GLOBALIZATION
While some of the people
consider that the role of USA in the world was, during the time, a good
one, some of them consider that the world would have been a better
place without this superpower. One of the arguments they have is the
globalization, which doesn’t have a good impact on many countries.
One of the most controversial aspects of globalization is
the worldwide spread and dominance of American culture. Just as US
goods flooded world markets in the post-Word War II era, US culture is
now penetrating every continent through the dramatic growth of mass
communications such as music, television, films and the Internet, as
well as through the penetration of American corporations into foreign
countries. From China to France to the Middle East, foreign leaders and
activists have expressed fear that global culture may become too
Americanized, destroying their own cultural, economic, and religious
traditions.
Critics argue that:
- Poorer countries suffering disadvantages: While
it is true that globalization encourages free trade among
countries, there are also negative consequences because some
countries try to save their national markets. The main export of poorer
countries is usually agricultural goods. Larger countries often
subsidise their farmers (like the EU Common Agricultural Policy),
which lowers the market price for the poor farmer's crops compared
to what it would be under free trade.
- 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 offer workers enough salary to entice them to endure extremely long hours and unsafe working conditions, though economists question if consenting workers in a competitive employers' market can be decried as "exploited". 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 if their previous jobs were unavailable.
- The shift to outsourcing: The low cost of offshore workers have enticed corporations to buy goods and services from foreign countries. The laid off manufacturing sector workers are forced into the service sector where wages and benefits are low, but turnover is high . This has contributed to the deterioration 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.
- Weak 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 lose 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.
- Increase exploitation of child labor: for example, a country that experiencing increases in labor demand because of globalization and an increase the demand for goods produced by children, will experience greater a demand for child labor. This can be "hazardous" or "exploitive", e.g., quarrying, salvage, cash cropping but also includes the trafficking of children, children in bondage or forced labor, prostitution, pornography and other illicit activities.
In December 2007, World Bank economist Branko Milanovic
has called much previous empirical research on global poverty and
inequality into question because, according to him, improved estimates
of purchasing power parity indicate that developing countries are worse
off than previously believed. Milanovic remarks that "literally
hundreds of scholarly papers on convergence or divergence of countries’
incomes have been published in the last decade based on what we know
now were faulty numbers." With the new data, possibly economists will
revise calculations, and he also believed that there are considerable
implications estimates of global inequality and poverty levels. Global
inequality was estimated at around 65 Gini points, whereas the new
numbers indicate global inequality to be at 70 on the Gini scale.
The critics of globalization typically emphasize that
globalization is a process that is mediated according to corporate
interests, and typically raise the possibility of alternative global
institutions and policies, which they believe address the moral claims
of poor and working classes throughout the globe, as well as
environmental concerns in a more equitable way.
The movement is very broad, including church groups, national liberation factions, peasant unionists, intellectuals, artists, protectionists, anarchists, those in support of relocalization and others. Some are reformist, (arguing for a more moderate form of capitalism) while others are more revolutionary (arguing for what they believe is a more humane system than capitalism) and others are reactionary, believing globalization destroys national industry and jobs.
One of the key points made by critics of
recent economic globalization is that income inequality, both between
and within nations, is increasing as a result of these processes. One
article from 2001 found that significantly, in 7 out of 8 metrics,
income inequality has increased in the twenty years ending 2001. Also,
"incomes in the lower deciles of world income distribution have
probably fallen absolutely since the 1980s". Furthermore, the World
Bank's figures on absolute poverty were challenged. The article was
skeptical of the World Bank's claim that the number of people living on
less than $1 a day has held steady at 1.2 billion from 1987 to 1998,
because of biased methodology.
A chart that gave the inequality a very visible and
comprehensible form, the so-called 'champagne glass' effect, was
contained in the 1992 United Nations Development Program Report, which
showed the distribution of global income to be very uneven, with the
richest 20% of the world's population controlling 82.7% of the world's
income.
Economic arguments by fair trade theorists claim that
unrestricted free trade benefits those with more financial leverage
(i.e. the rich) at the expense of the poor.
Americanization related to a period of high political
American clout and of significant growth of America's shops, markets
and object being brought into other countries. So globalization, a much
more diversified phenomenon, relates to a multilateral political world
and to the increase of objects, markets and so on into each others
countries.
Critics of globalization talk of Westernization. A 2005
UNESCO report showed that cultural exchange is becoming more frequent
from Eastern Asia but . In 2002, China was the third largest exporter of
cultural goods, after the UK and US. Between 1994 and 2002, both
North America's and the European Union's shares of cultural exports
declined, while Asia's cultural exports grew to surpass North America.
Related factors are the fact that Asia's population and area are
several times that of North America.
Some opponents of globalization see the phenomenon as the
promotion of corporatist interests. They also claim that the increasing
autonomy and strength of corporate entities shapes the political
policy of countries.