• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Is globalization a good thing?

Is globalization a good thing?

  • Yes, it is generally good

    Votes: 12 33.3%
  • Roughly half good, half bad

    Votes: 11 30.6%
  • No, it is generally bad

    Votes: 13 36.1%

  • Total voters
    36

Sanitas

Active member
Joined
Apr 30, 2009
Messages
459
Reaction score
81
Location
The world.
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Libertarian - Left
Do you think globalization is a good thing?

Please vote before reading my post.










The implicit message of the antiglobalization protests is that we in the developed world somehow know what is best for people in poor countries - where they ought to work and even what kind of restaurants they ought to eat in.
(Wheelan 201)

Wheelan, Charles. Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science. Boston: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003.

I wrote the following for a school assignment, and felt it would apply:

The antiglobalization argument certainly has merit, though it is terribly misinformed. The belief is, gargantuan corporations with overseas interests are merely taking advantage of the poverty stricken people, by forcing them to work in horrid sweatshops, and allowing child labor, and somehow making them worse off. Indeed, the corporations are taking advantage of cheap labor in countries such as China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. The corporations are also paying their workers generous wages compared to standards of pay at domestic manufacturing firms. Sure it isn't $8.00 an hour, but it's much more than what they would be getting paid otherwise.

The most ironic part is the antiglobalization protesters actually believe they would be doing the peasants of Vietnam some sort of favor by shutting down the Nike shoes plant, and forcing them out of their only means of income. Sounds like some favor!

In his book, Wheelan clearly wanted to signify his stance on globalization - that it is merely human capital([ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital"]human capital[/ame]) on a global scale. When trade restrictions are lifted, some people may lose their jobs…a company may shut its doors due to foreign competition. But this is just another example of a point Wheelan made early in the book - creative destruction ([ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction[/ame]). To move forward on a global (or national) economic scale, we must realize that the benefits by far outweigh the costs. In lifting tariffs we would inherently cause a few problems, but solve many!

Protesters of globalization would argue otherwise, that somehow putting a KFC in Bali, or sending jobs to Honduras is detrimental to the world. The opposite is true, however. In exporting economic interests we also export economic hope and prosperity. This can only hope to have a great positive effect on the world economy.
 
Last edited:
We'll see..?
 
At this point in time globalization is not a good thing. It could be. Eventually. It would entail everyone to agree with certain aspects that at this point in time is an impossibility. Like given women the whole world over equal rights. Allowing people to love who they wish to love. A definitive answer on abortion accepted by all. etc etc etc etc. The list is right now endless. Which is why globalization is not a possibility.
 
Globalization is helping millions get out of poverty. Those "sweatshops" that everyone complains about offer oppurtunity and safety that local industries can't support right now, and outsourcing hasn't hurt America as much as the unions will tell you. From the 1990s to the beginning of the current recession, more jobs have been created than lost and wages have gone up across the board in the US
 
Globalization worries me for more reasons than cheap wages, worker rights, and the lot, though all of those may be horrible in their own right. What bothers me the most is that it feels as if we as humans are following a path that was lain before us in prophecy, yet we continue even though we have an idea how it may end badly. Karl Marx and Joseph Engels asserted that capitalism would conquere the globe and pave the way for the "haves," and "have nots." Borders would be brought down and eventually the world population would be pooled into these two groups.

Globalization seems to be bringing these ideas to life. Borders are now meaningless, as an X-ray in the U.S. is often now read by a technologist in India. Also, we see the capitalization of China and Russia. Governments are uniting to create large blocs, such as the EU, and possibly the North American Union will arise in the near future. Once these things are accomplished we, as a people, will be ever closer to that which Marx and Engels predicted, Communism.
 
Globalization is helping millions get out of poverty. Those "sweatshops" that everyone complains about offer oppurtunity and safety that local industries can't support right now, and outsourcing hasn't hurt America as much as the unions will tell you. From the 1990s to the beginning of the current recession, more jobs have been created than lost and wages have gone up across the board in the US

If anything, with this recession, wages have decreased and/or jobs completely lost. And where are these new jobs being created? Usually in sectors where manufacturing workers have no access to training or education. That is great for the kid right out of college, but the guy who manufactured socks for 25-years is going to have a tougher time.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about those two. Globalizations is helping pave the way for a lot more haves than have nots without the need for a worker's revolt
 
It can be interpreted as either good or bad into infinite regression, varying much according to the observor. It is just yet another inevitable historical development which will provoke many diverse emotional reactions in communities and individuals.
 
If anything, with this recession, wages have decreased and/or jobs completely lost. And where are these new jobs being created? Usually in sectors where manufacturing workers have no access to training or education. That is great for the kid right out of college, but the guy who manufactured socks for 25-years is going to have a tougher time.

That's why I said, "until the current recession." You don't necessarily need a college degree or manufacturing job to make a good living. Wages have been steadily rising across the board since outsourcing really began until the current recession
 
I don't think it's necessarily good or bad, it simply exists and it's something we have to deal with. We already have a largely global economy, you simply cannot make major decisions anymore without consulting all the countries that your decisions will impact. The days of being a nation on a hill are long gone, we're all part of one big planet whether we like it or not.
 
Our economy is moving away from manufacturing into a more service based economy. This isn't a bad thing. Imagine if agricultuture remained the main component of our economy. Do I have to mention wages and unemployment again?
 
Globalization is not a good thing, its a great thing. Its helping to lift hundreds of millions of people worldwide out of abject poverty, and its making the world a much more interconnected place where nations have much more of a stake in the prosperity and success of other nations than ever before.

Sure, there are problems, but the fact is even the worse case scenario of a job in a sweat shop for 5 dollars a day is better than tolling in a rice field for less than a dollar a day. There are also environmental costs as well as evidenced by conditions in cities in China and India. However, as more people in developing nations are lifted out of poverty, they ultimately demand better labor protections for themselves and a cleaner environment, which is exactly what is happening today in China.
 
Our economy is moving away from manufacturing into a more service based economy. This isn't a bad thing. Imagine if agricultuture remained the main component of our economy. Do I have to mention wages and unemployment again?

Its a very bad thing my friend.

Also Agriculture is one of our biggest exports.
 
Care to elaborate on why it's bad for us?

It is bad for us because manufacturing creates long term jobs and security. Service jobs are outsourced to india or insourced from Mexico. Service jobs depend on cheap products from other nations, and thus will be severly hurt by any price fluctutions. I am not saying we should be China, but we should make sure our economy is multiversed (No Eggs in one basket). The US policy should be one that protects our workers, and our business's. free global economy does not help us at all, it helps large international corporations and 3rd world countries.

Our economy isn't based on it

Surely not, but it is an important factor so is manufacturing.
 
Our economy is moving away from manufacturing into a more service based economy. This isn't a bad thing. Imagine if agricultuture remained the main component of our economy. Do I have to mention wages and unemployment again?

No, it's an extraordinarily bad thing, the United States really doesn't produce or export much these days, our trade deficits are horrendous. There was a time when we produced the best in the world of a lot of products, today we import just about everything. A purely consumer-based society doesn't grow, it doesn't improve, it doesn't compete, it just consumes. Until we get back to actually being a first-world nation that makes products the rest of the world wants, we'll continue to sink, our economy contracting until we're utterly irrelevant.
 
No, it's an extraordinarily bad thing, the United States really doesn't produce or export much these days, our trade deficits are horrendous. There was a time when we produced the best in the world of a lot of products, today we import just about everything. A purely consumer-based society doesn't grow, it doesn't improve, it doesn't compete, it just consumes. Until we get back to actually being a first-world nation that makes products the rest of the world wants, we'll continue to sink, our economy contracting until we're utterly irrelevant.

Except we haven't been sinking until the recession
 
It is bad for us because manufacturing creates long term jobs and security. Service jobs are outsourced to india or insourced from Mexico. Service jobs depend on cheap products from other nations, and thus will be severly hurt by any price fluctutions. I am not saying we should be China, but we should make sure our economy is multiversed (No Eggs in one basket). The US policy should be one that protects our workers, and our business's. free global economy does not help us at all, it helps large international corporations and 3rd world countries.

The thing is that when we allow free trade, our economy becomes more specialized toward what it's best at.

Surely not, but it is an important factor so is manufacturing.

And some manufacturing will stay with us as well. Such as electroics and car manufacturing.
 
And some manufacturing will stay with us as well. Such as electroics and car manufacturing.

You mean the electronics industry that's largely gone to Japan and Taiwan and the car manufacturing that's gone to Japan, Korea and some parts of Europe? The car manufacturing that's going belly up right now?

Yeah, those industries are doing really well in the United States. :roll:
 
Except we haven't been sinking until the recession

Of course we have, where have you been? The U.S. auto industry has been in the dumper since the 70s, Detroit, once Motor City, is a virtual ghost town. Ford, GM and Chrysler have all bought into the "build crappy cars that fall apart so that people buy new cars more often" model and that's what allowed foreign builders like Toyota and Honda to make such massive inroads into the marketplace. We sold out, they didn't, now that we're finally figuring out our lesson, it's too late and most people won't buy American cars no matter what they do.

The same is true of most other industries. There's virtually nothing where we lead the world in quality anymore. We sold our proverbial soul for cheap Chinese crap and low-paying overseas jobs.
 
You mean the electronics industry that's largely gone to Japan and Taiwan and the car manufacturing that's gone to Japan, Korea and some parts of Europe? The car manufacturing that's going belly up right now?

Yeah, those industries are doing really well in the United States. :roll:

No mean the electronics industry in the West and the car manufacturing that goes on in the South
 
Of course we have, where have you been? The U.S. auto industry has been in the dumper since the 70s, Detroit, once Motor City, is a virtual ghost town. Ford, GM and Chrysler have all bought into the "build crappy cars that fall apart so that people buy new cars more often" model and that's what allowed foreign builders like Toyota and Honda to make such massive inroads into the marketplace. We sold out, they didn't, now that we're finally figuring out our lesson, it's too late and most people won't buy American cars no matter what they do.


Many communities are able to recover. Many communities are able to rebound from losing manufacturing. Funny that you mention two Japanes companies that build their cars in the South

The same is true of most other industries. There's virtually nothing where we lead the world in quality anymore. We sold our proverbial soul for cheap Chinese crap and low-paying overseas jobs.

Well except that we're the World's largest economy.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom