GLOBALIZATION

What Is Globalization?
Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.
Globalization is not new, though. For thousands of years, people—and, later, corporations—have been buying from and selling to each other in lands at great distances, such as through the famed Silk Road across Central Asia that connected China and Europe during the Middle Ages. Likewise, for centuries, people and corporations have invested in enterprises in other countries. In fact, many of the features of the current wave of globalization are similar to those prevailing before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

But policy and technological developments of the past few decades have spurred increases in cross-border trade, investment, and migration so large that many observers believe the world has entered a qualitatively new phase in its economic development. Since 1950, for example, the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times, and from just 1997 to 1999 flows of foreign investment nearly doubled, from $468 billion to $827 billion. Distinguishing this current wave of globalization from earlier ones, author Thomas Friedman has said that today globalization is “farther, faster, cheaper, and deeper.”

This current wave of globalization has been driven by policies that have opened economies domestically and internationally. In the years since the Second World War, and especially during the past two decades, many governments have adopted free-market economic systems, vastly increasing their own productive potential and creating myriad new opportunities for international trade and investment. Governments also have negotiated dramatic reductions in barriers to commerce and have established international agreements to promote trade in goods, services, and investment. Taking advantage of new opportunities in foreign markets, corporations have built foreign factories and established production and marketing arrangements with foreign partners. A defining feature of globalization, therefore, is an international industrial and financial business structure.

Technology has been the other principal driver of globalization. Advances in information technology, in particular, have dramatically transformed economic life. Information technologies have given all sorts of individual economic actors—consumers, investors, businesses—valuable new tools for identifying and pursuing economic opportunities, including faster and more informed analyses of economic trends around the world, easy transfers of assets, and collaboration with far-flung partners.

Globalization is deeply controversial, however. Proponents of globalization argue that it allows poor countries and their citizens to develop economically and raise their standards of living, while opponents of globalization claim that the creation of an unfettered international free market has benefited multinational corporations in the Western world at the expense of local enterprises, local cultures, and common people. Resistance to globalization has therefore taken shape both at a popular and at a governmental level as people and governments try to manage the flow of capital, labor, goods, and ideas that constitute the current wave of globalization.

To find the right balance between benefits and costs associated with globalization, citizens of all nations need to understand how globalization works and the policy choices facing them and their societies. Globalization101.org tries to provide an accurate analysis of the issues and controversies regarding globalization, especially to high-school and college students, without the slogans or ideological biases generally found in discussions of the topics. We welcome you to our website.

Globalization is international integration. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.

Effects of globalization
Globalization has various aspects which affect the world in several different ways such as:

Industrial (alias trans nationalization) - emergence of worldwide production markets and broader access to a range of foreign products for consumers and companies
Financial - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better access to external financing for corporate, national and subnational borrowers
Economic - realization of a global common market, based on the freedom of exchange of goods and capital. Globalization, when considered in a sociological context, has increased economic inequality throughout the world and within the United States.
Poorer countries are at disadvantage: While it is true that Globalization encourages free trade among countries on an international level, there are also negative consequences. The main export of poorer countries is usually an agricultural good. It is difficult for these countries to compete with stronger countries that subsidize their own farmers. Because the farmers in the poorer countries cannot compete, they are forced to sell their crops at much lower price than what the market is paying. [49]
Exploitation of foreign impoverished workers: The deterioration of protections for weaker nations by stronger industrialized powers has resulted in the exploitation of the people in those nations to become cheap labor. Due to the lack of protections, companies from powerful industrialized nations are able to force workers to endure extremely long hours, unsafe working conditions, and just enough salary to keep them working. The abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries in power incentive not to rectify the inequality between nations. If these nations developed into industrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear alongside development. With the world in this current state, it is impossible for the exploited workers to escape poverty. It is true that the workers are free to leave their jobs, but in many poorer countries, this would mean starvation for the worker, and possible even his/her family. [50]
Shift from manufacturing to service work: The low cost of off-shore workers have enticed corporations to more production to foreign countries. The laid off unskilled workers are forced move into the service sector where wages and benefits are low, but turnover is high. This has contributed to the widening economic gap between skilled and unskilled workers. The loss of these jobs has also contributed greatly to the slow decline of the middle class which is a major factor in the increasing economic inequality in the United States. Families that were once part of the middle class are forced into lower positions by massive layoffs and outsourcing to another country. This also means that people in the lower class have a much harder time climbing out of poverty because of the absence of the middle class as a stepping stone. [51]
The rise of contingent work: As Globalization causes more and more jobs to be shipped overseas, and the middle class declines, there is less need for corporations to hire full time employees. Companies are less inclined to offer benefits, or reduce benefits, to part time workers. Most companies don’t offer any benefits at all. Such benefits include health insurance, bonuses, vacation time, shares in the company, and pensions. Even though most of the middle class workers still have their jobs, the reality is that their buying power has decreased due to decreased benefits. Job security is also a major issue with contingent work. [52]
Weakening of labor unions: The surplus in cheap labor coupled with an ever growing number of companies in transition has caused a weakening of labor unions in the United States. Unions loss their effectiveness when their membership begins to decline. As a result unions hold less power over corporations that are able to easily replace workers, often for lower wages, and have the option to not offer unionized jobs anymore. [53]
Political - political globalization is the creation of a world government which regulates the relationships among nations and guarantees the rights arising from social and economic globalization. [54] Politically, the United States has enjoyed a position of power among the world powers; in part because of its strong and wealthy economy. With the influence of Globalization and with the help of The United States’ own economy, China has experience some tremendous growth within the past decade. If China continues to grow at the rate projected by the trends, then it is very likely that in the next twenty years, there will be a major reallocation of power among the world leaders. China will have enough wealth, industry, and technology to rival the United States for the position of leading world power. [55]
Informational - increase in information flows between geographically remote locations
Cultural - growth of cross-cultural contacts; advent of new categories of consciousness and identities such as Globalism - which embodies cultural diffusion, the desire to consume and enjoy foreign products and ideas, adopt new technology and practices, and participate in a "world culture"
Ecological- the advent of global environmental challenges that can not be solved without international cooperation, such as climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread of invasive species. Many factories are built in developing countries where they can pollute freely.
Social - the achievement of free circulation by people of all nations
Transportation - fewer and fewer European cars on European roads each year (the same can also be said about American cars on American roads) and the death of distance through the incorporation of technology to decrease travel time.[clarify]
Greater international cultural exchange
Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual access to cultural diversity (e.g. 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 has taken place over most of Asia for many centuries.
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, Orkut, Facebook, and MySpace.
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 fiber optic cable, and wireless telephones
Increase in the number of standards applied globally; e.g. copyright laws, patents and world trade agreements.
The push by many advocates for an international criminal court and international justice movements.
Sexual awareness – It is often easy to only focus on the economic aspects of Globalization. This term also has strong social meanings behind it. Globalization can also mean a cultural interaction between different countries. Globalization may also have social effects such changes in sexual inequality, and to this issue brought about a greater awareness of the different (often more brutal) types of gender discrimination throughout the world. Women and girls in African countries have long had to deal with genital mutilation as a form of control enforced by the men in their society.

[edit] Trade barriers
Since World War II, barriers to international trade have been considerably lowered through international agreements - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), for which GATT is the foundation, have included:

Promotion of free trade:
Reduction or elimination of tariffs; construction of free trade zones with small or no tariffs
Reduced transportation costs, especially from development of containerization for ocean shipping.
Reduction or elimination of capital controls
Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for local businesses
Restriction of free trade:
Harmonization of intellectual property laws across the majority of states, with more restrictions.
Supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions (e.g. patents granted by China would be recognized in the United States)
Globalization is also defined as the internationalization of everything related to different countries; Internationalization however, is a contrasted phenomenon to globalization.