Looking back in history, there are many phenomena that reveal how much we have evolved, such as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Till now, due to our improvement of transportation and technology, we have a new phenomenon called Globalization. According to the definition posted by scholars in Wikipedia, “Globalization is the process of transformation of local phenomena into a global one. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are united into a single society and function together.” Another definition from Merriam Webster dictionary: “the state of being globalized; especially the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets.” However, this newborn phenomenon is controversial in recent years arguing whether or not it is good or bad.
When globalization started, people thought it was good in a variety of ways. Yet, after several years, people found out that Globalization is not only good for a country’s development but also good for business development. In business, salesmen can sell things oveseas and without governmental blocks. Most importantly, corporations can separate work into different places, so they can reduce the cost. For example, according to Nike Asia Company, they built four main factories in Asia because of cheap labour and access to material producers. Another benefit was globalization could make countries loosen their trade laws and open up trade. That will tremendously encourage businesses to re-locate. For example, Taiwan Science Park companies tended to sell products to only US and Asian countries before Taiwan became a member of the WTO, the companies can sell things to other countries like Russia or EU (European Union).
However, in time, problems arose. In recent years, many researchers have given speeches forewarning us that we are in a difficult situation moving towards great disasters. Such as what Al Gore‘s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth showed and EO Wilson’s Ted-talk speeches tell us. We have many problems such as running out natural resources, global warming, and increased air and water pollution. According to EO Wilson’s Ted Talk, many creatures will become extinct and the collapse of the food chain will harm us immensely which will ultimately lead to our extinction as a species. A statistic recorded by EPAC (Environmental Protection administration Executive Yuan – which is the environmental protection department of the Taiwanese government) 31% of the air pollution was from transportation and 38% are from the factories in Taiwan. If we add those values up, it will go over 60% and eventually, it will be nearly70%.
Another problem we are facing now due to globalization are the disadvantages faced by some poorest nations in the world. Corporations exploit these fourth world countries. Globalization allows corporations to get material for products with less expense because the corporation can build several factories or plants in many places where labor and resources are cheaper. This is similar to imperialism but a gentler one. The problem is not mistreating cheap labour badly but that corporations usually take over most of the country’s economy by building factories in that country. The result is that people lose their original jobs and start work in factories. Then if the company collapses or moves, the countries’ economy collapses and people lose their livelihoods and suffer. This may cause a variety of other problems. One of the worst ones is cutting down forests. For example, according to Rainforest Action Network organization, Brazil has lost 58% of tropical rainforest. Losing this much of the forest is not a good thing. This is one of the main causes of Global warming.
Globalization has a big impact on our world and has created an unclear grey area for people to analyze and research. There are a lot of negative things and positive things about globalization. A positive occurs when countries’ ease trade regulations and invest money into cities to build industry parks for industry to grow. Another good thing is that countries in a big area form organizations to trade and one of the famous organizations is WTO (World Trade Organization). However, there is a blind spot. Although having WTO corporations can reduce the tax on import products and sell cheaper goods, that makes the country have to spent more money on protecting local industries in order to compete with import products. Therefore, I think that Globalization has become a controversial topic. A quote from a American linguist Dr, Avram Noam Chonsky: “ the term ‘Globalization’ has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights with the interests of people incidental.” From my opinion, Globalization is not a thing or idea that has a mono side. We should think be careful and set rules before we leap in.
