globalization... good or bad?

Question

Do you believe that globalization (the increased integration or increased “connectedness” of the world) will lead to more democracy or less democracy, more peace or more war, greater wealth for greater numbers or increasing poverty and inequality? Do your answers suggest a view of the world that is closer to realism, liberalism, or Marxism/Leninism? Explain.

Answer 1

Bad for middle class, good for multinational corporations, and poorer nations.

Answer 2

It doesn't matter if it's good or bad -- it's inevitable. Some places will benefit more than others. Unskilled, low-skilled, and eventually even high-skilled jobs will leave the industrialized world for the developing countries, where the standard of living will rise. People in industrialized countries, displaced by this trend, will kick and scream. Some changes will doubtless be painful, as they were during the Industrial Revolution, the Renaissance, etc. Overall, there will be less disparity in the standard of living between different parts of the world.

Answer 3

Globalization is a way for the advanced nations of the world to give up some of their GDP and sovereignty for the sake of the third world.
It makes sense if you look at it with pure mathematics. The numbers work. The problem is that, as in the case of communism, there is a human element that has to be accounted for in the abstract.
In other words, what made the third world the third world in the first place? If you believe that the developed world is responsible for their plight, then globalization is a deserved penance.
I see it as larceny. Sooner or later, the sleeping giant being robbed will awaken and yes, there will be war on a scale never seen before.
Isolation is my answer. It will stifle growth but, it will prevent the eventual economic degradation that is globalization's promise.

Answer 4

Awful! It would have to lead to less democracy, a dictatorship so no one could start a war, an elite with money and the rest in poverty, which I believe is realism. It's only logical that it is the only way globalization could survive.

Answer 5

Bad. This turned out to be a Trojan Horse by the American corporations to have unlimited access to cheap and slave labor around the world. The PROMISE was that the US would insist on the countries doing business with America, such as China, would improve wages and working conditions for their workers. That didn't happen but the corporation still get to buy and make products in those countries. This has, and will continue to lower wages and impact jobs for Americans and all other countries without slave labor.

Answer 6

If it's private globalization, meaning people and private companies spreading out of their own free will, I don't have a problem with it. What I do have a problem with is a country trying to interfere in the politics of another nation, because the reasoning can turn so easily from "We're helping them" to "We're helping ourselves." (Iraq doesn't count under this, in my book: Saddam was more than a little crazy.)

Answer 7

Corporate-managed trade pacts, that have been negotiated in secret and called "Free Trade" by the editorial pages in the U.S. Corporate media, are by their very nature undemocratic.

After 10 years of NAFTA, supported by the Bushs, Clintons and the vast majority of the U.S. media, the United States had a net loss of over 800,000 jobs. Farmers in Mexico lost their farms due to subsidized U.S. Corporate agriculture (corn) and tens of thousands crossed illegally into the U.S. looking for jobs.

The WTO and the admitting of China into the WTO in 2001 has multiplied the number of lost U.S. jobs into the millions.

The bottom line is while enlarging the world economic pie, globalization has increased poverty for an increasing number of poor in the U.S. and in the Southern Hemisphere, enriched the wealthiest investors in both locations, while at the same time lowering health, enviromental and labor standards worldwide.

(bad)

Answer 8

Globalization was brought to the many at the “point of a gun”, and many were “globalized” literally kicking and screaming, from Commodore's Perry ultimatum which opened Japan, to British and French gunboat diplomacy in Tunisia, Egypt and Zanzibar, to the Opium wars and gunboats that patrolled Chinese internal waterways. And, worst of all, for many millions who were sold in slavery, or who toiled sixteen hours a day on plantations from Malaya to Brazil that too was globalization. Globalization was not merely accompanied by the worst excesses of colonialism; colonialism was not an accident. On the contrary, globalization was colonialism because it is through being colonies that most of the non-European nations were brought to the global world. (The Two Faced of Globalization, Against Globalization As We know It, Banko Milanovic, Development Research Group, Wold Bank).

Milanovic further states that “to question the profit objective is not to denigrate its importance, much less to argue that it should not be an important, perhaps the most important, criteria. But it should not be the sole criterion.” Woe to those nations that do not embrace the profit motive as the most important mechanism within the panalopy of human interchange. Woe to those individuals who denigrate the importance of profit, and to those who reject profit over everything else.

Answer 9

It is a good thing, as it is better to trade than to fight.
Also earthlings get better connected, thanks to the
development of communications.
Better access to knowledge also, for all of us.
But market and communication globalizations,
whatever their benefits, are not enough.
The next step is to build global democratic institutions.
Some world federation or confederation.
We have to demand democratic globalization.
As for the second part of your question, my view is
close to humanism. I'm not too happy with the other
words in "ism". ;-)
.

Answer 10

It should be a more peaceful world because we are suddenly tied together.
I tend to think what would be best for a world would be socialism. You can still have socialism along with capitolism.
Cheap labor will always be a factor for profit, but sooner or later people will demand a better life, a better wage.
China is learning the hard way-suffering from pollution, re-calls, and economic belches.
And by the way...a global economy will reach a domino effect, we will fall if one falls.

Answer 11

I believe that globalization has hurt the American people .
Trade globalization is the worst aspect of globalization .
The U.S. should raise tariffs on all goods that come into
the country .I have a nationalistic view of the world .