BSED 1-B ENGLISH AND SCIENCE

GE-3 THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

TTH 5:00-6:30
BOOK: “Defining Globalization” by Prince Kennex Reguyal Aldaba. The Contemporary World: 6

Introduction to Globalization

A. Defining Globalization

Globalization is the spread of products, technology, information, and jobs across national borders and
cultures. In economic terms, it describes an interdependence of nations around the globe fostered through
free trade.

Globalization defined as “the broadening and deepening of national economies into a worldwide market for
goods, services and capital”2 is in fact nothing new.

Example: Indian spice trade dramatically changed tastes and culture in Europe.

Globalization motives are idealistic, as well as opportunistic, but the development of a global free market has
benefited large corporations based in the Western world. Its impact remains mixed for workers, cultures, and
small businesses around the globe, in both developed and emerging nations.

Globalization Explained
Corporations gain a competitive advantage on multiple fronts through globalization. They can reduce
operating costs by manufacturing abroad. They can buy raw materials more cheaply because of the reduction
or removal of tariffs. Most of all, they gain access to millions of new consumers.

What Is Competitive Advantage?

Competitive advantages are conditions that allow a company or country to produce a good or service of
equal value at a lower price or in a more desirable fashion. These conditions allow the productive entity to
generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals.

Globalization is a social, cultural, political, and legal phenomenon.

 Socially, it leads to greater interaction among various populations.

 Culturally, globalization represents the exchange of ideas, values, and artistic expression among
cultures.
 Globalization also represents a trend toward the development of single world culture.

Social and Cultural Globalization

This kind of globalization includes the sharing of ideas, knowledge and cultural norms between nations.
Examples include the popularization of books, movies and shows across the world, such as the "Harry
Potter" or "Twilight" series, which were globally recognizable. Social and cultural globalization tends to
flow in one direction, unlike other forms of globalization. Developed countries such as the United States,
United Kingdom and Canada share cultural information with less-developed countries, rather than the
other way around. As a result, this kind of globalization has been said to erode cultural differences that
make nations unique.

Political Globalization

Political cooperation between different countries is a form of globalization that is used to prevent and
manage conflict. For example, global organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade
Organization were created to diffuse political issues and maintain order on an international scale.
Intergovernmental entities help nations to develop common laws and policies and discuss immigration
issues. Political globalization is also a way for countries to work toward aspects that affect everyone, such
as climate change.

 Politically, globalization has shifted attention to intergovernmental organizations like the United
Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
 Legally, globalization has altered how international law is created and enforced.

What Is the United Nations (UN)?

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization formed in 1945 to increase political and economic
cooperation among its member countries.

What Is the World Trade Organization – WTO?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international institution that oversees the global trade
rules between nations. The WTO is based on agreements signed by the majority of the world's trading
nations. The main function of the organization is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and
importers protect and manage their businesses.

Economic Globalization

The economies of nations are interconnected through the exchange of resources, products and money. As
a result, there isn’t a country today that operates on its own in isolation. Countries that are rich in natural
resources, such as oil for example, sell it to other countries for money or in exchange for other materials,
such as lumber. Similarly, countries across the globe sell crops and food to other nations that lack them,
which helps their own economies in addition to those of other countries. As a result, when an economy
crashes, it affects other economies around the globe because they are closely interconnected.

The banking crisis in the United States in 2007 led to a global financial crisis that affected other countries
including Canada and China.

Technological Globalization

This kind of relationship between nations is as a result of the infrastructure in place for television, radio,
telephones and the internet. Traditionally, technological globalization used to be only available to the
upper classes that had access to them. Now, there are many people in developing countries who have
access to cell phones and the internet, making it easier for them to connect to people in other countries
around the world. Technological globalization makes it possible for countries to connect in other ways,
such as financially through sending loved ones money across the globe or culturally by watching movies
from other nations.

globalization of information. This is the concept that knowledge is shared among nations and groups of
people for the betterment of the world

Ecological globalization is the idea that the Earth is a single ecosystem rather than a group of separate
ecosystems. As a result, there are international organizations and agreements that deal with issues like
climate change, biodiversity and wildlife preservation on a global scale, spanning seve ral countries.
Globalization Advantages
Proponents of globalization believe it allows developing countries to catch up to industrialized nations
through increased manufacturing, diversification, economic expansion, and improvements in standards of
living.

Outsourcing by companies brings jobs and technology to developing countries. Trade initiatives increase
cross-border trading by removing supply-side and trade-related constraints.

Globalization has advanced social justice on an international scale, and advocates report that it has focused
attention on human rights worldwide.

List of the Advantages of Globalization

1. Globalization allows us to pool all our resources together.

When nations work together to fund common goals, then more money becomes useful for needs other than
national defense

2. Globalization would also reduce labor exploitation issues.

When borders become less restrictive around the world, people tend to move to locations where their best
opportunities exist.

By focusing on globalization, we could reduce child labor issues. Human trafficking concerns would be limited
because of more border freedom. People could live, work, or go where they please with fewer restrictions,
making it easier to chase their dreams.

3. Globalization reduces the prospects of tyranny.

As the world moved slowly toward globalization in the 20th century, the nations realized that having a
concentrated power with one administration reduced the likelihood of tyranny in pockets around the globe.

When we’re able to move toward a global-centric society instead of a nation-centric one, these issues will
continue to decline over time.

4. Globalization improves communication access.

Under a globalization perspective, people would have their risks associated by a central perspective instead.
It would be like the United Nations vetting immigrants instead of the individual country. By reducing border
restrictions, we improve communication access because we’re no longer restricting the movements and
actions of people on a per-nation basis.

5. Globalization would remove tax havens for wealthy individuals and businesses.
Tax havens are defined as either a country or independent area where taxation levies are at low rates. They
offer foreign businesses and individuals an opportunity to keep their profits in local institutions with little or
no liability.

Globalization reduces this issue because it eliminates the administrative structures in place which allow the
wealthy to hide their funds from being taxed. Greater transparency would lead to better funding of social
programs, which could reduce poverty and food insecurity over time.
6. Globalization would help the developing world progress faster.
Most of the world today is not developed. By reducing border restrictions, creating common payment
formats, and opening product access by reducing export barriers, more people could improve their way of
life. Higher incomes often lead to lower maternal and infant mortality rates too, which means we’d be saving
lives with this effort.

7. Globalization would reduce currency manipulation problems.

There are three primary currencies traded in the world today: the Dollar, the Euro, and the Pound Sterling.
When a nation offers access to a weaker currency, those with stronger currencies buy and sell more often
with them. It offers better value than spending at home. Globalization would reduce the efforts made to
build weakness or strength into these currencies to influence local markets. We’d be working toward a
society where economic growth occurs on a global scale instead of in only local economies.

8. Globalization encourages free trade.

Borders create restrictions to the free flow of goods and services.

9. Globalization could create more employment opportunities.

With fewer barriers to the import/export market, the cost of producing goods or offering services would
decline without affecting the profit margins of companies. Consumers would benefit from the lower prices,
consume more, and create additional job opportunities around the world. By creating an environment where
free trade encouragement readily exists, more innovation, creativity, and engagement would occur at every
level of society.

List of the Disadvantages of Globalization

1. Globalization may encourage more offshoring instead of less.

With fewer restrictions in place at the national level, some businesses may use offshoring to their advantage.
Even if they kept jobs local, the threat of sending jobs to a different, cheaper region overseas could be used
to justify lower wages at home. The end result of an effort to remove borders would be an increase in wages
in the developing world, but a decrease in developed countries. Many households could see their standard of
living go down if consumable price decreases don’t occur simultaneously.

2. Globalization benefits the wealthy more than the poor.

Value-added taxes above 25% exist in some nations. Tariffs above 70% exist for some products. Unless
borders are completely removed, the advantages of globalization are challenging to achieve. The people who
have the power to dictate policy would reap the most significant rewards. Those with money to invest would
see their bank accounts continue to rise. At the same time, households living paycheck-to-paycheck would
struggle to access what they require, suppressing their ability to pursue a better job.

3. Globalization would encourage disease transfer.

The outcome of the Columbian Exchange was profound at the time. Over 90% of some population centers
died because of their exposure to smallpox, chickenpox, and other diseases that the Europeans were
somewhat immune to at the time. The Europeans brought back syphilis and other diseases as well. If global
travel restricts eased, then issues with malaria and tropical disease could spread to portions of the world
where exposures are minimal. Tuberculosis, certain influenza strains, and other communicable disease could
produce outbreaks at epidemic levels.
4. Globalization could reduce social safety net programs.
Most nations today offer those in extreme poverty access to safety net programs for basic supplies. Even in
the United States, programs like WIC and SNAP offer food and care access to those who cannot afford it on
their own for whatever reason. When we reduce or eliminate borders, there would be a likely shift in social
programs to benefit those earning less than $2 per day while ignoring the needs of those at home.
Households living in poverty in the U.S. or United Kingdom fit into a different definition when compared to
global poverty.

5. Globalization would create a new system of politics.

We’ve already received a sneak peek of what a global society would be like from a political perspective. The
individuals and organizations who spend the most to lobby politicians would receive the best chance of
having their needs met first. We’ve seen billions spent in U.S. elections lately to influence legislation and
policy to become favorable toward specific outcomes. This issue would translate to a global economy, where
only the richest and most influential would influence laws which would impact everyone.

6. Globalization would not prevent resource consumption.

The goal of globalization is to equalize patterns of consumption for populations around the world. Even
though there would be movement toward doing so, there is no getting around the fact that the wealthiest
nations will still consume the most resources. The 20 richest countries in the world today consume almost
90% of the planet’s resources each year. The United States constitutes 5% of the global population right now,
but it consumes 24% of the world’s energy as a country.

When you look at the per capita consumption rates of energy globally, one American consumes as much
energy as 31 people in India. If you go to a developing nation, it takes 370 Ethiopians to use the same amount
of energy that a single U.S. citizen uses to meet their needs.

7. Globalization would make it easier for people to cheat.

The statistics of consumption (especially food) show us already that those who are in power take the
majority of resources away from the general population. Americans eat almost 200 billion more calories per
day as a nation than they require, which means 80 million people are hungry needlessly because of these
consumption habits. About 200,000 tons of edible food is disposed of daily in the United States. By the age of
75, the average person in the U.S. creates 52 tons of garbage.

Globalization would likely centralize distribution of necessary resources. With only a few controlling access to
the many, the chance to negatively impact populations on a large scale become greater when borders are
reduced.

8. Globalization doesn’t fix a lack of skills.

The future of employment involves programming, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Workers who adapt to
automation with their skillset are the most likely to find employment in the coming generations. Jobs which
require repetitive functions will be the first to go away, which are the employment opportunities often found
in the developing world. With no meaningful skills to a globalized economy, there could be a higher
unemployment rate if border restrictions reduce because only those in the developed world would be
trained for the new economy.

Unless new vocational development opportunities implement with the globalization structures, the
boundaries between the developed and developing world will likely continue to exist.
9. Globalization changes how humans would identify themselves.
Humans are global citizens in some ways already. We all share the same planet, after all, so we are united
with that common ground. If we lose borders, however, we also lose a piece of our culture, ethnicity, or
family heritage. People identify themselves based on their history, so being Irish in a global world would have
less impact than it does today. We already seen how this works when Texas came into the U.S. after being an
independent nation. Some Texans label themselves as such first, but many see themselves as an American
before being a Texan.

10. Globalization would negatively impact the environment.

We’ve already seen what free trade does to the environment. Greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2018
despite efforts to curtail them. Micro-plastics invaded our oceans, creating negative impacts on marine life.
The waters of our planet are slowly acidifying, creating economic and health impacts every day. Over 200,000
Americans die each year because of pollution exposure. If caps are taken off of what is not permitted through
globalization, then this issue will continue growing worse.

Disadvantages of Globalization
One clear result of globalization is that an economic downturn in one country can create a domino effect
through its trade partners. For example, the 2008 financial crisis had a severe impact on Portugal, Ireland,
Greece, and Spain. All these countries were members of the European Union, which had to step in to bail out
debt-laden nations, which were thereafter known by the acronym PIGS.

Globalization detractors argue that it has created a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a
small corporate elite which can gobble up smaller competitors around the globe.

Globalization has become a polarizing issue in the U.S. with the disappearance of entire industries to new
locations abroad. It's seen as a major factor in the economic squeeze on the middle class.

For better and worse, globalization has also increased homogenization. Starbucks, Nike, and Gap Inc.
dominate commercial space in many nations. The sheer size and reach of the U.S. have made the cultural
exchange among nations largely a one-sided affair.

Metaphors of Globalization
“A Metaphor occurs when a unit of discourse is used to refer unconventionally to an object, process or
concept, or establishes in an unconventional way a syntactic relationship between two different words. This
unconventional act of reference… is understood on the basis of similarity, matching or analogy involving the
conventional referent of the unit and the actual unconventional referent.”17
The metaphor of Globalization emerges as a guiding principle at the end of the 1990s. It is a term that has no
reference in any of the world’s well-known encyclopedias before the early 1990’s. Neither Larousse, nor
Encyclopedia Britannica nor the Brockhaus offer any kind of definition of the term before then.4 Claiming
that Globalization as the integration of the world economy has existed throughout history is however an
important dimension of the its present metaphorical use.

Globalization provides the metaphorical setting of the Post Cold War era. It is anything but a “natural”
historical evolution. It is the result of human views, beliefs and politics. Globalization is a human artifact that
is being positioned as a natural phenomenon.

Globalization is a metaphor that fits a myth based on facts and figures. The metaphor of Globalization offers
ONE particular perspective on the global trading and financial order and dismisses other perspectives by
declaring them as unrealistic or infeasible. Barthes sees myths as facts that are chosen by a historical
discourse. The myth is not a system of facts, but a relationship that a period of time has to facts. Facts are
not being destroyed, but naturalized. Metaphors are an important toolkit to achieve this goal. Through
metaphors certain aspects are viewed as normal – common knowledge - whereas others are forgotten.6 The
mythic system to which the metaphor of Globalization belongs allows and sometimes forces the speaker to
structure facts in one specific way, to tell one (coherent) story and declare other views as wrong, ridiculous
or foolish.7

Globalization imposes to think in terms of winners and losers. In a surprising way the metaphor of
Globalization refers to the domain of football. States compete against each other and aim to be at the top of
international rankings. But what will happen to states that disqualify? Will they get a new coach? Will they
have to replace their team/citizens? Who will want these non-performing teamplayer/citizens?

The metaphor of Globalization shows remarkable asymmetries: Asymmetries of ownership and asymmetries
of access. The word “Globalization” literally encompasses the entire world, but what kind of Globalization
can we mean if we speak at the same time of marginalization and exclusion? What kind of understanding of
the integration of the world does Globalization encompass if it can not do without the concept of insiders
and outsiders?

Origins and History of Globalization

Globalization is an historical process that began with the first movement of people out of Africa into other
parts of the world. Traveling short or long distances, migrants, merchants and others have delivered their
ideas, customs and products to new lands. The melding, borrowing and adaptation of outside influences are
found in many areas of human life.

The History of Globalization

Globalization is not a new concept. Traders traveled vast distances in ancient times to buy commodities that
were rare and expensive for sale in their homelands. The Industrial Revolution brought advances in
transportation and communication in the 19th century that eased trade across borders.

historical origins of globalization are the subject of ongoing debate. Though many scholars situate the
origins of globalization in the modern era, others regard it as a phenomenon with a long history. Some
authors have argued that stretching the beginning of globalization far back in time renders the concept
wholly inoperative and useless for political analysis.

Globalization Theories
Dynamics of Local and Global Cultures
Globalization and Regionalization