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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Introduction to Globalization

November, 2012

Before signing up the SOAS course, I naively thought that globalization was about the movement of people. I thought it was most significant in what we see here in San Francisco, or even in my home town of High Point, North Carolina, a much smaller town. In every place we visit in the US and in the world, we find a wide array of languages, ethnicities, customs, dress, behaviors, that were not prevalent when I was growing up. I though globalization was a social issue--dealing with how do we all best "get along" with each other, accept each other, and cooperate in making our communities meet our needs.

It is about that, of course, but it turns out to be much more, as defined by many scholars and authorities. It's also about trade (and trade tariffs, embargoes, restrictions, etc.). It's also about economics. This is a very big part of the study and understanding of globalization, as our jobs, wealth, and many of the benefits of our lives are defined in terms of economics. It's also about how governments collaborate or fail to do so, and about the rules of the road in terms of how we best maintain the quality of the planet and share the burden or maintenance in a fair and rational way. It's about culture and faith and whether we are drawn more to homogenity or whether we can protect the valuable elements of our individual beliefs and cultures. It's about all of this and more. And, it's not new--we have been trading and moving around this planet for thousands of years. But, it does seem to many that the pace of globalization is accelerating rapidly and bringing with that heightened pace, a whole new set of opportunities and challenges.

One last thought for today: In starting the reading the half dozen books I am into now, I began with the presumption that the invisible hand of the market would be the best way to deal with the issues of globalization. As an example, I started with feeling exasperated that some Americans blame China for "stealing" their jobs," while failing to acknowledge they they shop at Walmart and save significant amounts of spending money by buying quality products made extraordinarily cheaply in China.

I still feel that way, but I do now see that there is much more to consider. There is another side to all of this. The interests of corporations are rightfully in their own betterment, and so are those of countries, and if we don't find better ways to resolve some of them, we'll have huge problems in our world. One example--our agricultural subsidies in the US are enormous, and those (as well as a variety of trade restrictions, tariffs, etc.) make it impossible for some poor nations to supply us with food at prices which would be (a) well below our cost for domestic production; and (b) lifesaving sources of income for certain poor countries which only have agriculture to offer to the world.

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