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Negative aspects of Globalization Globalization seems to be a word and concept that just keep growing. The term globalization is constantly being discussed in the news. It is all around us and some people are happy about that fact, others however are feeling the negative effects that it can have on an economy as whole as well as on an individual level. Much has been said about globalization bringing jobs to underdeveloped countries; although this is true people tend to forget about the people in America and other developed countries that are getting their jobs taken away and now remain unemployed trying to figure out how to make ends meet.
Globalization has caused unstable job opportunities, with more jobs than ever being outsourced to countries like India and China it is unknown how many more hardworking citizens of the numerous developed countries will be let go and replaced for cheaper labor. This is unfair because in America ideally, people pay money to go to college to get a degree where in return they get a good job that pays well. Now the fact is most of those jobs are getting outsourced to other countries, the more outsourcing that is done the higher America’s unemployment rate is that means the government will have to spend more money giving out unemployment checks.
Though many advocates of globalization believe the movement has been beneficial to the less-developed countries, the truth is that in many areas there is exploitation of labor. The larger companies are taking advantage of innocent people who are getting treated horribly. Child labor is another concern about globalization many businesses are so money hungry that they would do anything to ensure the absolute cheapest labor they can find even if it is a child. When the chance making a higher profit takes complete control of a business many times moral principles and ethics take the back burner.
Nike is one of the most prominent cases of this exploitation, when w it was discovered in 2001that the company had young children in sweatshops making their products. Not only was this illegal but these people were also getting paid hardly anything and brought accusations that Nike had physically, sexually and emotionally abused them. The Global Exchange Organization made the statement, “Nike has indeed brought many jobs to Southeast Asia, and workers certainly want jobs. But they want their dignity, too.
They don’t want to be physically or verbally abused by their supervisors or to work excessive overtime for extremely low wages. ” It deserves to be noted that sadly Nike is not been the only occurrence of these horrible standards. This has been happening all over the world there are cases of child labor and even adult workers, some unaware they are being demoralized. In one article I found an Australian television reporter gained access into a Malaysian T-Shirt factory and found that their workers had: “been forced to surrender their passports while their wages were being garnished to pay off hefty recruiting fees.
Worse still, they were living in crowded, filthy rooms. ” With events like this happening it is hard to see how advocates of globalization seem to think it is bringing our countries closer together. When people are getting treated so poorly it seems the factory workers just hate the developed countries for their inexcusable treatment. Unions are also having suffering losses with the globalization trend. With labor being available so cheaply, union memberships have gone down. Weakening union’s mean unions also have less control of companies.
Many concerned citizens feel as though globalization of economies would in turn require all nations to have a Socialist feel. Meaning the government would have complete control and the simple freedoms that we enjoy being Americans would be taken away. If globalization happened it is possible that all nations would be on the same currency. If this happened it could be a good thing for the poorer countries such as Ethiopia but would take a significant toll on the more developed economies.
Instead of having high economies and low economies we would all be one and just have an average economy. It would cause problems because the people whose currency went down would be upset and would resent those who are now worth more. If this indeed did happen there would be absolutely zero incentive for people to want to be successful in life. Globalization has not just been in the economy but also in big corporations such as McDonalds setting up operations in many parts of the world. The problem with this is McDonalds is the first mover in the fast food industry.
The people in these countries are uninformed of the calories or nutritional facts about the foods they are consuming. Although in America we know McDonalds is bad somewhere where they just opened in another country has no idea. This could lead to obesity, diabetes and heart problems for those countries. The term “McDonaldization” has also been used to poke fun at this. In the book Globalization it says, “In the long run McDonalization of the world amounts to the imposition of uniform standards that eclipse human creativity and dehumanize social relations. Steger 90) With the globalization movement taking us by storm it will be interesting to see where the nations are in 50 years. No one knows what will be but we all have our predictions. If we keep down this road of integrating markets American may just be worse off than ever. Only time will tell how this will all play out, I for one hope there is still such a thing as “the American Dream” to strive for because without that all freedom may be lost. Work Cited Frequently Asked Questions. “??Global Exchange – Building People-to-People Ties. Global Exchange Organization, 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Aug. 2010. <http://www. globalexchange. org/campaigns/sweatshops/nike/faq. html>. Levenson, Eugina. “Citizen Nike. “??CNN Money. Fortune, 17th Nov. 2008. Web. 30 July 2010. <http://money. cnn. com/2008/11/17/news/companies/levenson_nike. fortune/index. htm>. Steger, Manfred. Globalization. New York: Sterling Publishing, 2009. Pg. 90.