There is also the emergence of white collar work, where due to space time compression, work can actually be done via computers and thus where people are employed does not actually matter. This means that companies in developed countries are able to employ those in developing countries for the fraction of the price that they would have to pay for labour locally. In addition, it is the owners of these huge corporations in developed countries, the elites, that have power and are benefiting substantially from the technological advancements of globalization, thus it is difficult to see how this process of employing workers in developing countries for cheaper labour would ever stop. Furthermore, not only does this benefit the huge corporations in fulfilling their selfish interests and profit motive, these job opportunities in developing countries enable them to industrialise and progress.
However, this poses difficulty in terms of the limited jobs in areas where developed countries are able to get cheaper labour overseas in the developed countries, as not only the local workers in competition amongst themselves for a job, it has now become competition involving people from other countries. Due to the fact that labour is a lot cheaper abroad, this has caused a lot of multinational corporations to have factories and purchase raw materials from these countries. This is happening increasingly as the developing countries have acquired the skills and the knowledge on how to manufacture goods and are therefore able to work for corporations in developed countries. India is also leading in software designing and is therefore able to sell their skills and expertise which means that not only do the developed countries get cheaper labour, they also get better quality labour (Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p.196-202).
It should also be borne in mind that not everyone in the world experience globalization in the same way and not everyone reaps the benefits from globalization either as for example those who live in the poorer western parts of Africa are more likely not to benefit from globalization as much as those in New York for example. However, it is not so much about the country that one lives in that affects it as much as the financial position of an individual, it all boils down to the fact that the rich and elite benefit a lot from globalization (Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p.46-47).
I feel the necessity to state here, that globalization is driven by a mindset of greed and fulfilling self interest. This links to structures and ideology that is adapted and internalized within individuals. This will become more evident when looking into economic globalization, the mass media and multinational companies, those that are actually in control.
Cultural globalization is the dissemination of cultures around the world. Culture is depicted through customs, learned ideas, knowledge, values and rules which are common and shared between groups of people. Culture can be expressed through clothing, music, film, arts, literature. The problem with culture is that the experience of it has become commercialized and commoditised; we have to buy our culture. Contemporary commercialized culture is linked particularly to the rise of the mass media and the increasingly widespread consumerist lifestyles. This has much relevance to the writings of Adorno and Hoekheimer (1972) who argued that ‘expanding fordist production compelled businesses as never before to feed our desire for goods, while persuading us to abandon still useful products in favour of newer ones’(Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p.319). We are able to see the role the mass media play in advertising and the ways in which they attach meanings to mundane products, this all results in consumers holding false needs and hopes and engaging in meaningless consumption that do not fulfil their proposed function. The more the media lures them in, as long as these mundane products will false meanings continue to be produced, consumers continue to engage in this cycle of meaningless consumption which drives both economic and cultural globalization and also demonstrates why it is unstoppable (Cohen.,Kennedy,2007,p318-319;Durham.,Kellner,2006,p42-72).
Furthermore, culture consists of ideas and thoughts, it is something that we internalize. Ideas unfortunately are something that cannot be stopped as easily as the flow of capital for example. Therefore when we note back to the question, we are able to see the difficulty that would be posed. There is added difficulty due to the integration between cultures and also migration, where there is a merging of cultures and the acknowledgement of a multicultural world (Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p47-49).
We are able to see the way in which cultural globalization has taken place clearly by looking at the fast food industry. Cuisine is one of the ways in which culture can be expressed and from an article written by Crowther (2010) in ‘The Metro’ I found that according to a survey that was carried out, There are 12,500 restaurants in the U.K that serve Italian food as a speciality and then the in second place 12,000 Indian restaurants in the U.K which both outnumbered Fish and Chip Shops of which there are 10,500. The survey also showed us that 90% of Britons eat pizza at least once a week and that £749,000,000 is spent a year by the U.K on pizza. When it comes to cuisine, people do not automatically think about the fact that they are experiencing globalization when they go to eat a pizza or go to get an Indian takeaway. The cultural diversity within the food sector has increased massively and has become a normal part of our life styles. Therefore globalization is unstoppable, as although many people tend to assume globalization is all about economic, it isn’t, it is something that people, without thinking, experience on a daily basis and have adapted to(Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p62-63).
Now moving on to the ways in which globalization is essential to the wellbeing of the world. When it comes to global problems such as global terrorism or natural disasters that is when countries rely on other counties to aid them. Take events such as the Tsunami, Earthquake in Haiti, September 11th attacks for example. When these disasters occurred countries collectively aided them through globalization and the aid of the electronic mass media we would be unaware of these disasters and this would pose as a huge threat to the world as a whole, without globalization. When it comes to the environment and the damage that has been caused to the biosphere, a collective/ global effort is required. Therefore, although there has been a negative effect of the technology that has aided globalization to the environment, in order for there to be change, globalization is required, to raise awareness and in order for people to act, with the use of the media. Thus, ironically, to attempt to eliminate globalization, globalization itself would be required in any case (Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p49-52).
Heisenberg defines economic globalization as “increasing economic interdependence between non-contiguous countries” (Janet Laible;Henri J;Barkey,2006,p.155); it often refers to the movement of goods across borders, the increasing economic/ financial interdependencies and integration between countries and the emergence of a single global market. We are able to see how the global economy has developed from after the Second World War when neo-liberal policies were formed by elite nations, in order for poorer countries to develop their economies. The IMF then introduced ‘structural adjustment programmes’ in order for developing countries to loan money. However, these had certain ‘terms and conditions’ which were basically that the developing countries had to implement free trade and open up trade barriers to the west. Although it may have been seen as beneficial to the poorer countries at the time, it is argued that the IMF has had a negative effect on the developing countries as it has caused there to be a long term dependence on the USA. Also along with the opening of the borders and market of the west, multinational companies started to locate their businesses in the developing countries. This has been referred to as Americanization or MacDonaldization were these TNC’s from the USA have meant that the USA is making the policies for these countries in terms of low wages and low working conditions. Critics argue that this has caused the countries to lose their sovereignty. Although people may argue that these MNC’s have enabled there to be more jobs in developing countries and there is also the competing for MNC’s in developing countries, it has been argued that it has negative effects also in other dimensions of globalization. If one was to take cultural globalization for instance, with the rise in US fast food outlets such as MacDonald’s all over the world. It has been argued that this has posed as a threat to other countries in terms of their lifestyles and also the fact that local traditional restaurants would have to be competing against big multinational organizations such as MacDonald’s, which undermines local culture, replacing national culture and resulting in cultural homogenization. (Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p.82,326).
On a more positive note, if we look to the theory of comparative advantage posed in the 1800’s by David Ricard, we are able to see that both nations, when trading are at an advantage and that the more efficient allocation of resources means that both nations get wealthier. (A. Smith, 1976) writes in ‘The Wealth of Nations’, “If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage” (Book IV, Section ii, 12). It is clear and rather logical that if country A is able to produce particular goods at a lower cost than a foreign country B which can produce another type of good at a lower cost than country A can produce that set of goods. Then it makes sense for country A to trade their low-priced goods for country B’s cheaper goods. From this we can see that both countries may gain from trading. Furthermore, this can lead us to the fact that no country is self-sufficient, exports and imports are required and are inevitable for countries to run and therefore globalization itself is inevitable as no country has access to all the goods and knowledge that it requires to run smoothly e.g. one country may have a deficiency in oil which is an essential resource, if there is a lack of this resource, the only option is to import it from a country which has more than enough of it. This may thus be the explanation for the view that globalizing processes were around thousands of years ago because they are actually required thus inevitable.
Consequently, we are able to see how the entire economy and its policies boil down to one thing, and that is the pursuit of selfish interest, there is a huge profit motive and incentive and this is what drives economic globalization. We are also able to see the strong interconnectedness and interdependencies of the different countries upon each other due to the economic exchanges of exports and imports, this is what makes globalization an inevitable and unstoppable force. If the US was to for example reduce its demand, this would lead to the reduction in growth, and because of its interdependencies with other countries, this would have a negative impact on the other countries to which it is connected to through trading. Therefore if there was to be a collapse or a fail on one side of the globe then the side effects are sure to be experienced from those on the other side (Cohen.,Kennedy,2007,p.52,53).
When we link the cultural and the economic dimensions of globalization together we are able to see the ways in which the increasingly consumerist lifestyle links in with free trade has lead to competition and then specialization of markets. This has resulted in consumers benefitting from variety and choice when it comes to shopping and are also able to buy cheaper products due to competition in the market.
We are able to see clearly now that globalization is inevitable and unstoppable as not only is it the mindset of the elites who are pursuing their self interest but it is also the view of the masses. Structures such as schools for example have focused on the global market; education itself is based on consumerism, the workplace, striving for the best job, the highest grades resulting in well paid jobs. This could be argued when referring to the structure and agency debate that we internalize values and we create this mindset about pursing self interest, greed, always striving for more. Schools and education also focus on the global market. It’s not only schools but other institutions as well. There is also the mass media which, although I do not strongly hold the pessimist view of human beings as cultural dupes, I do feel that we have agency to a certain extent, however the mass media does have a way of ‘getting to us’ it is powerful and is used in order to keep the viscous circle of capitalism going by luring people into wanting to buy products and participate in meaningless consumerism which has become such an integral part of our modern lifestyles, all this is done through the use of advertisements and propaganda (Cohen;Kennedy,2007,p.316-320).
To conclude, I would like to once again stress the force which drives globalization being the pursuit of self interest, profit motive and greed. Furthermore, in terms of the economy, due to the strong interdependence of the countries’ economies, the pulling out of one country, especially if it was to be the USA would be disastrous, this would definitely confirm the quote that “Every time America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold”, it would create the domino effect as the world’s economy depends on imports and exports from all over the world in order to carry on working efficiently. Also since Multinational companies own at least half of the worlds wealth and operate in ways in which globalization is essential due to raw materials being purchased from one country then the factories to manufacture goods in another according to specialization and cheaper labour. Globalization is inevitable as these companies which own over half of the worlds wealth would simply seize to exist, it just wouldn’t be feasible. Therefore due to the elite who benefit from globalization and the ideologies and mindset of constant dissatisfaction and selfish pursuit of interests that have been internalized with the help of institutions and the mass media. Along with the intense interconnectedness and interdependencies of the economy not forgetting the ways in which people have adapted to globalization culturally, makes it an inevitable and unstoppable force.
Due to the inequalities within globalization with a huge proportion not benefitting from globalization, there is scope and need for change, to make the flows of globalization more equal. Thus one should not look at the negative effects of globalisation and as a result try to stop it, as this as shown is impossible. Instead, one should look to factors such as policies and to those in control in order to reform globalization and make it a more equal force.
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