Globalization

Yamil Guerra
GEOG 202
Essay 1: Globalization

Will its benefits ever outweigh its deficiencies?

While a topic by no means strange, globalization is defined and conceptualized in verydifferent manners by individuals disproportionately affected by it. Is globalization an attempt to unify international economies for the benefit of the greater masses? Is it a way to exploitunderdeveloped nations for the benefit of the few? Or is it, like many human activities, a force whose side effects bring about the destruction of our natural environments? Whether globalization brings aboutpositive, negative or neutral economic changes in nations and individual societies will be the purpose of this essay.
Concisely, globalization is a means of interaction between companies andgovernments of different nations. It is a process fueled by international trade and investment made possible by our ever improving information technology resources. Globalization, as with any largescale human interaction process, directly affects several aspects of a country’s society, and economic changes in particular, due to foreign investment and trade, can be both beneficial and detrimentalwhen considering the whole health of a society.
The main underlying factor and common denominator of globalization is global trade. The recent enormous growth of international trade has been thecause and primary effect of globalization. World trade, as reported by the World Bank, has increased tremendously since 1950 from $320 billion to $6.8 trillion. What this means is that the world isenjoying an increasingly wider selection of products and services from all over the world.
Defenders of globalization argue that protesters are plain wrong. Globalization, they say, is good,not only for the rich, but especially for the poor. Take China and India for example; 200 million people have been lifted from poverty in the 1990’s as globalization expanded, according to the...