Globalization
Introduction
Globalization is worldwide movement toward economic, financial, trade, and communications integration. Globalization implies opening out beyond local and nationalistic perspectives to a broader outlook of an interconnected and inter-dependent world with free transfer of capital, goods, and services across national frontiers. However, it does not include unhindered movement of labor and, as suggested by some economists, may hurt smaller or fragile economies if applied indiscriminately.
Tom G. Palmer of Cato Institute defines "globalization" as "the diminution or elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result." This is the general definition given by economists, often put more simply as global expansion of the division of labor.
Effects of Globalization
There are heated debates about globalization and its positive and negative effects. While globalization is thought of by many as having the potential to make societies richer through trade and to bring knowledge and information to people around the world, there are many others who perceive globalization as contributing to the exploitation of the poor by the rich, and as a threat to traditional cultures as the process of modernization changes societies. There are some who link the negative aspects of globalization to terrorism. To put a complicated discussion in simple terms, they argue that exploitative or declining conditions contribute to the lure of informal "extremist" networks that commit criminal or terrorist acts internationally. And thanks to today's technology and integrated societies, these networks span throughout the world. It is in this sense that terrorism, too, is "globalized."
Economic Manifestations of Globalization
Increasingly over the past two centuries, economic activity has become more...
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