Hello everyone,
Welcome to this blog post about globalization. I will cover the concept of globalization and how that's impacting the world right now. Additionally, I will also cover the consequences of globalization. Please note that everything here is said as a fact rather than opinion.
To start with, globalization generally refer to the interconnection of the world through trades, technology, and cultural exchange. The earliest attempt of globalization includes the silk road, Columbian exchange. As time went by, as technology advances to allow mass production to exist, globalization changed in the modern world. Now globalization also include the concept of each nations becoming more interdependent on each other, for example, Western countries relying on China for factory productions. Instead of each countries operating as its own economy within its own market (domestic market), globalization now represent the entire world operating as one single economy. As a result, each country produce more on the products they specialize in and import other products from other countries instead of a country having to produce everything on its own. This should help increase the efficiency of each individual country's production and push the world economy to a better place.
While globalization allowed the entire world to act as one single economy and produce goods at a greater efficiency, globalization also caused some unsolved problems. First, in a economy of let's say a community, there are people who are more well off than others. And let's expand that concept of inequality of wealth to the entire world after globalization has started: some countries benefitted from globalization and became wealthier because of that while other countries became less well off. Greece is one of the countries that defaulted (bankruptcy for a country) due to globalization. In 2008, something big happened besides the Olympics, and that is 2008 recession. The recession may have started out in the financial sector in America with Lehman Brother's bankruptcy, but also the world in general due to each countries' economic ties with each other. Greece was one of the countries that was hit the hardest due to Greece's pre-existing economic weaknesses such as large debt, low productivity, and government's overspending.
Furthermore, some developement of certain industries affected the labor market to a great extent. Globalization created an environment that nitensified the competition in labor from many countries. While more production became more centered to a few corporation or factories, labor who are not doing well in financially in their own country not only have to compete with the people at their own country but also the people around the world to get a job at a factory. This does not benefit the labor who are on the lower level of the supply chain. Because of that, more people are unable to find a job due to the intensified competition created by the global market and end up unemployed.
Even worse, many labor exploitation became the blind spot of globalization. Each labor from the lower end of the supply chain were unable to speak up against exploitation due to their desperation for a job and sustainable money. They were willing to work long hour and get paid less not because that's the best treatment of labor they believe they deserve, but because there's many people around them were even worse off in their hometown without a job and having a job already made them feel fortunate. In 2023, Shein reported two cases of child labor from its supplier from China, raising ethical concern to the conduct of globalization. In 2024, Brazil found out that 163 Chinese international factory worker at BYD were working under slave like condition. Clearly, gloablization turned a blind eye onto those who were exploited. This brought question to the ethicality of globalization or business conduct in general.
In the process of globalization, many countries that were once poor became more wealthier, and the production in this world based economy increased significantly. However, we have to acknowledge that the global economy isn't perfect with globalization and the people suffering because of it. No matter what, we should always consider is globalization ethical? If not, what's our next step to fix it?
Thanks for reading this article as always! I will keep you updated on more business and economic content over the summer :)
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