Globalization refers to the increasing interconnectedness between societies and economies around the world through cross-border trade, investment and cultural exchange. While globalization has been ongoing for centuries, it has accelerated in recent decades due to advances in technology and transportation. Supporters argue that globalization increases economic growth and benefits all participants, while critics argue it exacerbates inequality and undermines local cultures and economies. There is ongoing debate around how to ensure the benefits of globalization are distributed equitably and its impacts are properly managed.

1. Globalization

2. • Globalization, as a concept, refers both to the "shrinking" of the world and
the increased consciousness of the world as a whole. It is a term used to
describe the changes in societies and the world economy that are the
result of dramatically increased cross-border trade, investment, and
cultural exchange. The processes and actions to which the concept of
globalization now refers have been proceeding, with some
interruptions, for many centuries, but only in relatively recent times has
globalization become a main focus of discussion. The current or recently-
past epoch of globalization has been dominated by the nation-
state, national economies, and national cultural identities. The new form
of globalization is an interconnected world and global mass culture, often
referred to as a "global village."
• In specifically economic contexts, globalization is often used in
characterizing processes underway in the areas of financial
markets, production, and investment. Even more narrowly, the term is
used to refer almost exclusively to the effects of trade, particularly trade
liberalization or "free trade.“--- New World Encyclopedia

3. • As with all human endeavors, globalization processes are strongly affected by the values and
motivation of the people involved in the process. In theory, globalization should benefit all
people because it can produce greater overall economic value. Achieving an equitable
distribution of the added value, however, would require the people who dominate the
market to embody the virtue of sacrificing themselves to serve the higher purpose of the
good of all. However, the legacy of colonialism, which causes a lingering arrogance among
the powers in the Group of Eight and creates suspicion in the developing world, means that
for many people, globalization is feared and resisted as a negative. Corporatist culture is seen
as trampling upon local values and local economies. The Western, secular value system of the
major economic actors is seen as a neo-colonial affront to people with non-Western religious
and cultural values.
• Thus, resistance to globalization is growing in many places, manifesting in the early twenty-
first century with rise of Islamic terrorism. That al-Qaeda's target on September 11, 2001,
was New York City's World Trade Center was no coincidence.
• To be successful, the leaders of the globalization process need to practice the virtues of
respect for religious and cultural values, and sacrifice their economic self-interest for the
benefit of people suffering poverty and want. It is a challenge whose resolution requires
world leaders to pay heed to the religious and cultural dimensions of life and to develop a
global world view that lifts up the shared values of all cultures.----New World Encyclopedia

4. Trends Associated With Globalism
• Increase in international trade at a faster rate than the growth in the world economy
• Increase in international flow of capital including foreign direct investment
• Increase in world production and output and consumption
• Greater trans-border data flow, using such technologies as the Internet, communication satellites, and telephones
• The push by many advocates for an international criminal court and international justice movements (see the ICC
and ICJ respectively)
• Greater international cultural exchange, for example through the export of Hollywood and Bollywood movies
• Some argue that terrorism has undergone globalization through its use of global financial markets and global
communication infrastructure
• Spreading of multiculturalism and increased individual access to cultural diversity, with on the other
hand, reduction in diversity through assimilation, hybridization, Westernization, Americanization, or Sinosization
of cultures.
• Erosion of national sovereignty and national borders through international agreements leading to organizations
like the WTO, OPEC, and EU
• Greater international travel and tourism
• Greater immigration, including illegal immigration
• Development of global telecommunications infrastructure
• Development of global financial systems
• Increase in the share of the world economy controlled by multinational corporations
• Increased role of international organizations such as WTO, UN, IMF that deal with international transactions
• Increase in the number of standards applied globally, for example, copyright laws

5. Economics
• Economic integration is concerned with the removal of trade barriers or impediments between at least
two participating nations and the establishment of cooperation and coordination between them.
Economic integration helps steer the world toward globalization. Globalization refers to the growing
economic interdependencies of countries worldwide through the increasing volume and variety of cross-
border transactions in goods and services and of international capital flows, as well as through the rapid
and widespread diffusion of technology and information.
• The following forms of economic integration are often implemented:
• Free Trade Area: Involves country combination, where the member nations remove all trade impediments
among themselves but retain their freedom concerning their policy making vis-à-vis non-member
countries. The Latin American Free Trade Area, or LAFTA, and the North American Free Trade Agreement,
or NAFTA are examples of this form.
• Customs Union: Similar to a free trade area except that member nations must conduct and pursue
common external commercial relations such as common tariff policies on imports from non-member
nations. The Central American Common Market (CACM) and the Caribbean Community and Common
Market (CARICOM) are examples of this form.
• Common Market: A particular customs union that allows not only free trade of products and services but
also free mobility of production factors (capital, labor, technology) across national member borders. The
Southern Common Market Treaty (MERCOSUR) is an example of this form.
• Economic Union: A particular common market involving the unification of monetary and fiscal policies.
Participants introduce a central authority to exercise control over these matters so that member nations
virtually become an enlarged single “country” in an economic sense.
• Political Union: Requires the participating nations to become literally one nation in both an economic and
political sense. This union involves the establishment of a common parliament and other political
institutions.

6. Anti-Globalization
• Various aspects of globalization are seen as harmful by public-interest
activists as well as strong state nationalists. This movement has no unified
name. "Anti-globalization" is the media's preferred term. Activists
themselves, for example Noam Chomsky, have said that this name is as
meaningless as saying the aim of the movement is to globalize justice.
Indeed, "the global justice movement" is a common name. Many activists
also unite under the slogan "another world is possible," which has given
rise to names such as altermondisme in French.
• There is a wide variety of different kinds of "anti-globalization." In
general, critics claim that the results of globalization have not been what
was predicted when the attempt to increase free trade began, and that
many institutions involved in the system of globalization have not taken
the interests of poorer nations and the working class into account.
• Economic arguments by fair trade theorists claim that unrestricted free
trade benefits those with more financial leverage (that is, the rich) at the
expense of the poor.

7. Anti-Globalization
• Many "anti-globalization" activists see globalization as the
promotion of a corporatist agenda, which is intent on
constricting the freedoms of individuals in the name of
profit. They also claim that increasing autonomy and
strength of corporate entities increasingly shapes the
political policy of nation-states.
• Some "anti-globalization" groups argue that globalization is
necessarily imperialistic, that it is one of the driving reasons
behind the Iraq War (2003), and that it has forced
investment to flow into the United States rather than to
developing nations.
• Some argue that globalization imposes credit-based
economics, resulting in unsustainable growth of debt and
debt crises.

8. Anti-Globalization
• The anti-global movement is very broad, including church groups, national
liberation factions, left-wing parties, environmentalists, peasant
unionists, anti-racism groups, libertarian socialists, and others. Most are
reformist (arguing for a more humane form of capitalism) and a strong
minority is revolutionary (arguing for a more humane system than
capitalism). Many have decried the lack of unity and direction in the
movement, but some, such as Noam Chomsky, have claimed that this lack
of centralization may in fact be a strength.
• Protests by the global justice movement have now forced high-level
international meetings away from the major cities where they used to be
held, and off into remote locations where protest is impractical.
• Some "anti-globalization" activists object to the fact that the current
"globalization" globalizes money and corporations and at the same time
refuses to globalize people and unions. This can be seen in the strict
immigration controls that exist in nearly all countries and the lack of labor
rights in many countries in the developing world.

9. Pro-Globalists
• Supporters of democratic globalization can be labeled pro-globalists. They consider that the second phase of
globalization, which was market-oriented, should be completed by a phase of building global political institutions
representing the will of world citizens. The difference with other globalists is that they do not define in advance
any ideology to orientate this will, which should be left to the free choice of those citizens via a democratic
process.
• Supporters of free trade point out that economic theories of comparative advantage suggest that free trade leads
to a more efficient allocation of resources, with all countries involved in the trade benefiting. In general, they
claim that this leads to lower prices, more employment, higher output, and greater consumption opportunities.
• Libertarians and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism say higher degrees of political and economic freedom
in the form of democracy and market economies in the developed world produce higher levels of material wealth.
They see globalization as the beneficial spread of democracy and market mechanisms.
• Critics of the anti-globalization movement argue that it is not elected and as such does not necessarily represent
or is not held accountable to a broad spectrum of people. Also, anti-globalization movement uses anecdotal
evidence to support its view while worldwide statistics strongly support globalization instead. Statistics show that:
The percentage of people in developing countries living below $1 (adjusted for inflation and purchasing power)
per day has halved in only 20 years; life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since WWII and is
starting to close the gap with the developed world, where the improvement has been smaller; child mortality has
decreased in every developing region of the world; and income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing.
• Many pro-market (pro-capitalists) are also critical of the World Bank and the IMF, arguing that they are corrupt
bureaucracies controlled and financed by states, not corporations. These critics point out that many loans have
been given to dictators who never carried out promised reforms, but instead left the common people to pay the
debts later. Such corrupted loan partners cause "moral hazard" or hidden detrimental action by the lenders. The
pro-capitalists see here an example of too little use of markets, not too much. They also note that some of the
resistance to globalization comes from special interest groups with conflicting interests like Western world unions.

10. Globalization in Question
• The principle policy concern of globalization is usually put in terms of
issues of economic efficiency. Economists tend to judge globalization
largely in terms of the gains or losses that it brings to the productive
development of scarce world resources. However, many would argue that
economic growth should always be secondary to, and in service
of, security, justice, and democracy.
• On these issues the evaluations have been both positive and negative. In
some respects, globalization has promoted increased human security, for
example, with disincentives to war, improved means of humanitarian
relief, new job creation opportunities, and greater cultural pluralism.
However, in other ways globalization has perpetuated or even deepened
warfare, environmental degradation, poverty, unemployment, exploitation
of workers, and social disintegration. Thus, globalization does not
automatically increase or decrease human security. The outcomes are
positive or negative depending on the policies that are adopted toward
the new geography.