Globalization Revealed
Globalization is a complex method of trading and gaining products. There are multiple perspectives to this method of trading and gaining products. When this theory of globalization first started in was advertised as a good thing. It was advertise as something that will benefit everyone and it would allow for a diversity of products to be distributed around the world. This meant that during winter time people in the United States would still be able to get our fruits from other countries. Globalization sounded like a great thing because it meant that markets all over the world would expand and jobs would also increase.
Over time globalization turned not to be as great as advertised because powerful countries like America and Europe were controlling the markets. The first step to expanding globalization was to lower or completely take down tariffs and turn trading business into a free market. This allowed for trading to become easier, which was also advertised as a good thing because it was taking down barriers to get products that people normally didn’t see at all times of the year, an example of this is having bananas during the winter time. Even though free market seemed like a good thing it turned out to be a bad thing because it caused countries to lose control of their economies. The effects of free market have caused countries to sink into such a big hole that they have had to be bailed out. For a country to reach the point of having to be bailed out takes a couple of steps. Step one is they agree to free markets and join the trading business. Step two countries open their doors to allow for foreign companies and corporation to set up business in their countries. These companies and corporations come to these foreign countries advertising more job opportunities. This turns out to be true and more jobs are offered but the workers get exploited. These workers end up working for really low wages and poor conditions. This is the start of the downfall of a country because local companies cannot compete with foreign companies and for that reason they have to close. With local companies gone the country has to depend on these foreign companies for their economy. The owners of these companies do not get taxed from these countries because of free market and they also do not invest the money back into the country but instead take it somewhere else. This means that the profit coming out of these companies is not going back into the country and for this reason they cannot get out of the cycle of poverty. Once these companies start to get threaten by citizens or it becomes hostile place to have their companies they can just pick up their stuff and leave without any consequences and leaving countries with debt while they wipe their hands off and leave.
This is how globalization can affect countries in an economic way. The World Bank also contributes to dig countries deeper into their economic deficit by first offering to bail them out but then charges them interest. This does not help out countries because the money that is given to them for the bailout is usually given to do new revenues that are unnecessary and will not produce profit, instead of using the money from bailouts for local businesses to fix their economic deficits. This is how globalization affects countries in an economic way.
Globalization also affects the social and cultural lives of people. Culturally globalization can be spread through the media. From listening to Gabriel Ivy present on Fiji women and how Fiji women were influenced by the media it is clear that globalization affects people all over the world. In the culture of the Fiji women a sign of wealth was portrayed as being big. It was portrayed this way because having a lot of weight meant you had enough money to eat well meaning you were wealthy. After the women from Fiji were exposed to American T.V they started to feel insecure about their weights. They no longer believed that being big was beautiful and showed wealth. This is also referred to as westernization because the culture of the west takes over other countries on the east. Usually the culture that influences others the most is the American culture and American companies. A company that is well known for changing culture is McDonalds. This is a fast food company that strives on cheap fast food and can practically be found all over the world. This is a company that changes the culture of many because it is easier to get food from McDonalds compared to having to wait for traditional well-made food. This is one way that globalization affects how culture is changed.
Globalization also affects people socially. With new technology like the computer and the phone it is easier to communicate to people all over the world with in a number of seconds. This means that people are able to know what is going on all over the world, and people are also able to watch the same things. Artists have a big responsibility on how socially things change. Music artist from America influence a lot of people all over the world. This is also a sign of globalization because people all over the world are thinking that America might be what they see on music videos and movies. For this reason people might be influenced to think and act a certain way because they might what they see over here is cool. A good example of this is break dancing. Break dancing started in New York and after being on some music videos and movies it now exists all over the world. When a culture is changed usually people also change socially and for that reason these two are almost connected.
My issue is the distribution of wealth and how that affects the world. Thanks to globalization the elite have been able to keep most of the money. Ever since globalization started the gap between the rich and the poor has increased. The effects that globalization takes on the economy all over the world, allows for the rich to continue to get richer while the middle and working class sink. Here in America many working class and middle class people have to worry about their jobs moving elsewhere because of cheaper labor. This means that workers in America not only compete within themselves for a job but now they have to compete worldwide to get a job. This allows for company owners to become richer because they are getting the same production elsewhere for cheaper labor. This is all allowed to happen because of globalization and foreign countries opening their doors for more production. In this type of system everyone is losing except the rich.
Globalization overall has not increased our economies as it was advertised but instead it has brought us lots of problems. Globalization has contributed to the increase gap between the rich and the poor and that gap continues to grow if globalization continues to work this way. My issue can ultimately be solved if globalization can have some constraints that will not allow for it to take advantage of others. The distribution of wealth would be more equally distributed if globalization was restricted.
Globalization is starting to kill the culture of the local people in many different countries. This is usually called westernization most popular with McDonald's. This is a country that is well know all over the world and is associated with westernization.