The Benefits of Globalisation and Global Economic Integration - Essay Example

Running head: THE BENEFITS OF GLOBALIZATION AND GLOBAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION The benefits of globalisation and global economic integration Name: Institution: Date: Introduction In the recent times, the level of interconnectivity from one nation to another has drastically increased as compared to previous years. This is a result of increased technological improvement and political goodwill between states and countries, as witnessed in alliances, such as US and United Arab Emirates. Other factor includes the need to seek new and viable markets as in the case of European Union, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) marketing regions among other notable reasons. Consequently, this has resulted to globalisation where countries in different regions interdependent on each other for their political, economical and cultural survival. Generally, most of the arguments around globalization focus on reduction of poverty levels, allowing the access of technology especially to the developed countries, promotion of global peace, enhancing children and women rights and increasing life expectancy to developing countries. This paper will candidly examine the benefits of globalisation and global economic integration. Globalisation Johnson (2008, p. 103) argues that globalisation is the increased unification of global economic orders by reducing export fees, barriers to the international tariffs in trade, import quota among others. Dalimov (2010, p. 91) globalization is a process of integration and interactions among people, governments companies of various nations, driven by factors such as investment and international trades, mostly aided by information technologies. The main aim of globalisation is to raise material wealth, services and goods through international divisions in labour efficiencies, catalyzed by competitions, specialization and international relations. Moore and Mitchell (2008, p. 121) globalization describes the process in which societies, cultures and regional economies have become integrated through aspects such as trade, transport, communication among other notable factors. However, it is worth noting that globalization is not a new phenomenon, caused by technological development. Many years back, people and later organisations, had been selling and buying in lands and at great distances. In the recent years, invention of social networking sites through major sites such as Face book, Twitter, MySpace among other internet related technologies such as blogs and micro-blogs have highly enhanced the levels of globalization. People from different regions have been able to organize and follow events in social networks such as Face book and twitter, having more than 0.7 and 0.3 billion followers globally. Johnson (2008, p. 94) says that the perceived effects brought about by globalization excites strong feelings thus making people to come up with many definitions regarding globalisation, although it still remains a complex web beyond normal definitions. Benefits of globalization For those countries that engages in international businesses, their economies have constantly experienced faster growths than those that protects themselves from globalization effects. Well-managed forms of open economies such as China, Europe, have grown by more than 15%, higher than those countries in closed from forces of globalization (Moore and Mitchell 2008, p. 47). There is also increased environmental accountability and awareness contributing to better environmental outcomes. This occur to those countries and regions using efficient, less polluting and importation of renewable substitutes used in place of the scarce natural resources available in the domestic markets. Globalization has also increased world’s economy as well as reduced investment barriers. This has resulted to increase in the foreign direct investment that has accelerated growths in many regions. For instant, in 2003 the foreign direct investments amounted to US$ 574 billion representing US$ 552 Billion jump from the one recorded in 1975 (Friedman 2005, p. 204). Globalization has resulted to improved standards of living and reduced poverty levels in countries, which have faster economic growth rates. For instant, India has been able to cut on poverty rate by more than 50% in a span of two decades. On the other hand, China has reduced the number of poor people in the rural areas from 250 to 34 million people from 1978 to 1999 (Suarez-Orozco 2007, p. 66). Cheaper forms of exports have made wider range o f goods to be accessible to people in different region. The other benefits of globalization are the improved forms of health cares and access to clean water, hence improving life expectancies. For instant, 80% of the global population can hope to live for at least five years more due to this. Global institutions such as World Bank and United Nations (UN) are responsible for managing and settling intergovernmental disputes as well as resolving economical and political tensions between countries and regions. This has bolstered peace between countries, as conflicts are amicably resolved, thus reducing the bleeding grounds for activities, such as terrorism. Improved technological levels have highly reduced on the operational costs, thus changing on ways in which people communicates and carrying out their activities. For instant, in 1991 to 2000, the rate of adult illiteracy decreased by 10% to 29% across the globe (Suarez-Orozco 2007, P. 183). The modern means of communications as well as the wide spread of information has led to toppling of undemocratic governments among other types of bad leaderships. This is evident in the ongoing political instabilities taking place in countries, such as Libya, Yemen and Egypt among other countries in North Africa and Middle East, dubbed Arabic awakening. Consequently, globalization has resulted to growth of liberal democracies across the globe. Globalization also results to international migrations giving way for respect and diversity for various cultural identities. This leads to improved levels of democracy as well as access of the human rights. Global economic integration Global economic integration refers to the trade unifications between various sates through partial or full abolishment of customs tariffs on the trades that takes place with border of states concerned. Economic integration aimed at lowering costs of production, thus deriving more benefits to all people across the globe. Global economic integrations increases when trade restrictions between nations are lifted, thus allowing trade freedom. There are main factors affecting the processes of the economic globalisation, such as technological and communication improvements, change of tastes of individuals in different regions and government policies. For instant, technological and communication improvements have minimised transport and communication costs, thus enabling faster delivery of services and easy integration of global economy. Smith (2007, p. 71) argues that integration of the global economy has allowed easy distribution of the available resources, thereby improving the living conditions for people in different regions. Currently, an approximation of global economy amounts to more than US$ 30 trillion, although 17 % of the global population earns less than US$ 1 on daily basis. Further, about 80% of world’s population earns less than 20% of world’s economy and there exists a large gap among the poor and rich in developing countries (Friedman 2005, p. 38). Economic integrations reduce large disparities through job creation as direct foreign investment in areas, such as technologies, education and agricultural sectors are availed to the poor countries. Due to improved levels of economic integrations trade openness have increased over the years in some of developed countries. The table below indicates the average exports and imports as percentage of GDP of US, EU and Japan brought about by trade openness Country 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 United State 5.4 10.1 10.3 12.2 13.9 European Union 8.4 11.5 9.6 12.6 14.1 Japan 10.3 14.2 10.5 10.2 13.0 (Stiglitz 2006, p. 79) Benefits of global economic integration Global economic integration has enabled the middle-income economies to become new focal points in the international trades. This is with regard to areas such as textiles and information technologies. The countries are not isolated from the other developed countries, thus they are using free movement of labour, services, knowledge, and capital among other factors to assume important role as far as economic integration is concerned. Even in Africa, one of the poorest continents in the world has realized on the importance of economic integrations. For instant, Abuja Treaty calls for the corporation in individual countries to promote intra African trade as well as common currency. Economic integration allows the flow of capital goods and foreign direct investments. Beside the normal monetary benefits, the foreign investments provide human capital developments to the receiving nations, as training by employees is a by-product of a new business. Some of the countries, which have benefited out of foreign investments, include Singapore, India among other Asian countries. Justification of political globalisation It is evident that benefits brought about by globalization, like improved technological, transport, increased standards of living in different regions, highly surpass disadvantages associated to it. Through globalisation, there have been increased direct foreign investments to poor countries, thus enabling them to improve on vital areas, such as infrastructures, human capital, job opportunities among others. For those countries that fail to recognise aspects, such as human rights and equal distribution of resources, globalization has helped to change these regimes. This gives birth to transparent forms of leaderships that aim to integrate with the rest of the world for political social and economic development (Stiglitz 2006, p. 56). For globalization to occur there must be political goodwill for the countries taking part in the globalization process. For instant, the countries must be ready to reduce on trading tariffs and sharing technical knowhow, such as ways of tapping to renewable and other forms of socially acceptable energies. Unless strong political structures set by the concerned governments to deal with globalization, crises resulting from globalization could affect the social dissolutions, like the ethnic conflicts that took place in 1998 in Indonesia. This was triggered by the 1997-1998 Asian Economic crises, where insecurity was boosted resulting to religious tensions and sectarian conflicts, thus political instability (Moore and Mitchell 2008, p. 12). In the Darwinism perspectives, an institution has to adopt and respond to changes in the world in order to survive to the emerging forms of competitions, thus state institutions have to enhance their effectiveness and efficiencies to avoid loosing global competitiveness. Conclusion As witnessed in developed countries, such as the European Union, US, China Japan among others, the need to globalise institutions operating in these countries is a mater of urgency rather than optional. For countries to achieve the millennium development goals as well as other statutory visions, the states should aim at sharing knowledge, markets, technology and other important aspects that boost development. In conclusion, globalization and global economic integration have been vital for development of most countries especially those from Latin America, Africa and Asian Continents in terms of social-economic, political, cultural growths among other notable areas. References Dalimov, T. (2010). Dynamics of international economic integration: non-linear analysis. London: Lambert Academic Publishing Friedman, T. (2005). The World Is Flat. New York: Straus and Giroux Johnson, H. (2008). An Economic Theory of Protection, Tariff Bargaining and the Formation of Customs Unions. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 73, pp. 256–283. Moore, A. and Mitchell, C. (2008). Power, Pedagogy and Praxis: Social Justice in the Globalized Classroom. Sense Publishers. Smith, C. (2007). International Trade and Globalisation, 3rd edition. Stocksfield: Anforme. Stiglitz, E. (2006). Making Globalization Work. New York: W.W. Norton. Suarez-Orozco, I. (2007). Learning in the Global Era: International Perspectives on Globalization and Education. University of California. Read More