what is new about Globalization, if anything.?

Answer 1

The size and frequency of the economic decisions that we call globalisation.

The use of, and low prices of, innovations like the telephone and internet that give us real-time presence far from where our body is.

The abolition or at least reduction by governments of barriers that used to inhibit globalisation, such as taxes and restrictions on money movements, laws against or constraining foreign inward and/or outward investment, tariffs and import controls.


None of this is totally conceptually new.... there was international trade 3000 years ago when Phoenicians bought tin from Cornwall.... but it has accelerated greatly over the past couple of decades. Intra-firm globalisation in particular was hardly known in 1980 ~ such as a small UK business having secretarial support in Australia so the papers are typed during the UK night.

Answer 2

The packaging.

It's like Pandora's box, and is nicely wrapped. However a whole slew of economists and developed country government officials have been praising what's supposed to be in the box, saying how it is the answer to all problems, will alleviate poverty and make everyone employed, encouraging everyone to open the box.

But while if there is true globalisation, rice farmers in Japan are likely to go out of business, so would giant US conglomerates that dominated Banana trade, most people in Europe would be wearing Chinese-made t-shirts... However, all we see is that the Japanese (and say French) farmers have a nicely sheltered lives, bananas are banned from entry because of their curvature (I'm not making it up), Chinese t-shirts are restricted from entry into the EU. On the other hand, monsters like Coca-Cola (it's not our fault that the coke has high levels of pesticides, it's the water we use), Citibank, HSBC, Bechtel, Halliburton are aggressively entering markets of developing economies, dominating their respective sectors and becoming, if not monopolists, controlling players in oligopolies.

In that, what is in the globalisation box is nothing new; it's just a form of neo-colonialism. Developing economies are supposed to open and allow their resources to be taken, without being able to have similar access to developed economy markets.

Answer 3

The scale of it.

It is a new thing that every day the amount of tonage on cargo ships that are on their way to an international destination is greater than that of all humans put together, and that the majority of the majority of the 100 biggest companies in every country in the world (with few exceptions) are now foreign-owned.

Answer 4

imo the widely unseen schemes that involve american imperialism in the middle east and the eroding of individual rights all leading to the implementation of a global financial system under central control .. and more centralized regional govts that will in affect do away with the constitution ..