Globalisation - The humanities dream of prosperity or rather a fear giving nightmare?
To discuss the manifestation of globalisation, it is necessary to give an accurate explanation of the term.
Globalisation describes a process by which national and regional economies, societies and cultures, get connected, through the global network of Trade, communication, immigration and transportation. These circumstances indicate that a happening in one area, can have knock on effects worldwide.
Whether globalisation has good or bad effects, is a dream or a nightmare, depends much on the perspective from which one looks at it. Or to say it more clearly, where someone lives, if a person is living in an LEDC or an MEDC.
For instant, partners and owners of companies in the clothing industry will have no reasons for complaining about the profits resulting out of a cost efficient production in a low wage country. However, the things look completely different for the workers in this so called Sweatshops. They slave up to 18 hours daily under unreasonable working conditions, financing a modest livelihood with their paltry wages.
In Addition, people are hardly aware, that mass production and the fuel intensive transport across the world linked to it, lead to a dissipation of natural resources and a high Carbon footprint. Extreme weather changes, environmental Pollution due to global warming and mountains of electronic scrap, because everyone in the Western Hemisphere needs a new mobile each year, is just the result.
Another sad example, how the dynamic of globalisation became a nightmare for the local population, is the trade with Tanzania´s Nile Perch. The predatory fish, once introduced to the Lake Victoria to boost the fishing industry, caused the extinction of the local species of fish and destroyed the functional diversity of the lake´s ecology. And above all, the fish is not affordable for the local population. Big cargo planes, transport the finest white filets to Europe, while starving Tanzanian families have to deal with the leftovers.
But nevertheless there are also opportunities. The exchange of culture and intellectual capital supports innovation and progress. Increased business opportunities, create new jobs in developing countries. New media like the Internet can build an awareness for issues like environmental catastrophes and call on for help if acquired.
Furthermore, cultural damage due to westernization and Americanization can be prevented by preserving the regional dialects, crafts and traditions.
The conclusion is, if all people develop an awareness of the adverse impacts of globalisation, humanity will be capable of solving the problems of poverty, unfair trade, environmental pollution and cultural damage.
Therefore, people in power need to take action as role models. Governments need to enact and keep laws, which contain fair trade, adequate terms of employment and environmental protection.
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