The Merits and Demerits of Globalization - Essay Example

Globalization Contents Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction In the modern world globalization has become a highly talked about topic. Over the years global fraternity has debated a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of the globalization and the debate is still going on. Globalization is not at all a new concept or phenomenon; it started almost thousands years earlier. In simple word globalization is an automatic process of internationalization. With the help of this process global interaction and integration is possible. It is being observed that due to globalization the modern world has become boundary less where impacts of any social, political and economical incidents affect all the countries either in positive or in negative ways. Globalization has made the world flat. Before globalization the world was divided into two halves. One half consisted of developed nations and other half consisted on underdeveloped nations. With the help of globalization modern world has been integrated within a common fabric. Globalization has its own advantages and disadvantages which are very much evident in the modern world. Without any shadow of doubt globalization has brought about significant changes in day to day lives of the global people. All these changes have made this phenomenon significantly important topic for analysis. Due to its higher degree of importance, the advantages and disadvantages of the phenomenon has come under significant scrutiny. Here in this essay advantages and disadvantages of globalization will be discussed critically. The essay will categorically focus towards the merits and demerits of globalization. At the end of the essay a suitable conclusion will be drawn. Discussion Globalization is an unstoppable process which cannot be stopped totally by any rules and regulations. In spite of its unstoppable nature, the process is not enough for all the people in the world. People of the world have varying natures and varying cultures. In this diversified environment it is not possible to meet needs and demands of the global people only with the help of globalization. As far as the impacts of the globalization is concerned, is neither enough and nor always beneficial for the global community. It is often being observed that befits of the globalizations are being accessed by the limited numbers of the global people. On the other hand some people are always deprived of those benefits. For an example with the help of globalized economy, Chinese companies are doing their business and earning heavy profits from the global markets. But local companies of those international markets are losing their businesses because they are facing serious issues to compete with the Chinese counterparts. Globalization is a wonderful word and very much attractive to those people who are significantly earning benefits out of this process. On contrary people who are failing to reap benefits out of the globalization are not at all satisfied with this process. Limitations of globalization are there and those limitations have created lots of criticism for this process. Benefits of the globalization are confined within the certain sections of the global society and there are many people left in the world who have not got the benefits of this automatic and unstoppable process. There are several advantages are associated with the globalization. It is very important for this essay to describe all those advantages. Globalization has brought about good and peaceful relationship between the countries and the concept of friendly nations has come up due to the globalization only. Due to globalization most of the countries across the world has able to understand several benefits of maintaining peace and harmony between them. It means globalization has able to create a reasonably peaceful planet without less conflicts between nations. Free trades are also an important advantage of globalization. Previously countries have to pay high amount of taxes and tariffs for the sake of international business. It was a highly discouraging factor for the international organizations. But with advent of globalization this discouraging factor has been controlled suitably and satisfactorily. Free trade has eliminated the issues of taxes, levy, import and export duties and all these has made international business much more easy to manage and profitable as well. Global connectivity has come across lots of improvements with the help of globalization. Globalization has brought about extensive usages of internet, telecom and satellite communications (Lechner, 2009). All these communications technologies are the results of globalization. With the assistance of all these technologies, globalization has achieved international connectivity. With the help of international connectivity people across the world has able to manage international communication. Global people have able to share their ideas and thoughts with the help of globalization. With the support of globalization business opportunities have increased drastically. Globalization has created lots of new markets for the international business organizations. Multinational organizations have invested their moneys in the new potential global markets. These kinds of investments have been beneficiary for both the parties related with the investments. In one side companies are earning profits from the foreign markets and on the other side governments of the countries are getting capital from the foreign direct investments. It is indicating that globalization creates two dimensional advantages for the global fraternity. Globalization has been significantly advantageous for the employment generation as well. Due to globalization lots of new markets and organizations have come up. To satisfy new markets and for the operational purposes of the organizations, lots of skilled and unskilled labours or workforces are required. Over the years globalization has managed these requirements. In other word employment generation has reached up to a dramatically high level. This employment generation has direct impacts on the international poverty. By generating high level of employment globalization has reduces poverty and it has changed living standards of the global people as well. Globalization has encouraged international travel and tourism. Global tourism has reached up to new height as global people are travelling beyond the boundaries of the countries. It has given significant opportunities for the destination countries to raise capital out of tourism and travel industry. Globalization has increased competitive environment among the foreign companies. Foreign companies are competing hard among them to gain the competitive advantages. It has prompted high quality products in the market. Due to this end customers are getting advantages of the high quality products. Globalization has benefited developing nations like India and China significantly (Ervin and Smith, 2008). Due to this process economy and market dynamics of these developing countries have improved a lot. Generally developing nations have huge potential markets, these high potentiality have attracted organizations from the developed nations for investing their money into these countries. It is being observed that organizations have invested lots of money in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. All these investments have changed the economic outlooks of the developing nations. Before globalization, international crimes were matters of serious concerns. People were not at all aware about how international criminals can be booked (Jones, 2010). But with the advent of globalization this problem has been eased enough. International criminal courts are there to handle international perpetrators. Globalization has brought the concept of international justice movement. This movement is significantly beneficiary for providing justice to people at international level. Education is an important and integral part of the global community (Osterhammel and Petersson, 2005). Over the years education has become an international matter where students from the various countries travel to other countries for completing higher studies and quality educations. With the introduction of globalization lots of institutions across the world have opened their branches in the foreign countries. Each and every country has its limitations in terms agricultural products or manufacturing goods. Globalization has able to cover up almost all these limitations. This process has supported countries to import their required agricultural products for meeting the domestic requirements. Globalization has brought about wider verities of options for the customers. Due to globalization customers across the world have been exposed in front of the arrays of options. Now customers are having that luxury to choose their preferred products out of many numbers of similar options (Weinstein, 2005). Globalization certainly has enhanced cross cultural interactions. Cultures and ideas are significantly shared across the world. Due to globalization, people have adapted foreign foods and clothes significantly. It has resulted in a culmination of various cultures. Globalization has brought about a concept of united world. All the above discussions and arguments are indicating that, globalization has long lists of advantages and those advantages have certainly impacted lives of the global people. Globalization is an important process but this process is certainly not free from disadvantages. It is very important to focus upon various disadvantages of globalization. Health issues are serious disadvantages of globalization. Fatal diseases like HIV AIDS and Ebola are the results of the globalization. HIV AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease which originated from the wilderness of Africa. Due to globalization that disease has transmitted across the world within very short time span. The disease has claimed lives of lots of people across the world. Recently global fraternity is facing significant health issue related with the disease called Ebola. The disease has almost 90% fatality rate. Due to globalization the disease is spreading like fire across the African continent. Due to globalization food items like cereals, pulses, spices and sea foods are being transported from one country to other countries. All these edible products are highly perishable in nature. It is often being observed that, during the transportations, foods items get perished and creates lots of health hazards for the customers. Cultural conflict is also an important disadvantage of globalization. People move in and out of a country and often carry their cultures with them. They often try to introduce those cultures in the foreign soil and create cultural conflicts (Steger, 2013). Globalization may have changed the economic outlooks of the developing nations but it has failed to manage equal distribution of wealth. Many experts have said that, globalization has made rich people richer and poor’s have become poorer. Globalization has able to increase employment opportunity but certainly it is not at all enough and has failed to reduce global poverty from the root. Globalization has been designed in such a way that benefits of the globalizations have been confined within certain countries only. In most of the cases developed nations have enjoyed all the benefits of the globalization. Globalization has brought industrial revolution. Industrial revolution may have changed the economic outlooks but it has created lots of environmental hazards. Globalization has certainly increased the global warming. Due to the globalization, carbon foot prints are increasing in the global environment. For the globalization finite natural resources of the planet are facing severe overexploitations. Due to this overloading effect natural resources are depleting and some of those resources are on the verge of extinction. Globalization causes rapid industrialization. Industrialization brings deforestation, reducing global forest lands has significant negative impacts on the global environment. Due to globalization country like China is dumping their low quality products into the neighbouring countries like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. In this way China is getting significant profit but customers of the receiving countries are getting low quality products. This trend of globalization has been detrimental for the small and medium sized domestic organizations of the receiving countries. It shows that globalization also create disparity among the economies. Global political unrest and terrorism is also a disadvantage resulted by globalization (Pang, 2006). In sometimes economic super power countries try to control global political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal dynamics, during the course of this conflicts are significantly common and inevitable. Globalization makes one country over dependent on other countries. In the era of globalization, global economies are significantly interrelated. It means lowering trends of a particular economy can change whole economic outlooks of other countries. This kind of over dependency creates political inequalities and economic disasters (Ritzer, 2009). It is indicating that over dependency out of globalization is not at all desirable. As far as the employment generation is concerned globalization is not at all free from criticism. Globalization has created a trend of cheap labours. Organizations across the world are moving or shifting their factories for the sake of cheap labours. It is creating significant employment problems in the earlier locations. Globalization is a significant disadvantage for the small scale companies. It creates cut throat competitions among the organizations. But it is often being observed that small scale organizations do not have that much of resources and technological up gradations to compete with the large scale global organizations (Kutting, 2012). It creates significant problems for the small companies to manage their financial profitability. In some of the cases, small companies are forced to close down their businesses. Globalization creates macroeconomic instability. Before 2008 developed nations over valued and created boom in their share prices. But after the bursting of bubble, share prices tanked like anything. That menace of globalization has impacted global macroeconomic environment negatively. Globalization has increased the demands of foods and oils. Strong demands for foods and oils have registered high rises in the commodity prices (Westerfield and Abbink, 2004). It means globalization is also responsible for the global inflation as well. Globalization has attracted talented and educated workforce towards the reach countries where opportunities of employments are high. In course of transfer home countries of the talented workforces have suffered. Due to globalization they have not able to utilize superior talents and quality people properly into their own countries. Globalization has brought about cultural diversity, cultural diversity has created lots of issues related with ethnicity, religion believes and races. Racial and religion based discriminations are the curses of the modern society. This is also a significant disadvantage of globalization. Conclusion After critical evaluation of the given statement the study has come to a conclusion that, globalization is not at all an unmixed blessing or a God sent boon. The essay has critically evaluated various advantages and disadvantages of globalization. All the above critical evaluations are indicating that globalization has some limitations or loopholes which are cannot be totally covered with the help of various advantages. During the course of this study one thing has been observed that almost all the advantages of globalization have some level of limitations. The essay has categorically identified that no advantages of globalization is free from criticism. All these findings are significantly articulating that the present state of globalization is not at all enough to address all the global issues. One thing has been clear from this essay that, in some of the cases globalization has added more complexities and has created lots of serious problems. In some of the cases issues are serious threats for human lives as well. During the course of this essay various real examples have been given to evaluate the idea in more proper way. The study can be a significant help for the global fraternity who are debating hard about the topic. The study has reinforced that globalization is a continuous process and it cannot be stopped totally. It is an important responsibility for the global community to utilize globalization in a positive manner for the benefit of world people. References Ervin, J. and Smith, Z. A. 2008. Globalization: A Reference Handbook. New York: ABC-CLIO. Jones, A. 2010. Globalization: Key Thinkers. New York: Polity. Kutting, G. 2012. Globalization and the Environment: Greening Global Political Economy. New York: SUNY Press. Lechner, F. J. 2009. Globalization: The Making of World Society. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Osterhammel, J. and Petersson, N. P. 2005. Globalization: A Short History. New York: Princeton University Press. Pang, N. S. K. 2006. Globalization: Educational Research, Change and Reform. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Ritzer, G. 2009. Globalization: A Basic Text. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Steger, M. 2013. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. London: Oxford University Press. Weinstein, M. M. 2005. Globalization: Whats New. Sussex: Columbia University Press. Westerfield, R. E. and Abbink, J. 2004. Current Issues in Globalization. New York: Nova Publishers. Read More