Globalization is the increasing integration and interaction between people, companies, and governments around the world. It involves the increased cross-border trade of goods and services, flow of investment and capital, spread of knowledge and technology, and increased movement of people. While globalization has increased economic growth and opportunities for many, it has also been associated with greater inequality, exploitation of workers, and increased spread of diseases. Overall, globalization remains a complex phenomenon with both benefits and disadvantages that are still being debated.

1. GLOBALIZATION

2. Globalization is a process of interaction and
integration among the people, companies, and
governments of different nations, a process driven
by international trade and investment and aided by
information technology.

3. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic
aspects of globalization:
trade and transactions
capital and investment movements
migration and movement of people
dissemination of knowledge

4. HISTORY OF GLOBALIZATION

5. Globalization is not new, though. For thousands of years, people—and,
later, corporations—have been buying from and selling to each other in
lands at great distances, such as through the famed Silk Road across
Central Asia that connected China and Europe during the Middle Ages.
Likewise, for centuries, people and corporations have invested in
enterprises in other countries. In fact, many of the features of the current
wave of globalization are similar to those prevailing before the outbreak
of the First World War in 1914.

6. Thomas L. Friedman divides the history
of globalization into three periods:
Globalization 1(1492 -1800) –
Globalization of countries
Globalization 2 (1800 -2000) –
Globalization of companies
Globalization 3 (2000 – present) –
Globalization of individuals

7. An early form of globalized economics and culture, known
as archaic globalization, existed during the Hellenistic Age,
when commercialized urban centers were focused around the
axis of Greek culture over a wide range that stretched from
India to Spain, with such cities as Alexandria, Athens,
and Antioch at its center. Trade was widespread during that
period, and it is the first time the idea of a cosmopolitan culture

8. The Islamic Golden Age was also an important early stage of
globalization, when Jewish and Muslim
traders and explorers established a sustained economy across
the Old World resulting in a globalization of crops, trade,
knowledge and technology. Globally significant crops such
as sugar and cotton became widely cultivated across
the Muslim world in this period, while the necessity of
learning Arabic and completing the Hajj created a cosmopolitan
culture.

9. In the years since the Second World War many governments
have adopted free-market economic systems, vastly increasing
their own productive potential and creating new opportunities for
international trade and investment. Governments also have
negotiated dramatic reductions in barriers to commerce and have
established international agreements to promote trade in goods,
services, and investment.

10. Taking advantage of new opportunities in foreign
markets, corporations have built foreign factories and
established production and marketing arrangements with
foreign partners. A defining feature of globalization,
therefore, is an international industrial and financial
business structure.

11. PROS & CONS OF
GLOBALIZATION

12. NEGATIVE SIDE
 1. The proponents of global free trade say that it promotes global economic
growth, creates jobs, makes companies more competitive, and lowers prices
for consumers. It also provides poor countries, through infusions of foreign
capital and technology, with the chance to develop economically and by
spreading prosperity creates the conditions in which democracy and respect
for human rights may flourish.
 2. According to libertarians, globalization will help us to raise the global
economy only when the involved power blocks have mutual trust and respect
for each other’s opinion. Globalization and democracy should go hand-in-
hand. It should be pure business with no colonialist designs.
 3. Now there is a worldwide market for companies and consumers to access
products from different countries.
 4. There is a world power that is being created gradually, instead of
compartmentalized power sectors. Politics are merging and decisions that
are being made are actually beneficial for people all over the world.

13.  5. Anti-globalists also claim that globalization is not working for the majority of
the world. During the most recent period of rapid growth in global trade and
investment, 1960 to 1998, inequality worsened both internationally and within
countries. The UN Development Program reports that the richest 20 percent
of the world's population consume 86 percent of the world's resources, while
the poorest 80 percent consume just 14 percent.
 6. Some experts think that globalization is also leading to the incursion of
communicable diseases. Deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS are being spread by
travelers to the remotest corners of the globe.
 7. Globalization has led to exploitation of labor. Prisoners and child workers
are used to work in inhumane conditions. Safety standards are ignored to
produce cheap goods. There is also an increase in human trafficking.
 8. Social welfare schemes or “safety nets” are under great pressure in
developed countries because of deficits and other economic ramifications of
globalization.

14. POSITIVE SIDE
 1. The proponents of global free trade say that it promotes global economic
growth, creates jobs, makes companies more competitive, and lowers prices
for consumers. It also provides poor countries, through infusions of foreign
capital and technology, with the chance to develop economically and by
spreading prosperity creates the conditions in which democracy and respect
for human rights may flourish.
 2. According to libertarians, globalization will help us to raise the global
economy only when the involved power blocks have mutual trust and respect
for each other’s opinion. Globalization and democracy should go hand-in-
hand. It should be pure business with no colonialist designs.
 3. Now there is a worldwide market for companies and consumers to access
products from different countries.
 4. There is a world power that is being created gradually, instead of
compartmentalized power sectors. Politics are merging and decisions that are
being made are actually beneficial for people all over the world.

15.  5 There is more influx of information between two countries.
 6. There is cultural intermingling. Each country is learning more about other
cultures.
 7. Since we share financial interests, corporations and governments are
trying to sort out ecological problems for each other.
 8. Socially we have become more open and tolerant towards each other, and
people who live in the other part of the world are not considered aliens.
 9. Most people see speedy travel, mass communications and quick
dissemination of information through the Internet as benefits of globalization.

16. FIN