Is Increased globalization a good thing?

Is Increased globalization a good thing? More and more people are becoming aware of the 'shrinking' world. The golden arch of McDonalds and the infamous Coca Cola logo are inescapable in almost every country. We only have to go as far as the nearest supermarket in order to see the extent to which citizens of one country are dependent on imported goods from other parts of the world. The World Wide Web is the most graphic example. In order to assess whether increased globalisation is a good thing or not, this essay will firstly discuss the term 'globalisation'. Then it will analyse the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation in our contemporary world. Over the course of the last few decades, the term 'globalization' has slowly crept into the words of politicians, economists, journalists, entertainers alike. It is a term especially controversial to define because it is a subject which undergoes constant dispute between academics about just what it means to speak of globalization. It is commonly associated with words such as capitalism, modernisation, liberalisation and is often used as a synonym for internationalisation and universalisation. Perhaps a good starting point for the discussion is one where globalization is defined as 'the process of increasing interconnectedness between societies such that events in one part of the world more and more have effects on

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Economics
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How successful has the WTO been in achieving it’s objectives?

How successful has the WTO been in achieving it's objectives? / Ben Weland / 13/10/2002 The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was founded in 1995 and resulted from a series of General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, which started after the Second World War in 1947. The WTO is the first global, constantly operating organisation responsible for the promotion of free trade and the settlement of possible trade disputes through independent disputes panels. A WTO ruling has to be accepted by a member state, otherwise the respective country may face trade sanctions. Major decisions are made on a basis of unanimity in the trade rounds, the most recent one happening in Doha, Quatar. This essay should clarify what the WTO's five main objectives are and to what extent they have been achieved in recent years. Establishing and promoting free global trade is seen by many as the main objective of the WTO. It is the orthodoxy of the time that free trade is the economic policy most economic thinkers believe in, especially because empirical evidence seems to support the argument. Mercantilism, with it's main idea that wealth is finite and should therefore be kept in the country by encouraging exports and stopping imports, has long gone out of fashion. The argument goes that free trade is the way to optimise world output and income levels in the long run. The problem is that it is possible

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Economics
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