Politics of Globalization: Gainers and Losers - Essay Example

 Politics of Globalization Globalization is hailed as one of the most important phenomena of the modern age. For many it is the force that has brought the people of the world together and it has also helped to erase differences regarding factors like race and caste. On the other hand, however, there are commentators who believe that the effects of globalization are not completely positive. They feel that globalization has resulted in a new form of imperialism that is perpetrated by people who belong to the countries that are developed. This form of colonization is economic and drains the wealth of a poor country into that of the colonizer much in the way that was done by the erstwhile colonizers. There are thus, two sides to the debate and there are gainers and losers on both sides of the barrier. People who are for the idea of globalization may cite the fact that it has created more jobs in the economies of developing nations where it has helped set up new institutions and firms. This, they would argue, has helped in the creation of more wealth for people who were earlier not very well-off. They would also say that such a social churning has helped these people in many ways and this, according to them, would include a change in earlier unjust and unequal models of the society. This would include the caste system as it existed in places like the Indian subcontinent where globalization has helped to introduce fresh perspectives and has also helped people of the downtrodden sections to get jobs whereby they would be able to reverse the trend whereby people of their class keep getting poorer and the others keep getting richer. An increase in the amount of wealth that circulates in the economy would mean that it has an opportunity to be distributed amongst the poorer sections of the society. The distribution of wealth, in such a scenario has to be readjusted to suit the new needs. This is exactly where people who oppose the phenomenon of globalization come in. They feel that the absence of such an equitable system of distribution of wealth has resulted in the lines of division deepening in the societies in which globalization has entered in a manner that they feel is entirely unscientific. They feel that the process of globalization is nothing but a way in which developed countries manage to outsource their work to developing countries where they receive labor at cheap prices. This money is then retrieved through business interests that the firms of the developed nations have in the poor nation. The jobs that are created in poorer nations and also in some cases, in developed nations, according to people who are against globalization, cause many to lose their jobs. It also causes, in many cases, great harm to the agriculture of a nation since the factories that are set up by MNCs often cause great damage to the ecosystems of a particular area that help sustain the farms of that place. 2 The effects that the phenomena of the global economic recession and globalization have had on European households differ greatly from the effects that the same phenomena have had on the US households. Many of these effects have been due to the fact that a great factor in the development of the global economic recession was the bursting of the housing bubble in America. This meant that the United States of America would remain the worst affected state in many ways. The burden of repairing the economy falls on the heads of the people who are part of it. Much of this revenue is obtained from the households of a country in the form of taxes that are levied on the people. These taxes can be levied on items that are sold in the country, the income of a person and also upon the services that are offered by the state to the individual and the household. In this manner, the effects of the crumbling economy trickled down to reach the households of both America and Europe. However, in many ways, the center of the world’s economy remains in the United States of America. This is a result of the fact that much of the global corporations of the world have their headquarters in the United States of America. This is not the case with many countries of Europe. Moreover, in Europe, the fact that the European Union exists as a body that seeks to help out the countries that are a part of the union also helped to mitigate the effects of the crisis. The crisis was deepened however, for this precise reason, in some ways. The burden of dealing with its own economy was a difficult proposition for many countries of the European Union; however, added to this was the burden of having to bail out countries that were in deeper trouble. In the earlier mentioned manner, the burden of this entire process fell on the households, many of whom had to pay more taxes and spend less money. This was a two-fold impact- people had to pay more taxes and this resulted in a decrease in the disposable net income that they had and the spending power, too, thus had to reduce. The amount of money that the United States of America has in reserve is not something that the European Union can enjoy, at a proportionate level. This means that the amount of money that America could pump into an ailing economy was more, proportionately, than that which European countries could. This made the situation different for households of the United States of America. On the other hand, the jobs that had been outsourced from America meant that the state did not have an easy option to offer to the unemployed in the time of crisis. This was not exactly the case with all the countries of the European Union, which was in a relatively better condition at this point of time. 3 Globalization has both positive and negative effects. There are people who argue both for and against the phenomenon of globalization. This has resulted in it becoming a very controversial issue in world politics. Since it results in a great many people getting jobs and a more or less equal number of people claiming to have lost their earlier jobs, the topic is very volatile. This can be said about the status of the issue in both developed and developing nations. One of the greatest positive effects of globalization is the change that it brought to the systems of social organization in countries across the globe. This offered people the opportunity to change the way they live their lives according to the positives that they see in other cultures. Cultures have stopped being closed and have learnt to accept influences from other cultures. There has been a great deal of resistance to this from certain quarters but it has mostly been from people who were in positions of power and advantage in earlier feudal dispensations. The value of an ancient culture is almost always invoked to speak against the positive effects of globalization. This ancient culture would in most cases be the one that had been used to exploit the poorer sections of the society. This social churning would also be accompanied by an increased number of jobs for the people of a certain country where new firms would be set up. Since the entire market of the world has been joined, there are immense possibilities that can be explored by people who were exploited in earlier situations. An increase in the number of jobs in the third world also leads to a decrease in the inequalities between different countries of the world in terms of their economies. One of the greatest negatives impacts of globalization, however, has been the complete or partial erasure of local cultures in an act that seems like what is called cultural imperialism. This has led to many groups feeling alienated from the entire process and this has also led to the effects of it being distributed in a manner that is at best not entirely equal. This also leads to the distribution of wealth in a skewed manner that sometimes plays into the hands of local power groups that seek to exploit the people of a certain place. The opportunity to end such cycles of oppression is thus made considerably more difficult, if not lost altogether. There are ways in which the effects of globalization can be channeled better. Trade as it is done can be done in a way so as to benefit countries that are poor and have low standards of living. The development in these countries can be aided in ways that would enable the people of these countries to develop better models of distribution of wealth. This would improve the situation of law and order in these countries. This would have an automatic effect on the other sectors of the economy and would also mean that the country would remain secure, both internally and externally. Read More