The Contemporary World: Globalization
The Contemporary World: Globalization
The Contemporary World: Globalization
World:
Globalization
The World Made Closer
Look in your bag, at the tags on your clothing, your cell phone, etc. List down at least
eight objects. Identify where the objects were made. Where is the company based?
Do some research about this object. Chart your discoveries on a piece of paper.
How?
Through the Internet and mass media
Over the years, globalization has gained many connotations pertaining
to progress, development and integration.
To some, it is viewed as a positive phenomenon:
• Thomas Larson, a Swedish journalist - “the process of world
shrinkage, of distances getting shorter, things moving closer. It
pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on the one side
of the world can interact, to mutual benefit with somebody on the
other side of the world.”
Some see it as occurring through and with regression, colonialism and
destabilization.
Approaches to Globalization
• Globalization as Economic Process
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the end of the
Cold War in 1991, the world became more interconnected. This is
because the communist bloc countries, which had previously been
intentionally isolated from the capitalist West, began to integrate into
the global market economy. Trade and investment increased, while
barriers to migration and to cultural exchange were lowered.
Most of the growth occurred in the purely money-dealing currency and
securities markets that trade claims to draw profits from future
production. Aided by new communication technologies, global rentiers
and speculators earned spectacular incomes by taking advantage of
weak financial and banking regulations in the emerging markets of
developing countries. However, currently… (US-China Trade War)
Another important economic development of the last three decades that involves the
changing nature of global production: powerful transnational corporations (TNCs) with
subsidiaries in several countries.
• ‘McDonaldization’