Globalization

11 Pages 2712 Words

Globalization

Globalization refers to the widening and deepening of the international flows of trade, capital, technology, and information within a single integrated global market (Petras 11). This has been considered to be the basis for global expansionism; the illusion of domestic economic stability has supplemented this process with a strong supportive public opinion. However, the true nature of Globalization continues to be the search for lower waged workers through geographic expansion by means of economic superiority and political manipulation often involving military force (Tabb 25). The reduction of cost due to cheaper labor and an increase in the speed of communication and transportation has continually deepened this process (Tabb 13).
Historically, international flows of capital and commodity trade have taken three routes, through imperialist and colonial conquest, trade and investment among advanced capitalist countries and recently through exchanges among Third World countries (Petras 27). These methods share the common goal of exploiting vulnerable areas of the world in order to benefit core countries and more importantly international corporations. However, each route has produced different consequences in global society. Imperialism created an unequal accumulation of capital among the world via the extraction of raw materials in vulnerable colonial regions. This promoted economic growth in the core countries while the periphery was exposed to cheap labor and declining standards of living, basically unable to compete with major world powers. Trade among world powers invited regulated foreign capital in order to complement internal capitalist development. Lastly, the influence of international corporations over Third World regions has led to a large debt crisis in the periphery, which has been used as a tool to manipulate foreign policies in these areas to benefit corporate interests.
In the processes of globalizatio...