Neoliberal Globalization - Essay Example

Neoliberal Globalization affiliation taught by (Type First Initial & Course’s name Neoliberal Globalization Introduction The current situation in the world can be definitely characterized as being globalized. Moreover, it is about each and every aspect of the everyday life-being. Political situation, economic aspects, and even religious features cannot function within just one precise territory of geographical area. It was possible many decades ago, but today it is something unreal. However, living in this world of global links does not really mean being satisfied with the quality of current way of things and possible future outcomes. From the other side the today’s life-being tends to the issue of freedom. Moreover, it is supposed to cover all the aspects of life. However, there is a great difference in “being free to conduct a wisely-planned activity to gain both tangible and intangible outcomes” and “not to be under control”. Seemingly, those two aspects are mixed, and as the result the global situation is far from being perfect. The issue of freedom is closely intertwined with the topic of neo-liberalism. The present paper aims to review the issues of the neo-liberalism and worldwide integration and conclude if the positive outcomes will be possible in case neoliberal worldwide integration continues its movement without any changes applied to its current outlook. The paper will also make a separate review of worldwide integration and neo-liberalism to figure out initial factors that could have either positive or negative impact on the further world’s development. Globalization Despite the fact the key features of worldwide integration were widely implemented many decades ago, this definition appeared recently in 1970th. The story of international cooperation and trade turns back to even thousands years ago. However, that issue was mostly about trade. Nowadays, being global is rather the necessity. Of course, trade is a powerful instrument of enrichment, moreover, if it is about its international feature. However, even being a consequent element, trade is not the only one in the elements’ list of worldwide integration. In addition to trade, political achievements, religious features, economic successes, and scientific innovations are the important elements of global cooperation. Moreover, it is impossible in the current situation for this or that society to stay beside the global way of things, unless the situation is about a tribe somewhere deep in the jungle. Those aspects of deep international cooperation have a plenty of benefits. Firstly, it helps in gaining great profits for countries. Secondarily, other aspects, like cultural and scientific exchanges could help the societies become more educated and utilize the new methods for dealing with precise issues hitherto impossible. This in turn could raise the level of societies’ skills and performance that would give the opportunity to become wealthier. Thus, irreversible aspects of worldwide integration can grant many opportunities for the societies. However, despite the benefits, drawbacks are also present. The key one is that the wealthier countries may easily influence the smaller ones. This situation might not be of great benefit for those countries, and thus the influence can be destructive. The other shortcoming is that in the global world there is no possibility for the societies to stay aside the troubles. Those situations are not only of economic nature. Health disasters can also spread over the large territories and harm billions of people. Thus the issue of worldwide integration is extremely wide. Thus, in order to depict the link between worldwide integration and neo-liberalism, the present paper is focused on the economic aspects of both issues. This in turn will make it possible to review the topic more qualitative. Neo-liberalism and Globalization This issue has a consequent link with great variety of aspects of liberal legacy. This is about a set of political, economic, cultural, and religious features that became quite important and popular about 20-30 years ago. Being not that popular definition in US, the key aspects of political elements were utilized to handle with social conflicts in that country. The government persuaded the working classes into the necessity of dealing with progressive tendencies, but not to remain at the same level with the conservative ones. However, this precise example shows just political aspect. In order to understand the economic aspect it is necessary to follow the history of the appearance of liberal views towards money-making process. This issue started in 1776 when the consequent masterpiece of economic The Wealth of Nations was written by Adam Smith. The beginning of that work depicted the positive outcomes of applying the principles of specialization to the process of manufacturing in order to enlarge the capacity. However, the initial idea of that book was to limit the impact of governments on both production and trade features. Free trade had to become the consequent instrument of countries’ development and permanent success. Thus, those were the ideas of freedom, which were to substitute the strict limitations of money-making processes of that time (Bandelj, Shorette & Sowers, 2011). Those ideas were popular in the nineteenth century. However, the period of the greatest downturn of the twentieth century has shown the real effect of dealing with liberal theories. That was the period when Keynesian approach became a consequent instrument to fix the situation. The main aspect of that approach was the great level of employment that should have been reached with the help of governments and banks, and which was unreal in the society of complete economic freedom. However, the necessity of dealing with the economy on the global scale, has led to the appearance of the concept of global economic liberty – neoliberal globalization. The key features of that concept are depicted below. Market is in chief It is about complete freedom while dealing with the global market. It means no limitations concerning prices, cash-flows, goods, and services. It is believed that freedom is the greatest instrument for development. However, the social aspects suffer much. De-unionizing of workers and decreasing of their salaries are represented as possible actions. Decreasing of social expenditures The theory explains that it is possible but depends on the certain situation. One of the possible disasters is the right to reduce the safety-net. In addition, those actions can have a killing impact on education and healthcare. Deregulation and privatization It is about total limitation of governments’ impact on money-making process and selling the state-owned companies to the private investors. The target aim is to make the enterprises more profitable without any focus on ethical or social issues. However, as the result it could lead to the concentration of capital in hands of couple global giants, and thus increase the level of their profit, but not the benefits for the societies. After the brief review of the features above it is clear that neo-liberalism can be stated as gaining the maximum profit by all means, while social, ethical, and cultural aspects play no role. As the examples of neo-liberalism in North America, several situations can be depicted. For instance, in Mexico in the 1970th after the trade agreement NAFTA came into force, the wages of workforce decreased by 50% while the cost of living increased by nearly 80%. More than 20000 small businesses went bankrupt, and more than 900 state-owned companies were sold to private investors. At the same time, in the USA neoliberal elements have a destructive impact on various welfare programs that make the workforce feel terrified (Weintraub, 2004). When it comes to another representative of North America – Canada, it should be mentioned that many government representatives, like Romanow, Doer, and Chretien were admirers of neo-liberal concept of worldwide integration (McBride, 2001). However, at a closer look the results of economic activity in that country are not that positive. The finest example is the fact there are no Canadian companies in the list of 250 largest global enterprises from the side of revenue. It means that country faces the negative aspects of new liberal concept, but the positive outcomes are not observed. Another consequent element of the economic freedom is the significant annual increase of export as a share of GDP. The situation around that aspect in Canada is depicted on the picture below. Pic1. Source (“canadiandimension.com”, 2014) The chart shows that the most significant increase export was in the last decade of the twentieth century. However, from the beginning of 2000th and till now there was annual decrease of export. It has nothing in common with the principles of worldwide integration, because the import share in GDP preveails. Of course, import of materials and innovative technologies is vital for any country. However, being globalized means being export oriented. Thus the principles dealing with new concept of economic liberty should be adjusted in order to get rid off consequent drawbacks and keep the advantages of modern opportunities. Conclusion Neoliberal globalization has both advantages and drawbacks. However, drawbacks prevail. The concept tend to utilize sources to gain the profit by all means with total ignorance of social aspects. It means, rich become richer while poor become poorer. In this case the governmets could be recommended to utilize neoliberal ideas, but only partially. Otherwise, none among countries will be able to both gain the profit and remain successful. References Canadiandimension.com,. (2014). Canada’s transformation under neoliberalism. Retrieved from https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/canadas Bandelj, N., Shorette, K., & Sowers, E. (2011). Work and Neoliberal Globalization: A Polanyian Synthesis. Sociology Compass, 5(9), 807-823. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00408.x McBride, S. (2001). Paradigm shift: Globalization and the Canadian state. Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood. Weintraub, S. (2004). NAFTAs impact on North America: The first decade. Washington, D.C.: CSIS Press. 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