Over the course of human history, there have been thousands of changes in the way the world operates and how people travel from place to place. We can communicate between other parts of the world in seconds and it is getting even easier and quicker to do so. We can travel from one country to another faster than ever before, thanks to airplanes. On some days I feel like the world is so incredibly far apart but other days I feel it is getting smaller and smaller every day. Globalization is the leading cause of this. Because of new technology, the fast-pacing trends in consumerism, and the rise of big-name brands, globalization brings the world closer together on a daily basis. While countries actually are not getting physically closer and closer together, society is being brought closer together by globalization.
A simple way to think about how close the world is getting is to think about airplanes. When was the last time you flew on a plane? Where did you go? My professor often uses the example about flying from New York to London (see image). These two places are separated by thousands of miles, an ocean, and country borders however people have managed to fly from one to the other in a little over five hours. To put this into perspective, it takes almost five hours to travel from New York to California, a flight path that stays within one country. The faster and faster travel is getting, the easier it is to get from one place to the next.
A recent article highlighted four main impacts globalization has on traveling, they were: “influence of social ecosystem, finding favorite spot is now with a single click, instant communication technologies, and currency conversion has become simpler.” Technology is perpetuating the ideas of globalization by making it easier for people to book travel arrangements and travel altogether. As the article discussed, globalization has transformed traveling into an industry and it is rapidly growing, bringing people closer together. Not only can this increase tourism and global connections, but it also makes it easier to import and export goods between countries.
With increasing accessibility to other parts of the world, markets become even more interconnected than before. Companies began to export raw materials to other parts of the world because it is cheaper to produce goods in foreign countries than it is in the United States. While it may seem beneficial to have connections between countries revolving around mass production and consumption, there are many negative impacts as well, one being the lack of American jobs. Companies are being “forced” to relocate their factories to overseas because of competition from other companies so from a business standpoint they had no choice but to relocate.
The problem of globalization and relocating companies overseas stems from problems created by colonialism. In colonial times, Europeans brought their own goods and raw materials to these “new” lands and forced the people there to make goods while the Europeans colonized the land the indigenous people lived on. Today, the same idea exists but without the actual act of colonialism, instead, companies just send their manufacturing overseas for others to do the work cheaper. If you still don’t believe me, there is a frontline special that discusses this exact problem within the context of one of the biggest companies in the United States: Walmart. The video goes into depth about the consumer-manufacturer relationship as well as jobs in America. The video taught me much more about mass production and globalization than I had previously known and inspired me to think more deeply about these issues.
The image (left) shows a family who just came back from traveling in Europe and is discussing the different purchases they made and displays one of the negative impacts of globalization. There is nothing described or illustrated in the image that could reference a trip to Europe aside from the locations the family visited. With the increase of globalization, big companies and brands have more power than ever to spread themselves out around the globe. As a result, more brands are becoming popular and are out-competing smaller businesses. If consumer trends continue like this, the world will lose more and more culture.
While I have spent the majority of this blog post discussing globalization and how it is bringing the world closer and closer together, it is important to note that there are many pros and cons as well. An article in Forbes magazine commented on both the pros and cons that there are with globalization. Some of the pros ranged from free trade to “intermingling between countries” while some of the cons ranged from the loss of jobs to social injustices and poor working conditions in foreign countries. This article discusses both the positive and negative sides to globalization, and I do believe both arguments can be made. At the end of the article the author highlights a few things missing from globalization and I believe that while there are many benefits to globalization, the cons are currently outweighing the pros and unless globally we can make changes that can improve it, like better leadership, trade agreements, and enforced regulations, it is possible globalization will continue to do more harm than good.
Globalization is an incredibly influential force in today’s world and has many impacts on all different parts of the world. We get to enjoy the benefits of faster travel and instant communication, but we also have to face the consequences. In order to fix problems that come from globalization without destroying the positive impacts, we must turn to our government in the hopes something can be done to make globalization a more positive force than a negative one while continuing to bring the world closer together.
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