Colin StiefWhat images spring to your mind when you hear the word globalization? Do you think globalization will make us all the same in the future?
Globalization in the Modern World
An overview of globalization and it's positive and negative aspects.
By Colin Stief
If you look at the tag on your shirt, chances are you would see that it was made in a country other than the one in which you sit right now. What's more, before it reached your wardrobe, this shirt could have very well been made with Chinese cotton sewed by Thai hands, shipped across the Pacific on a French freighter crewed by Spaniards to a Los Angeles harbor. This international exchange is just one example of globalization, a process that has everything to do with geography.
Globalization is the process of increased interconnectedness among countries most notably in the areas of economics, politics, and culture. McDonald's in Japan, French films being played in Minneapolis, and the United Nations are all representations of globalization. History of globalization Although many people consider globalization a twentieth-century phenomenon, the process has been happening for millennia. Examples include the following:
• The Roman Empire. Going back to 600 B.C., the Roman Empire spread its economic and governing systems through significant portions of the ancient world for centuries.
• Silk Road trade. These trade routes, which date from 130 B.C. to 1453 A.D., represented another wave of globalization. They brought merchants, goods and travelers from China, through Central Asia and the Middle East, to Europe.
• Pre-World War I. European countries made significant investments overseas in the decades before World War I. The period from 1870 to 1914 is called the golden age of globalization.
• Post-World War II. The United States led the effort to create a global economic system with a set of broadly accepted international rules. Multinational institutions were established such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization to promote international cooperation and free trade.
What makes globalization possible is the ever-increasing capacity for and efficiency of how people and things move and communicate. In years past, people across the globe did not have the ability to communicate and could not interact without difficulty. Nowadays, a phone, instant message, fax, or video conference call can easily be used to connect people throughout the world. Additionally, anyone with the funds can book a plane flight and show up halfway across the world in a matter of hours. In short, the "friction of distance" is lessened, and the world begins to metaphorically shrink.