Globalization: Difference between revisions

Globalization in a literal sense is international integration. ^[1] It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.^[2]

Globalization, as a term, is very often used to refer to economic globalization, that is integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and spread of technology.^[3]

The word globalization in what Noam Chomsky calls a doctrinal sense is also used to describe the particular neoliberal form of economic globalization.^[4]

Globalization is also defined as the internationalization of everything related to different countries; Internationalization however, as a contrasted phenomenon, differs from globalization ^{[citation needed]} in that Global is commonly used as a synonym for "international", however such usage is typically incorrect as "global" implies "one world" as a single unit, while "international" (between nations) recognizes that different peoples, cultures, languages, nations, borders, economies, and ecosystems exist.

The process of globalization had its origins in Europe, through the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French, and English territorial and maritime expansion into all habitable continents, and included the discovery and colonization of the New World.

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The word "globalization" has been used by economists since 1981; however, its concepts did not permeate popular consciousness until the later half of the 1990s. The earliest concepts and predictions of globalization were penned by an American entrepreneur-turned-minister Charles Taze Russell who first coined the term 'corporate giants' in 1897. [9] Various social scientists have tried to demonstrate continuity between contemporary trends of globalization and earlier periods.^[5]. The first era of globalization (in the fullest sense) during the 19th century was the rapid growth of international trade between the European imperial powers, the European colonies, and the United States. After World War II, globalization was restarted and was driven by major advances in technology, which led to lower trading costs.

Globalization is viewed as a centuries long process, tracking the expansion of human population and the growth of civilization, that has accelerated dramatically in the past 50 years. Early forms of globalization existed during the Roman Empire, the Parthian empire, and the Han Dynasty, when the silk road started in China, reached the boundaries of the Parthian empire, and continued onwards towards Rome. The Islamic Golden Age is also an example, when Muslim traders and explorers established an early global economy across the Old World resulting in a globalization of crops, trade, knowledge and technology; and later during the Mongol Empire, when there was greater integration along the Silk Road. Global integration continued through the expansion of European trade, as in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Portuguese and Spanish Empires reached to all corners of the world after expanding to the Americas.

Globalization became a business phenomenon in the 17th century when the Dutch East India Company, which is often described as the first multinational corporation, was established. Because of the high risks involved with international trade, the Dutch East India Company became the first company in the world to share risk and enable joint ownership through the issuing of shares: an important driver for globalization.

Liberalization in the 19th century is sometimes called "The First Era of Globalization", a period characterized by rapid growth in international trade and investment, between the European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States. It was in this period that areas of sub-saharan Africa and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the world system. The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning with the first World War, and later collapsed during the gold standard crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

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Globalization in the era since World War II was first the result of planning by economists, business interests, and politicians who recognized the costs associated with protectionism and declining international economic integration. Their work led to the Bretton Woods conference and the founding of several international institutions intended to oversee the renewed processes of globalization, promoting growth and managing adverse consequences.

These were the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund. It has been facilitated by advances in technology which have reduced the costs of trade, and trade negotiation rounds, originally under the auspices of GATT, which led to a series of agreements to remove restrictions on free trade.

Since World War II, barriers to international trade have been considerably lowered through international agreements - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), for which GATT is the foundation, have included:

• Promotion of free trade:
  • Reduction or elimination of tariffs; construction of free trade zones with small or no tariffs
  • Reduced transportation costs, especially from development of containerization for ocean shipping.
  • Reduction or elimination of capital controls
  • Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for local businesses
• Restriction of free trade:
  • Harmonization of intellectual property laws across the majority of states, with more restrictions.
  • Supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions (e.g. patents granted by China would be recognized in the United States)

The Uruguay round (1984 to 1995) led to a treaty to create the World Trade Organization (WTO), to mediate trade disputes and set up a uniform platform of trading. Other bi- and multilateral trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have also been signed in pursuit of the goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.

The use of the term globalization (in the doctrinal sense), in the context of these developments has been analysed by many including Noam Chomsky who states ^[6]

... That enhances what's called "globalization," a term of propaganda used conventionally to refer to a certain particular form of international integration that is (not surprisingly) beneficial to its designers: Multinational corporations and the powerful states to which they are closely linked.

Critics have observed that the term's contemporary usage comprises several meanings, for example Noam Chomsky states that: ^[7]

The term "globalization," like most terms of public discourse, has two meanings: its literal meaning, and a technical sense used for doctrinal purposes. In its literal sense, "globalization" means international integration. Its strongest proponents since its origins have been the workers movements and the left (which is why unions are called "internationals"), and the strongest proponents today are those who meet annually in the World Social Forum and its many regional offshoots. In the technical sense defined by the powerful, they are described as "anti-globalization," which means that they favor globalization directed to the needs and concerns of people, not investors, financial institutions and other sectors of power, with the interests of people incidental. That's "globalization" in the technical doctrinal sense.

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Looking specifically at economic globalization, it can be measured in different ways. These centre around the four main economic flows that characterize globalization:

• Goods and services, e.g. exports plus imports as a proportion of national income or per capita of population
• Labour/people, e.g. net migration rates; inward or outward migration flows, weighted by population
• Capital, e.g. inward or outward direct investment as a proportion of national income or per head of population
• Technology, e.g. international research & development flows; proportion of populations (and rates of change thereof) using particular inventions (especially 'factor-neutral' technological advances such as the telephone, motorcar, broadband)

To what extent a nation-state or culture is globalized in a particular year has until most recently been measured employing simple proxies like flows of trade, migration, or foreign direct investment, as described above.

As globalization is not only an economic phenomenon, a multivariate approach to measuring globalization is the recent index calculated by the Swiss Think tank KOF. The index measures the three main dimensions of globalization: economic, social, and political. In addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, an overall index of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows, economic restrictions, data on personal contact, data on information flows, and data on cultural proximity is calculated. Data are available on a yearly basis for 122 countries, as detailed in Dreher, Gaston and Martens (2008) [10]. According to the index, the world's most globalized country is Belgium, followed by Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The least globalized countries according to the KOF-index are Haiti, Myanmar the Central African Republic and Burundi.^[8]. Other measures conceptualize Globalization as Diffusion and develop interactive procedure to capture the degree of its impact Jahn 2006.

A.T. Kearney and Foreign Policy Magazine jointly publish another Globalization Index. According to the 2006 index, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the U.S., the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark are the most globalized, while Egypt, Indonesia, India and Iran are the least globalized among countries listed.

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Globalization has various aspects which affect the world in several different ways such as:

• Industrial (alias trans nationalization) - emergence of worldwide production markets and broader access to a range of foreign products for consumers and companies
• Financial - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better access to external financing for corporate, national and subnational borrowers
• Economic - realization of a global common market, based on the freedom of exchange of goods and capital.
• Political - political globalization is the creation of a world government which regulates the relationships among nations and guarantees the rights arising from social and economic globalization. ^[9] Politically, the United States has enjoyed a position of power among the world powers; in part because of its strong and wealthy economy. With the influence of Globalization and with the help of The United States’ own economy, China has experience some tremendous growth within the past decade. If China continues to grow at the rate projected by the trends, then it is very likely that in the next twenty years, there will be a major reallocation of power among the world leaders. China will have enough wealth, industry, and technology to rival the United States for the position of leading world power. ^[10]
• Informational - increase in information flows between geographically remote locations
• Cultural - growth of cross-cultural contacts; advent of new categories of consciousness and identities such as Globalism - which embodies cultural diffusion, the desire to consume and enjoy foreign products and ideas, adopt new technology and practices, and participate in a "world culture"
• Ecological- the advent of global environmental challenges that can not be solved without international cooperation, such as climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread of invasive species. Many factories are built in developing countries where they can pollute freely.
• Social - the achievement of free circulation by people of all nations
• Transportation - fewer and fewer European cars on European roads each year (the same can also be said about American cars on American roads) and the death of distance through the incorporation of technology to decrease travel time.^{[clarification needed]}

• Greater international cultural exchange
  • Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual access to cultural diversity (e.g. through the export of Hollywood and Bollywood movies). However, the imported culture can easily supplant the local culture, causing reduction in diversity through hybridization or even assimilation. The most prominent form of this is Westernization, but Sinicization of cultures has taken place over most of Asia for many centuries.
  • Greater international travel and tourism
  • Greater immigration, including illegal immigration
  • Spread of local consumer products (e.g. food) to other countries (often adapted to their culture)
  • World-wide fads and pop culture such as Pokémon, Sudoku, Numa Numa, Origami, Idol series, YouTube, Orkut, Facebook, and MySpace.
  • World-wide sporting events such as FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.
  • Formation or development of a set of universal values
• Technical/legal
  • Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater transborder data flow, using such technologies as the Internet, communication satellites, submarine fiber optic cable, and wireless telephones
  • Increase in the number of standards applied globally; e.g. copyright laws, patents and world trade agreements.
  • The push by many advocates for an international criminal court and international justice movements.
• Sexual awareness – It is often easy to only focus on the economic aspects of Globalization. This term also has strong social meanings behind it. Globalization can also mean a cultural interaction between different countries. Globalization may also have social effects such changes in sexual inequality, and to this issue brought about a greater awareness of the different (often more brutal) types of gender discrimination throughout the world. Women and girls in African countries have long had to deal with genital mutilation as a form of control enforced by the men in their society.

Supporters of free trade claim that it increases economic prosperity as well as opportunity, especially among developing nations, enhances civil liberties and leads to a more efficient allocation of resources. Economic theories of comparative advantage suggest that free trade leads to a more efficient allocation of resources, with all countries involved in the trade benefiting. In general, this leads to lower prices, more employment, higher output and a higher standard of living for those in developing countries.^[11][12]

One of the ironies of the recent success of India and China is the fear that... success in these two countries comes at the expense of the United States. These fears are fundamentally wrong and, even worse, dangerous. They are wrong because the world is not a zero-sum struggle... but rather is a positive-sum opportunity in which improving technologies and skills can raise living standards around the world.

— Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty, 2005

Libertarians and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism say that higher degrees of political and economic freedom in the form of democracy and capitalism in the developed world are ends in themselves and also produce higher levels of material wealth. They see globalization as the beneficial spread of liberty and capitalism. ^[11]

Supporters of democratic globalization are sometimes called pro-globalists. They believe that the first phase of globalization, which was market-oriented, should be followed by a phase of building global political institutions representing the will of world citizens. The difference from other globalists is that they do not define in advance any ideology to orient this will, but would leave it to the free choice of those citizens via a democratic process ^{[citation needed]}.

Some, such as Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., simply view globalization as inevitable and advocate creating institutions such as a directly-elected United Nations Parliamentary Assembly to exercise oversight over unelected international bodies.

Supporters of globalization argue that the anti-globalization movement uses anecdotal evidence^{[citation needed]} to support their protectionist view, whereas worldwide statistics strongly support globalization:

• From 1981 to 2001, according to World Bank figures, the number of people living on $1 a day or less declined from 1.5 billion to 1.1 billion in absolute terms. At the same time, the world population increased, so in percentage terms the number of such people in developing nations declined from 40% to 20% of the population.^[13] with the greatest improvements occurring in economies rapidly reducing barriers to trade and investment; yet, some critics argue that more detailed variables measuring poverty should be studied instead ^[14].

• The percentage of people living on less than $2 a day has decreased greatly in areas effected by globalization, whereas poverty rates in other areas have remained largely stagnant. In East-Asia, including China, the percentage has decreased by 50.1% compared to a 2.2% increase in Sub-Saharan Africa.^[12]

'SOURCE: World Bank, Poverty Estimates, 2002^[12]

• Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing.^[15] Due to definitional issues and data availability, there is disagreement with regards to the pace of the decline in extreme poverty. Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing.^[16] As noted below, there are others disputing this. The economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin in a 2007 analysis argues that this is incorrect, income inequality for the world as a whole has diminished. [11]. Regardless of who is right about the past trend in income inequality, is has been argued that improving absolute poverty is more important than relative inequality.[12]

• Life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since World War II and is starting to close the gap between itself and the developed world where the improvement has been smaller. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, the least developed region, life expectancy increased from 30 years before World War II to about a peak of about 50 years before the AIDS pandemic and other diseases started to force it down to the current level of 47 years. Infant mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world.^[17]

• Democracy has increased dramatically from there being almost no nations with universal suffrage in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations having it in 2000.^[18]

• Feminism has made advances in areas such as Bangladesh through providing women with jobs and economic safety.^[11]

• The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s.^[19]

• Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world. Women made up much of the gap: female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in 2000.^[20]

• The percentage of children in the labor force has fallen from 24% in 1960 to 10% in 2000.^[21]

• There are similar increasing trends toward electric power, cars, radios, and telephones per capita, as well as a growing proportion of the population with access to clean water.^[22]

• The book The Improving State of the World also finds evidence for that these, and other, measures of human well-being has improved and that globalization is part of the explanation. It also responds to arguments that environmental impact will limit the progress.

Although critics of globalization complain of Westernization, a 2005 UNESCO report^[23] showed that cultural exchange is becoming mutual. 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.

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Anti-globalization is a term used to describe the political stance of people and groups who oppose neoliberal policies of unfettered globalization.

“Anti-globalization" may involve the process or actions taken by a state in order to demonstrate its sovereignty and practice democratic decision-making. Anti-globalization may occur in order to put brakes on the international transfer of people, goods and ideology, particularly those determined by the organizations such as the IMF or the WTO in imposing the radical deregulation program of free market fundamentalism on local governments and populations. Moreover, as Canadian journalist Naomi Klein argues in her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (also subtitled No Space, No Choice, No Jobs) anti-globalism can denote either a single social movement or an umbrella term that encompasses a number of separate social movements ^[24] In either case, participants stand in opposition to the unregulated political power of large, multi-national corporations, as the corporations exercise power through leveraging trade agreements which damage in some instances the democratic rights of citizens, the environment particularly air quality index and rain forests, as well as national governments sovereignty to determine labor rights including the right to unionize for better pay, and better working conditions, or laws as they may otherwise infringe on cultural practices and traditions of developing countries.

Most people who are labeled "anti-globalization" consider the term to be too vague and inaccurate ^[25] preferring instead to describe themselves as the Global Justice Movement, the Anti-Corporate-Globalization Movement, the Movement of Movements (a popular term in Italy), the "Alter-globalization" movement (popular in France), the "Counter-Globalization" movement, and a number of other terms.

Anti-globalization is seen as a critical response to the development of neoliberalism, which is widely seen to have commenced with Margaret Thatcher's and Ronald Reagan's policies toward creating laissez-faire capitalism on a global scale by promoting the liberalization of countries’ economies and the weakening of trade and business regulations. Neoliberal proponents argue the increase of free trade and the reduction of the public sector will bring benefits to poor countries and to disadvantaged people in rich countries. Most anti-globalization advocates strongly disagree, adding that neoliberal policies may bring a loss of sovereignty to democratic institutions. Noam Chomsky states that ^{[26] [27]}

The term "globalization" has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the workers movements, which were founded on the principle of international solidarity - that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power systems.

"The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist." This is simply vulgar propaganda, like the term "anti-Soviet" used by the most disgusting commissars to refer to dissidents. It is not only vulgar, but idiotic. Take the World Social Forum, called "anti-globalization" in the propaganda system -- which happens to include the media, the educated classes, etc., with rare exceptions. The WSF is a paradigm example of globalization. It is a gathering of huge numbers of people from all over the world, from just about every corner of life one can think of, apart from the extremely narrow highly privileged elites who meet at the competing World Economic Forum, and are called "pro-globalization" by the propaganda system. An observer watching this farce from Mars would collapse in hysterical laughter at the antics of the educated classes."

Critiques of the current wave of economic globalization typically look at both the damage to the planet, in terms of the perceived unsustainable harm done to the biosphere, as well as the perceived human costs, such as increased poverty, inequality, miscegenation, injustice and the erosion of traditional culture which, the critics contend, all occur as a result of the economic transformations related to globalization. They challenge directly the metrics, such as GDP, used to measure progress promulgated by institutions such as the World Bank, and look to other measures, such as the Happy Planet Index,^[28] created by the New Economics Foundation^[29]. They point to a "multitude of interconnected fatal consequences--social disintegration, a breakdown of democracy, more rapid and extensive deterioration of the environment, the spread of new diseases, increasing poverty and alienation"^[30] which they claim are the unintended but very real consequences of globalization.

Critics argue that:

• • Poorer countries are sometimes at disadvantage: While it is true that globalization encourages free trade among countries on an international level, there are also negative consequences because some countries try to save their national markets. The main export of poorer countries is usually agricultural goods. It is difficult for these countries to compete with stronger countries that subsidize their own farmers. Because the farmers in the poorer countries cannot compete, they are forced to sell their crops at much lower price than what the market is paying. ^[31]

• • 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 force workers to endure extremely long hours, unsafe working conditions, and just enough salary to keep them working. The abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries in power incentive not to rectify the inequality between nations. If these nations developed into industrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear alongside development. With the world in this current state, it is impossible for the exploited workers to escape poverty. 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. ^[32]

• • Shift from manufacturing to service work: The low cost of offshore workers have enticed corporations to move production to foreign countries. The laid off unskilled workers are forced into the service sector where wages and benefits are low, but turnover is high. This has contributed to the widening economic gap between skilled and unskilled workers. The loss of these jobs has also contributed greatly to the slow decline 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. ^[33]

• • The rise of contingent work: As globalization causes more and more jobs to be shipped overseas, and the middle class declines, there is less need for corporations to hire full time employees. Companies are less inclined to offer benefits (health insurance, bonuses, vacation time, shares in the company, and pensions), or reduce benefits, to part time workers. Most companies don’t offer any benefits at all. Even though most of the middle class workers still have their jobs, the reality is that their buying power has decreased due to decreased benefits. Job security is also a major issue with contingent work. ^[34]

• • Weakening of 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 loss 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. ^[35]

In december 2007, World Bank economist Branko Milanovichas 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, economists will revise calculations and possibly reach new conclusions" moreover noting that "implications for the estimates of global inequality and poverty are enormous. The new numbers show global inequality to be significantly greater than even the most pessimistic authors had thought. Until the last month, global inequality, or difference in real incomes between all individuals of the world, was estimated at around 65 Gini points – with 100 denoting complete inequality and 0 denoting total equality, with everybody’s income the same – a level of inequality somewhat higher than that of South Africa. But the new numbers show global inequality to be 70 Gini points – a level of inequality never recorded anywhere." ^[36]

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.^[37]

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 humane 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.^[38]

A chart that gave the inequality a very visible and comprehensible form, the so-called 'champagne glass' effect^[39] , 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.^[40]

SOURCE: United Nations Development Program. 1992 Human Development Report^[41]

Most importantly, critics of recent economic globalization see that these developments are not at all occurring in a vacuum, but feed into ethnic, religious, and factional tensions that lead to wars and help breed terrorism. Furthermore, these terrorists, now globally interconnected and empowered with knowledge, create a whole new category of warfare based, in part, on the disruption of the interconnections which are both created by and necessary for globalization. ^[42] Some commentators believe the nation-state is ill-equipped to deal with this emergent threat.^[43]

In terms of the controversial global migration issue, disputes revolve around both its causes, whether and to what extent it is voluntary or involuntary, necessary or unnecessary; and its effects, whether beneficial, or socially and environmentally costly. Proponents tend to see migration simply as a process whereby white and blue collar workers may go from one country to another to provide their services, while critics tend to emphasize negative causes such as economic, political, and environmental insecurity, and cite as one notable effect, the link between migration and the enormous growth of urban slums in developing countries. According to "The Challenge of Slums," a 2003 UN-Habitat report, "the cyclical nature of capitalism, increased demand for skilled versus unskilled labour, and the negative effects of globalization — in particular, global economic booms and busts that ratchet up inequality and distribute new wealth unevenly — contribute to the enormous growth of slums."^[44]

Even supporters of globalization are highly critical of some current policies. In particular, the very high subsidies to and protective tariffs for agriculture in the developed world. For example, almost half of the budget of the European Union goes to agricultural subsidies, mainly to large farms and agricultural businesses, which form a powerful lobby.^[45] Japan gave 47 billion dollars in 2005 in subsidies to its agricultural sector,^[46] nearly four times the amount it gave in total foreign aid.^[47] The US gives 3.9 billion dollars each year in subsidies to its cotton sector, including 25,000 growers, three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.^[48] This drains the taxed money and increases the prices for the consumers in developed world; decreases competition and efficiency; prevents exports by more competitive agricultural and other sectors in the developed world due to retaliatory trade barriers; and undermines the very type of industry in which the developing countries do have comparative advantages. Tariffs and trade barriers, thereby, hinder the economic development of developing economies, adversely affecting living standards in these countries.^[49]

Various aspects of globalization are seen as harmful by public-interest activists as well as strong state nationalists. This movement has no unified name. "Anti-globalization" is the media's preferred term; it can lead to some confusion, as activists typically oppose certain aspects or forms of globalization, not globalization per se. Activists themselves, for example Noam Chomsky, have said that this name is meaningless as the aim of the movement is to globalize justice.^[50] Indeed, the global justice movement is a common name. Many activists also unite under the slogan "another world is possible", which has given rise to names such as altermondialisme in French.

There are a wide variety of types of "anti-globalization". In general, critics claim that the results of globalization have not been what was predicted when the attempt to increase free trade began, and that many institutions involved in the system of globalization have not taken the interests of poorer nations, the working class, and the natural environment into account. One of the proposed solutions to the uncontrolled environmental damage created by global economic expansion is to set prices for that environmental damage done to the biosphere, so that the economy 'sees' the price signals from the environment, and begins to internalize the value of the environment. ^[51] The present global economic system, critics of globalization would note, does not price the damage (e.g., pollution) done to limited environmental resources making those resources, in effect, free.^[51] Economic theory, however, holds that items of economic utility and in limited supply should be priced in order to be used efficiently by the market.^[52] Presently, the two proposals for sending these price signals to the economy are a 'Carbon Tax', proposed by in the U.S. by Al Gore, and a "Cap and Trade" system, as has been created in the European Union.

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.^[53]

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.

Some opponents of globalization see the phenomenon as the promotion of corporatist interests.^[54] They also claim that the increasing autonomy and strength of corporate entities shapes the political policy of countries.^{[55] [56]}

Some anti-globalization groups argue that globalization is necessarily imperialistic; it can therefore be said that "globalization" is another term for a form of Americanization, as it is believed by some observers that the United States could be one of the few countries (if not the only one) to truly profit from globalization.^{[citation needed]}

Some argue that globalization imposes credit-based economics, resulting in unsustainable growth of debt and debt crises. ^[56]

The world increasingly is confronted with problems that cannot be solved by individual nation-states acting alone. Examples include over-fishing of the oceans, water pollution, global warming, global trade, and international terrorist networks. Solutions to these problems necessitate new forms of cooperation and the creation of new global institutions. Since the end of WWII, following the advent of the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions, there has been an explosion in the reach and power of multinational corporations and the rapid growth of global civil society.^[57]

The financial crises in Southeast Asia that began in 1997 in the relatively small, debt-ridden economy of Thailand but quickly spread to the economies of South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and eventually were felt all around the world ^[58], demonstrated the new risks and volatility in rapidly changing globalized markets ^{[citation needed]}. The IMF's subsequent 'bailout' money came with conditions of political change (i.e. government spending limits) attached and came to be viewed by critics as undermining national sovereignty in neo-colonialist fashion ^{[citation needed]}. Anti-Globalization activists pointed to the meltdowns as proof of the high human cost of the indiscriminate global economy.^{[citation needed]}

Many global institutions that have a strong international influence are not democratically ruled, nor are their leaders democratically elected. Therefore they are considered by some as supranational undemocratic powers.^{[59][60][61][62]}

The main opposition is to unfettered globalization guided by governments and what are claimed to be quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) that are not held responsible through transparent or democratic processes by the populations that they affect and instead respond mostly to the interests of corporations. Many conferences between trade and finance ministers of the core globalizing nations have been met with large, and occasionally violent, protests from opponents of "corporate globalism."

Some anti-globalization activists and supporters object to the fact that the currently globalization encompasses money and corporations, but not people, the environment, and unions. This can be seen in the strict immigration controls in nearly all countries, and the lack of labour rights in many countries in the developing world.

Another, more conservative, camp opposed to globalization is state-centric nationalists who fear globalization is displacing the role of nations in global politics and point to NGOs as encroaching upon the power of individual nations. Some advocates of this warrant for anti-globalization are Pat Buchanan and Jean-Marie Le Pen and Ned Pencil.

Many have decried the lack of unity and direction in the movement, but some, such as Noam Chomsky, have claimed that this lack of centralization may in fact be a strength.

• Friedman, Thomas L. (2005). The World Is Flat. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-29288-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Kitching, Gavin (2001). Seeking Social Justice through Globalization. Escaping a Nationalist Perspective. Penn State Press. ISBN 0271021624.
• Mander, Jerry (1996). The case against the global economy : and for a turn toward the local. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. ISBN 0-87156-865-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Murray, Warwick E. (2006). Geographies of Globalization. New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis. ISBN 0415317991. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Sen, Amartya (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019289330. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Steger, Manfred (2003). Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280359-X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2002). Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-32439-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2006). Making Globalization Work. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-06122-1. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Wolf, Martin (2004). Why Globalization Works. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300102529. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

• Anti-globalization
• Borderless Selling
• Columbian Exchange
• Deglobalization
• Development criticism
• Global empire
• Global citizens movement
• Globalization and disease
• Globally Integrated Enterprise
• Global justice
• Great Transition
• History of ideas
• Marketization
• Mundialization
• Netocracy
• Neo-medievalism
• New world order
• Offshoring
• Outsourcing
• The World Is Flat
• The Global Economy
• Walmarting
• Westernization
• World economy
• World-systems theory
• World Trade Organization

Wikiquote has quotations related to Globalization.

Look up globalisation or globalization in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Globalization.

• Embracing the Challenge of Free Trade: Competing and Prospering in a Global Economy a speech by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke
• The Large Stake of U.S. Small Business in an Expanding Global Economy by Daniel Griswold
• Global Scenario Group -- Qualitative and quantitative scenarios and models of trends of globalization
• Globalisation shakes the world BBC News
• Globalisation Institute
• IT-Globalized - globalization of information technology
• The Globalist
• Trading Tyranny for Freedom: How Open Markets Till the Soil for Democracy
• A Dynamic Map of the World Cities' Growth
• Globalization, Human Rights, and Democracy

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