The First Draft of the Whole Essay - Freya

Is globalization good or bad?

A little revise of introduction according to the comment:

Nowadays the word, “globalisation”, is being talked about by everyone, also you can hear it from everywhere. Actually, it came from the two phrases “global tribe” and “global village” introduced first by Marshall McLuhan in his book “the Gutenberg Galaxy” in 1962. Since the high-speed and continuous development of communication technologies in the world, the geographic restrictions have been gradually reduced, the whole earth is just like a “classroom without walls” (McLuhan 1960, pp. 1-3). Especially, in recent years, there is an obvious rise in the level of interdependence between districts, cities and countries that contributes to the human increasing awareness of globalization (Robertson 1992). Such a word seems to already have become a dominant part of our social lives (Hirst & Grahame 1996) and hugely influenced on economy, culture and even politics. Meanwhile, it has evoked a sweeping and fierce controversy about whether the globalisation brings the advantages, or exerts a negative influence in every aspect. This essay attempts to analyze positive and negative effects impacted by globalization on three main fields mentioned above.

Body & Conclusion：

There is no doubt that the economy is the most important area and promotes the process of globalization, by which culture and politics are gradually influenced (El-Ojeili and Hayden 2006). The capitalism stands in the breach due to the driving force, say, the profit. Usually, it means the capital that follows the lowest cost will flow into the developing countries, like Africa and Asia, from developed ones, such as the U.S.A. and Europe, especially in manufacturing industry at first, which leads to the international trade and new division of labour (Waters 2001). For the recipient nations, they can acquire enough investments to help the disadvantaged industries, also boost the local economy. Consequently, the ratio of unemployment will descend, for instance, on the ground that natives will get jobs and wages and the local construction will be improved as well at the same time. However, there was a big downward trend of employment rate in capital exporters (El-Ojeili and Hayden 2006) where it was claimed that developing countries took away the opportunity of work, salaries from advanced countries due to that more and more factories would be closed down and moved into the low-cost area. The fact is that after a period of time, the third industries obtained a good development that the number of labours in services increased (El-Ojeili and Hayden). Just work force re-distribution happened in the world. Different people in different areas could do distinct works.

As for culture, although its tendency to globalisation is greatly affected by economy, with the rapid technological revolution, the change of culture is more obvious than the other arenas (Waters 2001). Previously, human beings do not know each other or just a little, even have a misunderstanding about others’ culture, mainly owing to relatively far dimension. So the diversity of transportation’ invention is obligated to promote the human movement from here to there. In particular, after the mass media’s spread, the communication is becoming increasingly convenient and fast that people staying in one place could see everything, which happened before and happens now. It apparently enhanced the mutual understanding between different areas. Nonetheless, some arguments against the trend hold that there is less and less otherness in culture area all the world. The globalisation gives rise to the cultural homogeneity, even more and more alike people (Steger 2005). According to Tomlinson (1999), the mainstream culture of the global is dominated by the large international companies, such as McDonald, which use the high-tech for disseminating its thoughts and affecting people in the world. Some identities of local culture are disappearing, since everything could be seen everywhere. Yet it is cannot be denied that the globalisation has consolidated the interconnectivity and linkage of the whole earth, whatever you are, whatever the distance is. Meanwhile, it needs to be treated carefully for protecting the specialty of either individual or a country.

The third one, politics, is undoubtedly closely connected with the two former aspects, which brought about human awareness of politics influenced by globalisation. Talking about it, it must be associated with international relation, in which there is no a conspicuous feature displaying comparatively high level of globalised politics (Waters 2001). A lot of layers of governance of nations still collide with the time of globalisation’s coming; even some claimed that it would spawn problems, like terrorism, to lead to an unsafe situation and to constitute a threat to a country. Not surprisingly, there is resistance existing, for this power of globalisation will definitely weaken the state power. Whereas, the reality is that it could help built the politic mutual trust, and then properly lower the divergence between countries-- the best example is European Union. On the other hand, it could push economic growth and cultural communication, because sometimes the politics’ distinction is the chief obstruction for the development of a country.

In the final analysis, in the period of last 20 years, it is convinced that globalisation has been “an irresistible process” (Watts 2000, p. 69). Although it causes a series of problems in economic, cultural and politic spheres, the most important thing is that it generates tremendous benefits for the current society and facilitates anthropic life. As an old saying said:” no pain, no gain,” if we want to obtain something quite difficult we have to pay for it. It still needs, however, to find out the solution to reduce the discord brought by globalisation as much as possible.


Reference:

Carpenter, E. & McLuhan, M. (1960) Explorations in Communication: an anthology. pp. 1-3, 125-135, 180-183, 207-208, Boston in the U.S.A., Beacon Press.

El-Ojeili, C. & Hayden, P. (2006) Critical Theories of Globalization. Pp. 49-55, 80-83, 89-133. New York, Palgrave Macmillan

Hirst, P. & Thompson, G. (1996) Globalization in Question. Cambridge, Polity Press.

McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: the making of typographic man. Ch. 1, pp. 1-9, Ch. 2, pp. 28-32, Great Britain, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Robertson, R. (1992) Globalization: social theory and global culture. London, SAGE Publications Ltd.

Steger, M. B. (2005) Globalism: market ideology meets terrorism. 2nd. ed. pp. 27-43. U.S.A., Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, Inc.

Tomlinson, J. (1999) Globalization and Culture. Oxford, Polity Press.

Waters, M. (2001) Globalization. 2nd. ed. London, Routledge.

Watts, R. (2000) The Right Thing: Globalization and the Policy Process - A Case Study. In: McBride, S. & Wiseman, J. Globalization and Its Discontents. Great Britain, Macmillan Press Ltd.