Globalization Affected the World - Admission/Application Essay Example

Globalization has in the modern times becoming evident in each and every realms of life. Let that be the traditional culture, the economy or the access to the natural resources, the chances of international exposure and exploitation of all these has been made possible by the opportunities of internationalization. The boundaries and regulations which used to preserve and protect the uniqueness of locally relevant identities have been liberalized so that the access to them is allowed to all with no restriction. This trend which was prevalent initially only in the economic scenario has in the recent years become highly evident in all realms of life. This has become a comparatively complex and comprehensive process which has rapidly caused the development of a number of factors substantially reshaping the identity of societies. The objective of this paper is to analyze the negative impact that the process of globalization has had on the world on the perspectives of health, culture and economy. Impact on culture Traditions and culture are the factors which identify the social identity of a particular society. It is the trial to adhere with these traditions that has made communities unique and their respective cultural attributes have helped them to be rich in terms of terms of human values. The trial to expand business and economics across the geographic and sociological boundaries has urged the preparation of leveled platforms for trade all across the globe. This ion other terms is globalization. During this wild hunt in the expansion of business horizons, what have been highly compromised are the spiritual and the cultural identities. To explain it further so as for a particular derivative of globalization to get established in a new geographic and cultural location, the people will have to forget the cultural barriers which prohibit them from using the particular product of service. This would mean that the traditional cultures and other locally relevant factors would give way to the globally promoted culture masquerading itself and modernity and development. The demand of globalization would be that the world must turn itself into a global market leveling all cultural barriers. Leveling cultural barriers in other terms mean to nullify the cultural determinates gradually proving the world deprived of cultural and social values. This must be read together with the fact that it is the shared way in which the people of a particular area look into the world and its values which determine the culture of those people (Fons & Charles 1997). Leveling all these thoughts for the economic interest would mean that the people all around the globe will have only one perspective on understanding and interpreting the world. This dangerous fact is that this one perspective would be very mush determined by the commercial interest of the corporate giants. In simpler language, in a fully globalize world, the culture would be determined by commerce but not human sand social values. Man would thus turn mere consumers with no values to share and culture to cherish. The world would be classified in accordance with the consumption of corporate products and services. It is true that the traditional cultures have evolved through continuous interaction of isolated cultures. However, the factor that differentiates this interaction from globalization is that while the cultural interactions of the past had been based on positively attributing cultural exchange, what globalization does is the forceful imposing of commercially relevant attributes. One unique example for this is the spread of western oriented celebrations in the eastern countries. The interest in this case is not cultural exchange, but the sale of product relevant to these celebrations in the eastern markets. This fact would be clearer when taken into account the reality that the celebrations like Valentine’s Day, Friendship day etc were publicized in the highly populated non western countries by the greeting companies so as for them to find a wider market. Cultural imposing and cultural mimicry is actually what is caused by the derivatives of globalization. Impact on economy Advancement in technology, travel options, communications and liberalization of international business regulations which are all products of globalization has incorporated numerous possibilities of conditions involving diverse changes in the economic environment of a particular area. This trend was found to increase in the early nineties. The transference of a command driven economy to a market driven one, sheltered markets to competitive ones, domestic trade to international trade and the trend of monopoly to the trend of competition has extensively made possible the chances and demand of diversity in the business setup and processes involved. However these chances and demand are expected to have an upward trend in the coming years as well. In the modern business scenarios, these changes have urges the governments to make economic policy reforms in accordance to these changes. While looking for the abrupt growth trends, the governments across the globe are creating attractive economic environment for a global scenario. This is increasingly leading to the liberalization of economies promoting the entry of global giants into the local economy. But the biggest question is the future of the small players in the market. The local merchandise will have detrimental effect over their sales as the market would be dominated by the internationally relevant giant traders. The small merchants will ultimately loose their business. The market would thus show a reverse trend of monopoly. One the local players are mopped up from the market, the price and ultimately the cost of living would be determined by the monopoly of corporate giants. However, the impact of over dependence on the liberalized economy has been reflected as the world currently is facing with one of the worst economic recessions. The global economy is having a serious downfall since last few months. The large scale impact that this has had on the economy is confirmed as Joseph E. Stiglitz criticized that the repercussions of damage done to the global economy by the liberalized governmental policies will be felt beyond the ages (Stiglitz, 2007). The seriousness of the problem has affected most of the countries in the world. The people are getting directly influenced by the sudden downward movements in the economy. Employment, Money flow all has been affected negatively by the aftermaths of the economic crisis. The consequences of the sudden impulse in the economy are unfolding its unseen aftermaths gradually and this effect is being penetrated in the grassroots level of the society. It is an urgent need of the hour to put a stop to the ‘carcinogenic’ growth of the negative impacts before it gets into the lowest multitude possible and starts affecting the day to day welfare of the common man. The urgency of the action is averred by the fact that some of the national economies literally lost the nation in the present scenario of economic crisis. Thus it becomes quite evident that those excessive levels of globalization can have detrimental impact on the local and the national economy. It should not be forgotten that more than the performance of the economic indicators as per the global standards, what matters more is the welfare of the people and the development of local infrastructure resultantly making life easier for the people Impact on health The biggest resultant of globalization with reference to its impact on health is that it makes huge difference in the access to health resources for the poor and the rich. When the rich will have increased access to the high facility medical setups the access of the poor the same would be very limited (Huynen,, Martens & Hilderink , 2005). Money would be determining factor in this case. The governments in a scenario of globalization will have to divert their attention from the assurance if medical facilities to the poor to the facilitation of high end health facilities. The policies of the government with regard to medical subsidies and other locally relevance health facilities will differ highly in accordance with the impact of globalization (Huynen,, Martens & Hilderink , 2005). Another key impact of globalization is that the limitless resources of the same would alter the life style of people resultantly making them lazy. This would lead to the dependency of instruments limiting physical exertion (Huynen,, Martens & Hilderink , 2005). The increase in the global statistics on obesity and other life style related diseases are clear evidences to this. Globalization and its products like increased travel and interactive options also set forth physical environment favoring the spread of diseases and pathogens (Huynen,, Martens & Hilderink , 2005). A transmittable disease which once used to have the potential to spread in a particular region or a country now has to potential to prove detrimental to the whole world. The limitless resource exploitation and increased demolition of cultural, economic, social and moral barriers can prove to be of high negative impact. Thus it is quite vital to have proper check on the impacts that globalization can have on the traditional culture, health and the economy of the people and the nation. The priority must be on ensuring the availability and optimal utilization of resources by the local people rather than on exploitation of resources for the sake of globalization. Works Cited Fons T & Charles H, Writing the waves of culture, 2nd ed, London : Nicholas Brealey, , 1997 Sreward Heather, “IMF says US crisis is largest financial shock since Great Depression”, The Guardian, 2008, The Guardian, 16 Oct 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/09/useconomy.subprimecrisis Huynen Maud, Martens Pim & Hilderink Henk ‘The health impacts of globalisation: a conceptual framework’, Globalization and Health 1:14 (2005): 28-32 Read More