Myths
and Realities of Globalization
By:
David Miller
Sunday, March 31st, 2013
As I was drastically impressed by
Adam Abelson’s blog, “What is the Cost
of Globalization,” I was inspired to shine light his insights on
globalization and build upon his previously existing perceptions.
My blog aims to acknowledge
globalization as a process with respect to how it affects the daily
interactions within the modern world in regards to Adam’s discussion on the
forums of economics and corporate control.
Globalization presents itself as an abstract notion based around global
integration; which suggests that technology has eradicated borders and made the
world seem substantially smaller, thereby allowing individuals to move around
freely. However, the tangible ways in
which this occurs differ greatly from its abstract ideas, for globalization is
not a process that brings equality to all, but rather supports specific groups
of people amongst others. As Adam had
theorized in his blog, the occurrence of the world’s known globalization
process has adopted three different forms of myth; that being the myth of
inevitability/ equality, the myth of free trade and lastly the myth that
suggests that globalization will rid the world of poverty on a global scale.
It is claimed that globalization is
considered to be progressive process; however in reality it is more cyclical
than linear. As time goes forward, the
world does not necessarily progress; for global trade was far more integrated
between 1880-1913 than it was between 1918-1973. Copious amounts of examples in history
indicate the same aforementioned ideal and suggests that the world is not necessarily
made to progress as time carries forward.
One of such examples is shown by investigating the time shift between
the 16th through 18th centuries, where there was a free
trade amongst nations, however the late 19th century took a step
backward rather than forward as WWII brought a
time where countries aimed to be self-sufficient. During 1973 and onward, change was once again
apparent as globalization has linked countries together and facilitated a
global reliance on one another. Although
progress cannot be certain, one aspect is; being that globalization is not a
natural process but is carefully controlled by policies enforced by large
corporations and organizations.
Globalization also succeeds in
creating a myth surrounding the notion of free trade. In reality trade is far from free, for
although tariffs no longer exist countries favour their own farmers and
producers by subsidizing them in the market in order to give them a competitive
advantage. Corporations affect policy
makers and facilitate various other examples of non-obvious trade barriers in
order to control the outflow of wealth and their countries economic position.
Lastly the myth surrounding
globalization`s ability to alleviate global
poverty is a very unrealistic notion within modern times. In reality there is an increase in inequality,
a slowdown in economic growth and a decrease in life expectancy. The gap between the richest and poorest
people in the world continues to rise, along with the number of countries that
are in far worse economic conditions that they were in 30 years ago. Policies facilitated in our world seem to
favour one class of people, while all the others slowly suffer.
These myths have been put into
fruition because of the emergence of multi-national corporations, such as the WB, IMF, etc. These corporations account for virtually all
of the world`s Foreign
Direct Investments and mainly are based in either North America or
Japan. With this being said these
countries experience economic boom for they take wealth out of several other
countries and control it in a sort of vacuum cleaner effect. With this power they are able to create
policy and thereby control the economic positions in other countries in order
to facilitate a mass profit. Therefore,
with this process taking place wealth is only increased for the multi-national
corporations while the surrounding nations do not experience the same result.