the results of globalization have not been what was
   predicted when the attempt to increase free trade began, and that many
   institutions involved in the system of globalization have not taken the
   interests of poorer nations, the working class, and the environment
   into account.

   Economic arguments by fair trade theorists claim that unrestricted free
   trade benefits those with more financial leverage (i.e. the rich) at
   the expense of the poor.

   Many see globalization as the promotion of a corporatist interests,
   which is intent on constricting the freedoms of individuals in the name
   of profit. They also claim that the increasing autonomy and strength of
   corporate entities increasingly shapes the political policy of
   nation-states.

   Some "anti-globalization" groups argue that globalization is
   necessarily imperialistic, is one of the driving reasons behind the
   Iraq war and is forcing savings to flow into the United States rather
   than developing nations; it can therefore be said that "globalization"
   is another term for a form of Americanization, as it is believed by
   some observers that the United States could be one of the few countries
   (if not the only one) to truly profit from globalization.

   Some argue that globalization imposes credit-based economics, resulting
   in unsustainable growth of debt and debt crises.

   The financial crises in Southeast Asia that began in 1997 in the
   relatively small, debt-ridden economy of Thailand but quickly spread to
   Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea and eventually were felt all around
   the world, demonstrated the new risks and volatility in rapidly
   changing globalized markets. The IMF's subsequent 'bailout' money came
   with conditions of political change (i.e. government spending limits)
   attached and came to be viewed by critics as undermining national
   sovereignty in neo-colonialist fashion. Anti-Globalization activists
   pointed to the meltdowns as proof of the high human cost of the
   indiscriminate global economy.

   Many global institutions that have a strong international influence are
   not democratically ruled, nor are their leaders democratically elected.
   Therefore they are considered by some as supernational undemocratic
   powers.

   The main opposition is to unfettered globalization ( neoliberal;
   laissez-faire capitalism), guided by governments and what are claimed
   to be quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and
   the World Bank) that are supposedly not held responsible to the
   populations that they govern and instead respond mostly to the
   interests of corporations. Many conferences between trade and finance
   ministers of the core globalizing nations have been met with large, and
   occasionally violent, protests from opponents of " corporate
   globalism".

   Some "anti-globalization" activists object to the fact that the current
   "globalization" globalizes money and corporations, but not people and
   unions. This can be seen in the strict immigration controls in nearly
   all countries, and the lack of labour rights in many countries in the
   developing world.

   Another more conservative camp opposed to globalization is
   state-centric nationalists who fear globalization is displacing the
   role of nations in global politics and point to NGOs as encroaching
   upon the power of individual nations. Some advocates of this warrant
   for anti-globalization are Pat Buchanan and Jean-Marie Le Pen.

   The movement is very broad, including church groups, national
   liberation factions, left-wing parties, environmentalists, peasant
   unionists, anti-racism groups, anarchists, those in support of
   relocalization and others. Most are reformist, (arguing for a more
   humane form of capitalism) while others are more revolutionary (arguing
   for what they believe is a more humane system than capitalism). Many
   have decried the lack of unity and direction in the movement, but some
   such as Noam Chomsky have claimed that this lack of centralization may
   in fact be a strength.

   Protests by the global justice movement have forced high-level
   international meetings away from the major cities where they used to be
   held, into remote locations where protest is impractical.

Pro-globalization (globalism)

   Supporters of democratic globalization are sometimes called
   pro-globalists. They consider that the first phase of globalization,
   which was market-oriented, should be completed by a phase of building
   global political institutions representing the will of world citizens.
   The difference with other globalists is that they do not define in
   advance any ideology to orient this will, which should be left to the
   free choice of those citizens via a democratic process.

   Supporters of free trade point out that economic theories of
   comparative advantage suggest that free trade leads to a more efficient
   allocation of resources, with all countries involved in the trade
   benefiting. In general, this leads to lower prices, more employment and
   higher output.

   Libertarians and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism say
   higher degrees of political and economic freedom in the form of
   democracy and capitalism in the developed world are both ends in
   themselves and also produce higher levels of material wealth. They see
   globalization as the beneficial spread of liberty and capitalism.

   Critics argue that the anti-globalization movement uses anecdotal
   evidence to support their view and that worldwide statistics instead
   strongly support globalization:
     * The percentage of people in developing countries living below US$1
       (adjusted for inflation and purchasing power) per day has halved in
       only twenty years, although some critics argue that more detailed
       variables measuring poverty should instead be studied.

     * Life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since
       WWII and is starting to close the gap to the developed world where
       the improvement has been smaller. Infant mortality has decreased in
       every developing region of the world. Income inequality for the
       world as a whole is diminishing.

     * Democracy has increased dramatically from almost no nation with
       universal suffrage in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations in 2000.

     * The proportion of the world's population living in countries where
       per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200
       kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid- 1960s to below
       10% by the 1990s.

     * Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of
       the world. Women made up much of the gap: Female literacy as a
       percentage of male literacy has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80%
       in 2000.

     * The percentage of children in the labor force has fallen from 24%
       in 1960 to 10% in 2000.

     * There are similar trends for electric power, cars, radios, and
       telephones per capita, as well as the proportion of the population
       with access to clean water.

   However, some of these improvements may not be due to globalization, or
   may be possible without the current form of globalization or its
   perceived negative consequences, to which the global justice movement
   objects.

   Some pro-capitalists are also critical of the World Bank and the IMF,
   arguing that they are corrupt bureaucracies controlled and financed by
   states, not corporations. Many loans have been given to dictators who
   never carried out promised reforms, instead leaving the common people
   to pay the debts later. They thus see too little capitalism, not too
   much. They also note that some of the resistance to globalization comes
   from special interest groups with conflicting interests, like Western
   world unions.

   Others, such as Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., simply view globalization
   as inevitable and advocate creating institutions such as a
   directly-elected United Nations Parliamentary Assembly to exercise
   oversight over unelected international bodies.

Measurement of globalization

   To what extent a nation-state or culture is globalized in a particular
   year has until most recently been measured employing simple proxies
   like flows of trade, migration, or foreign direct investment. A more
   sophisticated approach to measuring globalization is the recent index
   calculated by the Swiss Think tank KOF. The index measures the three
   main dimensions of globalization: economic, social, and political. In
   addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, an overall index
   of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows,
   economic restrictions, data on personal contact, data on information
   flows, and data on cultural proximity is calculated. Data are available
   on a yearly basis for 122 countries. According to the index, the
   world's most globalized country is the USA, followed by Sweden, Canada,
   the United Kingdom, and Luxembourg. The least globalized countries
   according to the KOF-index are Togo, Chad and the Central African
   Republic.

Australia's push for globalization

   In a speech outlining the Australian Government's reasons for the
   selling of telecommunications company, Telstra; Treasurer Peter
   Costello stated that the sale 'Would be beneficial for Australia in
   progessing toward a globalised community.' Treasurer Costello, along
   with Prime Minister John Howard, have been known for their push for a
   more globalised economy, since the Liberal Party's election into
   Parliament in 1996.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization"
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