"Globalisation Is A Force For Good, Any Faults Lie With the Actions Of The Global North", Discuss.

People who support globalisation believe that free trade throughout the world will bring general prosperity to most of the regions in the world. For example 23 percent of the worlds countries GDP relied on trade in 1960 and in 2002 it was 43 percent. However, this statistic could imply that there is a much greater dependency on trade.

The idea of competition also falls into the pro globalisation category. The idea of domestic dominance in one country is significant to this area. They believe foreign trade intervention will keep some companies from having a stranglehold, so to speak, on the country. For example, ford motors in the United States dominated the whole of their field and therefore could afford to produce any sort of poor quality cars they wanted. When intervention from companies such as Hyundai came to America it forced ford to produce reduce cost, well built, fuel saving, inexpensive small cars.

Those in favour also content that the flow of investment capital is imperative to lower developed countries. In the 1990’s $1.3 trillion of investment flowed into these countries and help with economic development.4

It is also fully believe that functions such as free trade can lead to greater co-operation in other areas of politics and therefore will bring peace and world collaboration. Trade is also believed to bring greater understanding for example the political integration of Europe started with economic co-operation between nations

Along the same lines is conflict inhibition. Free trade restrains conflict by promoting interdependence i.e. oil and iron are necessary to fight a war, therefore if country A supplies country B with oil and country B supplies country A will iron, it will severely dissuade them from going to war with each other. In addition, with increased international investment we now own more of each other and therefore we are less likely to do damage to it.

Due to the greater flow of money through non-governmental organisations there has been an increase world populations living above the poverty line. The increased number of multination corporations such as Starbucks has greatly assisted the flow of money

Free economic interchange is also believed to promote democracy; many new democratic elections such as those in Indonesia and Mexico have come about through the countries exposure to free trade and capital movement.

“people who operate in open economies eventually demand more open societies”

The argument against globalisation can start with this quote. Unfortunately, investors have proven themselves willing to support oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Communist authoritarianism in China, just as long as these regimes open markets to foreign companies.

“In the race for cheap labour and precious natural recourses, pro-democracy movements are often trampled.”

The are regular protests held by people from many different political backgrounds spanning from “wannabe radicals” to out and out anarchists. Such an event was held in Seattle at the World Trade Organisations (WTO) headquarters. The fifty thousand gathering was protesting (in summary) about “the lack of rules being applied to corporations, as well as the flagrant double standards of existing rules in rich or poor countries” 

One of the main problems with the WTO is that it is seen to be forcing globalisation and capitalism. For example it was found out that WTO tribunals were overturning environmental laws protecting endangered species because the laws were apparently unfair to trade barriers. The damaged caused by this organisation to indigenous organisations such as this and countries that offer free AIDS treatments shows that free markets rarely stand by and tolerate truly free peoples.

As talked about previously the intervention in domestic markets should be seen as a good thing, however we can be lead to understand that giving people the best quality they can comes after profits. We can use the example of steel in the United States. The US claimed that foreign steel was being “dumped” onto their markets so therefore they imposed tariffs close to 30 percent on most types of steel imported, and act that had previously been ruled illegal by the WTO.

Another NGO that is seen as supporting globalisation is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has a major voting system problem, as it based on member contributions it is quite clear the less economically developed countries will have no real power in areas that it has influence on. Where as EDC’s are available to protect themselves from economic imperialism the south does not have the capital to do so. Another problem is that due to the dominance over lesser-developed countries sovereignty is violated, multinational corporations are forced upon loan receiving countries, thus giving the north a larger role in the states economic and political sphere. It can be argued further that due to the fact that multinationals can have their countries create laws through the organisations they dominate they can effectively run sweat shops that treat workers no better than slaves.

In conclusion we see that in theory globalisation is a force for good and it should bring prosperity to all regions throughout out the world and should succeed in bringing many above the poverty line. However, we see that it does have many major faults, mainly the fact that due to poor voting systems and unfair influence in these organisations, who claim to be promoting free trade, leads to the domination of economically smaller countries. Real power has moved from local to state, from state to national, from national to international, until finally representative democracy means voting for politicians every few years that use that mandate to transfer national powers to the World Trade Organisation and The International Monetary Fund.

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