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Globalization is term use to describe the growing worldwide interdependence of people and countries. This process has accelerated dramatically in the past decade or so, largely because of huge advances in technology. Television, Internet, telephone and microchips. During this time the divisive blocks of the cold war have virtually disappeared, trade barriers have come down, the world’s major financial markets have been integrating and travel has been cheaper and easier.
The growing worldwide integration has produced a whole series of consequences-economic, political, cultural and environmental. Unfortunately, some of these consequences can be negative.
The United Nations publication Human Development Report 1999 explained: people’s lives around the globe are linked more deeply, more immediately than ever before. This open many opportunities giving new power to good and bad. Like many human achievement, globalization has both an upside and downside.
Globalization “has enriched the world scientifically and culturally and benefited many people economically as well” claims Nobelprize winner in economics, Amartya Sen. The human development report 1999 likewise points out that globalization” offers enormous potential to eradicate poverty in the 21st century” the reason for this optimism is the dramatic increase in prosperity that globalization has brought in its wake. The average family in the world today has three times more income than it did 50years ago.
Some analyst see another advantage to economic integration, they feel it will make countries more reluctant to go to wars. Thomas l. Freidman, in his book The lexus and the olive tree, asserts that globalization” increases the incentives for not making war in more ways than in any previous era in modern history”.
Despite these positive results, many people still fear that the harmful effects of globalization outweigh its benefits. Probably the greatest concern about globalization is the way it has widened the gulf between the haves and have-nots. While goal wealth has undoubtedly increased, it has become concentrated in the hands of few and fewer countries. The net worth of the 200 richest people on earth now exceeds the combined income of 40 percent of the people who live on the planet—some 2.4billion people. And while wages continue to rise in wealthy countries, 80 impoverished countries have actually seen a decline in average income over the past ten years.
Another basic worry involves the environment. Economic globalization has been fueled by market forces that have much more interest in profits than in the protection of the planet. Agus Purnomo, head of the worldwide fund for nature in Indonesia, explains the dilemma we are in Constance race with development that in a decade, we’ll all be environmentally aware, but the will be nothing left to defend”.
People also fret about their jobs. Both jobs and income have become more precarious, as global mergers and intense competition pressure companies into streamlining their operations. Hiring and firing workers according to the current needs of the markets makes sense for a company concerned with increasing its profits, but it plays havoc wit6h people lives.
The globalization of money markets has introduced another destabilizing factor. International investors may sink huge sums of money into developing countries but later withdraw their sums suddenly when the economic outlook worsens. Such massive withdrawals can plunge one country after another into economic crisis.
The distribution of global wealth has never been fair, but economic globalization has widened the chasm between the rich and the poor. It appears that some developing countries have benefited from their integration into global economy. Experts claim that during the past ten years, the number of people below the poverty line in India has gone down from 39 percent to 26 percent.
In sub Saharan Africa and some other less developed regions, income has actually decreased in the past 30 years. The vast income divide between the rich and poor segregates people and even countries from one another. Not long ago the fortune of the richest man in the United States surpassed the combined net worth of more than 100 million of his fellow Americans.
Globalization has also favored the growth of rich multinational companies that have practically taken over the world markets for certain products. In 1998, just ten companies controlled 86 percent of the $262-billion telecommunications business.
Human rights organizations are worried about the concentration of the world’s wealth in the hands of a privileged few.
Another area of concern involves clashes of culture and the spread of materialistic values. The interchange of ideas is an important feature of globalization, and nothing symbolizes this phenomenon more than the Internet. Unfortunately, the Internet is not merely used to spread beneficial information, culture, and commerce. Some web sites promotes programs that are harmful to the growth and developments of children and youths.
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Jerry Nwigwe
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EVERY PUBLIC SCHOOL NEED TO READ THIS ARTICLE. EKHATOR CHRISTIAN OSAZEE | Aug 2nd, 2003
Nwigwe Chibueze Jerry has written a master piece, I do recommend that this article be circulated throughout public schools in the developing societies. Keep more of the well researched kind of articles coming. best regards.
Chris (TIG Member).
globalisation. Henry Ekwuruke | Jul 19th, 2004
you are there friend,you have written a wonderful topic,i am working on that globalisation as a monster to the third world nations.
it is wonderful..
Henry
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