To what extent might globalisation be said to have cosequenses for ‘ordinary people?
...tes that see their power as being eroded. The benefit of course, is that increasing and easier free trade leads to prospering economies and this has the knock on effect of leading to more jobs and money for real people. It can therefore be said that the increase in globalisation can and does bring real benefits to the ‘ordinary people’. The most important ideas and arguments to emerge out of the West in the era of its economic and cultural expansion were industrialisation, science, and socialism. Each of these modes of thought and the practices that came with them transformed the cultures of almost every society on the planet, from Weberianism and the Protestant Work Ethic, to Fordism and the mass production practices that revolutionalised manufacturing in 19th century America. In the period since the Second World War, however, the intensity, speed and sheer volume of communication at a global level have been incredible. As we have demonstrated the global growth of radio, television, the Internet, satellite and digital technologies, and so on, has made instantaneous communication possible throughout the world. The ‘super information highway’ can now be accessed in the most remote parts of the world thanks to satellite and digital communications. Some would argue that this has rendered many borders and barriers ineffective. State borders have become little more than lines on maps. It could also be argued that the fall of the Communist Bloc was hastened by this information freedom. While linguistic differences continue to be a barrier to these processes, the global dominance of the English language provides a linguistic constant and whilst statistically it could be argued that more individuals speak Mandarin Chinese - English has become the international language of communication. Indeed children in France are required by French law to receive English lessons taught by an English speaking teacher. The Human Cost – Consequences for ordinary People The West's gain has been at the expense of developing countries. “The already meagre share of the global income of the poorest people in the world has dropped from 2.3% to 1.4% in the last decade. “ (Encyclopedia Britannica 2002) In the developed world, not everyone has been a winner. The freedoms granted by globalisation are leading to increased insecurity in the workplace. Manual workers in particular are under threat as companies shift their production lines overseas to low-wage economies. Many call centres are being relocated in India and the Far East, This, of course is having a significant impact due to the size of that sector of industrialised countries economies. National cultures and identities are also under threat due to the spread of satellite TV, international media networks and increased personal travel. “In 1994 6,330,000 passenger car journeys were made to and from UK ports, more than twice the number in 1981. (Huby, M.1994) This ever–increasing growth in international travel, has of course, lead to increasing conflict between western culture and the older fundamentalist ideologies that see it as a threat that is eroding fundamentalist values. This conflict culminated in the events of September 11th. The backlash of fundamentalism has not gone away – but is merely dormant waiting far a chance to strike again at what it sees as the spectre of western decadence. The forces of Islam are sworn to oppose the spread of westernisation and have been so since the 1920s when this spread first started to come into conflict with Islam. Ecological campaigners say corporations are disregarding the environment in the stampede for mega-profits and marketplace supremacy. Human rights groups say corporate power is restricting individual freedom. Even businesspeople behind small firms have sympathy for the movement, afraid as they are that global economies of scale will put them out of work. In her book ‘Globalization - Take it Personally’ Anita Roddick states that “Economic globalization creates wealth, but only for the elite who benefit from the surge of consolidations, mergers, global scale technology, and financial activity.” (Roddick: 2002). Though the US is reaping the greatest benefits of globalisation of any country; the benefits are not really being shared out According to the IMF, American CEOs now earn 417 times the wages of factory workers they employ. Although unemployment in the US is low, the average worker is now earning 18 percent less adjusting for inflation than he or she did in the early 1970s. Globalistion exacerbates this trend by setting workers against each other all over the world to keep Wages low. A leading human rights watchdog discovered a factory in Zhongshan City where workers for Wal-Mart's contractor are forced to put in 14-hour shifts, seven days a week, 30 days a month. They are effectively held as servants in overcrowded dormitories in sometimes unsavoury conditions. At the end of the month huge numbers of them owe the company money. Over half of Wal-Mart's imports come from its sub-contractors in China. Wal-Mart, like Nike, has argued that they do not permit their goods to be produced under sweatshop conditions and point to their requirement that suppliers sign a code of basic labour standards. The international media, however, got hold of the story and the resulting furore not only embarrassed the company but cost them millions of dollars in lost sales. Again the international exchange of information has come to the fore enabling ordinary people to gain better standards of employment due to the global outcry at the way they were being exploited. Sweatshops are, indeed, indefensible. They insure that the great wealth created by the global expansion of trade and investment touted by pundits the world over as the cure for poverty - remains with top corporate executives and shareholders while millions of workers barely survive! Manfred Steger argues that “The exploding network of cultural interconnections and interdependencies in the last decades has led some commentators to suggest that cultural practices lie at the very heart of contemporary globalization” (Steger: 1999) One fact that is absolutely undeniable is that; without people – nothing could happen. It is people who run the industries, people who produce the goods and people who demand them with an ever-increasing appetite. This gives rise to the term Consumer Culture. This in turn, gives rise to the term McDonaldization. “The success of McDonald's itself is apparent.” George Ritzer maintains ''There are Mc Donalds everywhere. There's one near you, and there's one being built right now even nearer to you.” (Ritzer: 2002). It would appear that western culture is being embraced by the ‘ordinary people’ in the developing world, but rejected by their religious, political and spiritual leaders. The erosion of their influence then prompts these leaders to orchestrate the backlash we have previously referred to. One of the results of the headlong race for economic parity with the first world leads to the International Monetary fund lending money to the state – this in turn leads to the IMF putting in conditions. These conditions then lead to adverse affects on ‘the ordinary people’. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge in their book ‘A Future Perfect the Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalization.’ recount the following anecdotal evidence from the IMF intervention in Korea” One foreign institution attracts the most angst …. an easy way to meet an untimely death in Seoul would be to wander into a bar late at night and casually mention that you work for the International Monetary Fund. When the IMF first put its rescue package in place, huge crowds of strikers some of them wearing bandannas emblazoned with the slogan ’IMF = I'M FIRED ' packed the streets of the big cities.” (Micklethwait Wooldridge: 2001). One of the most moving television programs aired in the late 1990s was about ‘The IMF orphans’ - children who are being brought up in state orphanages because their parents have either committed suicide or abandoned them due to the alleged IMF inspired slump. (Horizon BBC2 television circa1998) John Redwood in his book, The Global Marketplace, states “The global criminal is an even more serious problem than global financial distress. He may be involved in peddling drugs across frontiers or in armament trading, surreptitiously supplying the parts, the technology and the weapons that tyrants of emerging Third world authoritarian regimes think they require.” (Redwood: 2003) Saddam Hus...