Is Globalization Really So Bad?

[TheBagelmeister]

Well, is it? I've heard of the negative effects, considering the loss of jobs in more industrialized nations (outsourcing), and considering its sometimes negative effects on other nations. I guess point is, my knowledge of the subject is abbysmal, so while I do research of my own, I wouldn't mind facts and opinions on the topic.

[Romanus]

For America? i dont think so.
For nations with history on the other hand....

[biodaemon2]

No, not at all. And yes, quite bad.

Look at China. Tried to keep themsleves isolated for years. And the Europeans made China the Gimp. Now, China is a fast growing world power. Growth attributed solely to China's involvment in the wider world.

Now look at the Roman Empire after they began globalization aka Romanazation. Well, you cant, cause they got thier collective asses Sacked!

[Bovril]

There's nothing inherantly bad about worldwide trade and cultural interaction. What is a problem are the current global power structures that make this process rediculously unfair.

[Aaron88]

Globalization would be bad for developed countries and good for undeveloped countries. The U.S. would suffer the most because (I hate to generalize) most americans are lazier than people in countries like India and China, because these people are now being given the same opportunties as americans and they are seizing these opportunties while most americans take them for granted. I shouldn't even just say americans, I'm sure the rest of the western world is the same.

[TheBagelmeister]

To me, its a mixed bag. Its good to have a more equal distrubtion of the wealth within the world, but the problem is why should nations that have experianced this wealth be forced to give up part of it? On the other hand, many world problems are due to poverty (disease, environmental damage, famine), and with a more equal distrubtion of wealth within the world, this could be fixed. Now, those opposed to globization will probably say that the conditions have'nt improved for the developing nations yet, but during the Industrial Revolution, this process by which wealth was more equally distributed took time.

Some will say this is good bad for those western nations that have gotten lazy, but even if we weren't, we still wouldn't be able to compete. A nation with minimum wage laws, working conditions laws, and other such requirements will not be able to compete with a nation where a shoddy factory can be set and, and the people payed pennies an hour.

I guess in the short term it will be a painful process for 'Western' nations, but then nations like China and India will probably be hurt badly when they see the jobs transferred to them go to other non-developed regions of the world such as Latin America and Africa (if they clean up their act).

Of course, are the allegeded benefits worth the hassle, especially when the only folks making much money of this right now is people who already are rich?

[Bovril]

Aaron, I don't think its laziness. Its just that a dollar is worth more to a poor person than it is to a rich person. I agree that equatable globalisation would tend to level out standards of living and wealth across the world, but in actual fact as the world becomes more global we see increasing disparity of wealth and living standards on a global level. This shows us that there is something rotten and indeed very anti free markets going on in in globalisation as we know it.

[TheBagelmeister]

You do have a point Bovril, certain nations can indeed rig their own market system to take advantage of it. For example, a nation that is using a protectionist system could get away with a large profit margin, while excluding others from its economy.

Not to mention that people in nations where an education is good to get can then go to a nation that is easy to conduct business in and make it rich. The system can be rigged, and so long as everyone is being greedy, it's original purpose will never be done.

In that case, should we just abandon globalization? Can we really rely on industrialized nations to actually cooperate and not cheat the system? It not, what then, good old protectionism?

[Bovril]

The main way in which rich countries rig the system is by a sort of socialised corporate welfare. Since they start with more wealth they can get tax payers to subsidise their products (particularly agriculture, and remember all third world economies are agrarian, but also technology and manufacturing) and therfore undercut poorer countries, destroying their internal economies. The poorer countires are forced to open up their economies to this sort of practice by organisations like the world bank and WTO who won't deal with poor countries than have protectionist tariffs, and yet the rich countires that run these organisations keep there protectionist tariffs in place.

What can be done. Well, either the poor countries opt out of the system (examples of this are Cuba, China and Venezula, all of which have been succesful, especially taking into account the amount of opposition the rich countries have put up) or for the rich countires to stop screwing over the poor countries and that is down to the citizenry of the rich countries.

Its important to remeber than every single first world country tofday built its economy with protectionism, and still uses this technique they deny to the poorest countries whenever it suits them.

[Nationalist_Cause]

Globalization is bad for the American worker and great for the American CEO who puts profit above all else. I would hesitate to even call some American CEOs Americans for the simple fact that they sell out their own countrymen for competitive advantage. This kind of shortsightedness has America destined to become the impoverished, indebted, and deindustrialized nation that true Americans fear.

@ bagelmeister

I don't see how its good to have a more equal distribution of wealth in the world. It has always been and always will be that there are the rich and the poor nations of the world. Would not Third World countries happily exchange places with America, Europe, and any other economically fortunate nation? A government has but one duty: to provide protection and happiness for its citizens. This is not easily accomplished when said government concerns itself with more "equal distribution" of global wealth.

[Bovril]

Good point about the effects on American workers. The real terms wages of American workers have fallen steadily since the 70s and so has standard of living.

I can't agree that rich and poor is something inherant though. Obviously there have been times in human history where no only did differentiated wealth levels exist, but neither did private property or political units. We don't have to accept the stae of affairs that we inherit. Slavery was a constant of civilisation across the world untill very recently, and now it is almost entirely non-existant. I think that those who struggle against the economic exploitation of some countries by other are a modern day equivilent of those who fought the personal economic exploitation called variously serdom, slavery or indentured servitude.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Indeed, globalization is terrible for America. Our economy has been slowly suffering for a long time because of it. An intelligent economy is a self-sustaining economy, with trade being a luxury and not necesarrily an absolute necessity. Outsourcing just has to stop.

[Raitar]

The mass promotion of globalization has rendered most 2nd and third world nations powerless. The superpower corporations have the capacity to pass through any red tape they encounter, rendering most of the legal protections put in place to prevent such exploitation by these vast entities null and void. As we have seen in the example of India, the british corporations created a sort of economic bubble, wherein the country was unable to gain any economic strength due to the British presence. They absorbed all the wealth, and when they finally left, they took all their accumulated wealth with them. The end result was a dry and desolate India, deprived of any finnancial recourse, except maybe foreign aid. The beauty of this travesty is that it appears to the world that the coporations that recently left were responsible NOT for the economic tragedy, but for the economic stability before they left, thus creating further justification for future exploitation.
They continue to thrive off of our ignorance, and like the matrix suggests, acts like a virus, going from country to country sucking the life out of every place it visits.
We, as the example of the U.S. my country of canada and even the U.K. shows us, cannot sustain and properly regulate our own internal corruption and accountability, so what, I ask, has given us the right to move on to the rest of the world...we are simply not ready. :8

[Wicked]

Well "Globalization" is a grand thing for the multinational corporations of developed nations...but it sucks for their citizens. It's just a natural result of our policies, corporations avoid regulation like a vampire avoids sunlight, and with a large selection of nations which will give them freer rein it's no surprise they moved.

Sensibly & minimally regulated corporations with some national pride & integrity serve to bring wealth into the nation, multinational corporations don't really give a damn so long as profits roll in. I forgot where I saw it, but there was some convention of American corporate heads not too long ago, and one of them said something to the effect that as a corporate chairman "free trade" & "globalization" were great, but as an American they were horrible...when I saw that I figured it was time for some lynching's, make up your damn mind, your either an American citizen, or your a corporate citizen, not both.

It's not IMO a resolvable situation with our current system of government though, they do have a point when they say they can't operate profitably here compared to other options, due to a bloated government trying to use them to fund all the pork barrel projects they come up with, and the huge amount of wage, working conditions, benefits, and discrimination laws we've saddled them with, given that, while it pisses me off, I can't exactly blame them for jumping ship, the West isn't corporate profit-friendly, our politicians drove them to become multinational, you can either be business friendly, or worker friendly, not both, and given the choice I'd prefer business friendly.

[TheBagelmeister]

IS there anyone here pro-globalization? I'm just wondering, because it seems no one is.

My problem with globalization in America is we don't need at all. America is one of the few nations with an abundance of natural resources (other than oil). Why should a nation that can so easily be self-sufficient turn to a policy that does not, in the long term, help itself? In all truth, considering the resources America has, it should really be a protectionist economy.

Now, I love democracy and all, but isn't that part of the problem? Folks aint gonna vote for someone that will result in more expensive goods, even if it means their children will have jobs. Why? Because people can be really selfish shmucks, almost like the multinational corporations can be.

But please, anyone here pro-globalization?

[Big War Bird]

I am definitely pro-globalization. In theory, and in reality, it is making a far more effiecient and peaceful world. The more freely that goods, capital and labor can cross borders the more effectively relative and absolute competitive advantages can both lower the cost of goods and form interdependent economies.

It is sort of a nebulus idea, since the gains are so slight for everyone, though the pain of for the relative few people who lose their livelihoods is drastic.

[TheBagelmeister]

I guess globalization wouldn't be so bad if he heavily taxed those corperations. IF they want people in the richer nations to give up their livelyhoods for a benefit to the poorer, why can't they do the same? I found it a little hypocritical. The richest can get a bunch of tax breaks, but they then expect the citizens of the richest nations to give up what they've made for the poorest?

Of course, thats just me being annoyed.

[Wicked]

@Big War Bird.

That *might* be true if all the nations involved were fairly equal in development, that is of course most definitely not the case, which is why it will never work practically, at least not in the idealistic sense in which it is preferable.

On the other hand, a multilayer free trade system would work, with nations grouped according to their economic strength, then paired off within the groups with their closest match in industrial power, with each group interacting with it's fellows as defined trade blocs, and that too is unlikely to happen realistically.

[vgamer55]

Im pro globalization as even though the corporations explot the peple in India, China, etc. the still let the unemplyed person living on the street some hope and a few pennies to feed his family. As for those "evil" corporations i bet you would do the same if you were the CEO and even if it means the loss of an American or European job it means a new job for an Indian, Chinese etc worker.

[hungry zombie]

What's wrong with globalization? Outsourcing is the natural reaction to an unnatural condition in the economy.

Thanks to labor unions, labor is no longer a fluid resource and the americans workers that are outsourced are frankly not worth their cost. Its american wages that are driving the jobs away. Take all those computer troubleshooting jobs that are being outsourced to India. In India, a lot of the people have college degrees and take a certain amount of pride in having that job. I'm not sure that the same can be said about the employees in America. Yet the American worker often demands higher wages, health benefits etc. Do you think he's worth more than the Indian employee, that somehow he is entitled to more?

The problems that globalization "creates" are in fact the product of poorly planned government policies that inadvertently, or purposely, protect corporations from market forces. Monopolies are niegh impossible in a free market economy, and the monopolies that we have now on our water, telephone, and power utilities are subsidized and protected by the government.

Its silly to tout isolationalism as the solution. Didn't the Soviet Union try to be self-sustaining? How did that end up? You don't want the option to buy french cheeses, listen to import CD's or play games developed in the UK like RTW?

Don't label bargain-hunters selfish either. Everyone is entitled to do what they can, within reason, to surive. Taxing the rich isn't the way either. The assets of the rich are their property too. Keep in mind that charity is only a virtue when its voluntary. When forced, its called theft.

Yeah, so in summation, globalization gets rotten only when the government tries to stick its hands in it.