Pros and Cons

Globalization can be win-win for developing and developed countries alike. Populations are aging in the developed countries, but it is there where they have a lot of capital and technology. Developing countries have large and young populations and need to create massive numbers of jobs over the next few decades.

Globalization can benefit both, developed and developing countries if it supports the movement of capital and technology to developing countries and the movement of labor to the developed world. This will not be easy, of course, but the key to successful integration will lie with creating appropriate institutions and policies. On the whole, we live in a much more integrated world as a result of technological advances in transportation and communications such as the Internet. For example, a natural disaster such as the Asian tsunami is quickly known all around the world and people from far away send help. So, integration has created more of a global community that did not exist in the past, we are about to become one people. So, are there significant downsides to globalization or is it just a matter of perception and left-party lobbying when they say things like that? Is globalization going to improve a lot of things for a lot of people or is it quite the opposite? And what about nature and everything aside humans? As mostly, it depends on who you ask but one thing remains true... whoever we ask about globalization can just provide a biased statement, his very personal point of view on the matter, so let us have a common look at it:

Downside of Globalization

• it is true that Europeans/Americans are losing jobs right now and that is posing a problem for them since the companies are outsourcing work to the Asian countries since the cost of labor is low and profits for companies are considerably higher if they do.

• there is immense pressure on the employed Europeans/Americans who are always under the threat of the business being outsourced.

• businesses are building up units in other countries equally well equipped as they have done at their own country, thus transferring the quality to other countries.

• there are some experts who think that globalization, along with the positive aspects, is also leading to the incursion of negatives like communicable diseases and social degeneration.

• There is also a threat of businesses ruling the world because there is a lot of power, which is invested in them due to globalization.

• countries which are at the receiver's end are also giving up the reins in the ends of a foreign company which might again lead to some sophisticated form of colonization.

• before we see improvements with regards to impacts on nature, we are probably going to see two more decades of increased pollution and hurtful behavior towards nature and wildlife.

• the elderly and uneducated may never benefit from globalization simply because everything is getting more competitive — which is good from the point of view of a species (remember the Starship Enterprise example from above) but maybe bad for the individual.

• changes are happening more quickly and if they do, they are more radical in nature — a society of ~7 billion people will naturally create more changes more quickly compared to a society which is just a fraction in size.

• some say linguistic, cultural and traditional genocide is going to happen. At some point in the future there might be just one language/culture left. Globalization is not only modernizing but also westernizing and to an extent also sinicizing native cultures.