Is globalization is a "good thing for the common man"?...
There is so much debate on whether globalization is a "good thing for the common man"... I would like to hear your views. Typically the responsese are very polarized and it is despised by those whose industries are threatened and applauded by those that see the opening of new markets... Please share your thoughts.
Good Answers (7)
Michael C
Partner at Pretzel & Stouffer, Chtd.
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I suspect that to a great extent, it depends upon where that “common man” lives. Also, it seems to me that part of the answer rests not in the fact of globalization, but how it is achieved.
For example, ostensibly, the United States believes in certain basic principles. Many of these principles have been expressed through our laws on topics such as child labor, work place safety and product safety (e.g. lead in toys). While there are always differences of opinion, as a nation, presently we have chosen to forbid our citizens from legally profiting from conduct violating these principles.
Yet, the call for globalism seems to want sidestep these principles. Trade...trade...trade... is the mantra. So, we end up doing business with countries which do not follow the same principles as do we. In the end, those who fought for laws in this country to protect children from being exploited or to otherwise convince our legislature to adopt certain laws protecting workers, have been sidestepped.
The end result seems to be that the nation effectively ends up abandoning many of its laws and principles. This is because despite forbidding its own citizens to profit from a certain conduct, that nation freely permits other countries to do so. Thus, when another country permits its laborers to be treated like disposable Dixie-cups and we freely accept products from that country which products compete with those manufactured here, we essentially nullify our own laws on the topic.
The flip side of course is where those people in countries with great poverty get some chance to become part of a larger and more successful economic realm. The same process discussed above ends up bringing jobs to those who otherwise would not have them.
At the same time though, these jobs often go to people who are too desperate of circumstance to be able to fight for better conditions. So, for example, like many coal miners in the United States not so many years ago, they and their children will slave for bare-sustenance wages deep in the mine. At the same time, they will be praying that they are not killed because of a decision to back out of a mine, taking the tunnel supports out as they go so the coal underneath the supports can be extracted. Of course, new supports to replace those old ones as they backed out of the mine were a cost that mine owners refused to incur. After all, if the tunnel caved in, there were always more miners to send into the next tunnel. The costs of business just worked out that way.
Tyronne C
Technical Project Manager at CACI, Owner Clarke investments, 1URSelf media corp, Riverside HOA Board Director
I wrote a few papers on the subject in college and you are correct in that "good" is defined but whether you are a proletarian or a capitalist. From a capitalist point of view, greater access to third world assets equal greater profits due to lower operating costs (hence off shoring American jobs over seas ) . From a proletarian point of view only a few actually realize the windfall demonstrated in Africa, South America, China and Russia where a middle class is almost non-existent. Who right or wrong is something history will decide for us.
Nathaniel "Ned" D
Associate Portfolio Manager at UBS Financial Services
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Economic theory says absolutely: globalization allows countries to focus on their comparative advantages, increasing overall production, which is good for everybody in terms of jobs, prices, etc. That's economic theory, however, and while it may hold in the long run, in the short term globalization causes dislocations as some companies find themselves unable to complete.
We're still in a time of transition, during which the benefits and pain associated with globalization are percolating through economies unevenly. That doesn't mean it's not ultimately for the best, but it does explain why so many people are skeptical.
Dean S
Founder at BluMtnWerx
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Hi Tom-
I guess that the answer depends on whether you believe that global economic development is a zero sum game.
If one takes the position that there are always winners and losers, then some folks will benefit and others will suffer.
If, on the other hand, one believes that globalization brings about benefits for everyone - cheaper goods / services for rich countries & economic development for poor countries, and that the efficiencies gained by a global supply chain expand the size of the global economy, then you could assert that it's good for everyone. Personally, I subscribe to this model.
I do agree with some other responders, however, that times of rapid change tend to exaggerate economic inequities.
Cheers,
Dean
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Dawid A
Software Engineer at FINEOS
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I live in Poland and from my perspective it is very good:
1) There is more posibilities to find good job. Being in Poland I worked in french company and american company.
2) Corportations are happy because they can search for the best people all around the world
3) And international companies can produce cheeper finding people in cheeper locations. People are happy when they can buy cheeper. Pople from these cheeper locations are also happy, because they can earn more money (even if it is less then money of people in rich locations it is still good for them)
4) As computer scientist I can do what I love to do. Without expansion of technology around the world I would have problem doing what I do now.
5) I have access to information, music, books from all around the world. I like having posibility to choice the best ones.
6) Traveling is easier.
Doug H
Colorado Territory Manager at Charter School Management Corporation, Inc.
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Globalization is inevitable. On first glance, some instances seem bad, but in the long run, I believe that globalization will be good for "the common man." In certain periods it will be better for some than for others. That's the way free markets work. Wages haven't been going down all over the world. They've been going down in some areas when it's been found that sending jobs elsewhere is beneficial. Jobs don't belong to any individual or country. Jobs belong to whoever can create the most value. This requires that people adjust to changing times. Globalization creates new products, ideas, and markets and may take a long time to really reach fruition, but if you try to stop it, what's the alternative?
Gerald L
Gerry Lo 羅振業 Project Engineering 4470 contacts
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Without globalization, there would have been no potatoes in Ireland, nor tomatoes in Italy, no spicy peppers in India nor Sichuan nor Hunan, sugar would have been unknown in the New World, coffee and chocolate unknown in the Old.
I am grateful to have had ancestral roots in the land of my forefathers and to enjoy the fruits of globalization in this place at this time.
In my opinion, there are more of us sharing this earth and living longer lives of arguably better quality than ever before.
I am sensitive to those who espouse protectionism and yearn for Good Old Days prior to carbon credits and terrorism.
Respectfully, I submit that even a casual amount of superficial research might suggest that those ills who seem to so inflame the popular conscience today are not so recent as many may imagine.
I'm no expert, but am given to understand that the temperature of the earth's core is somewhere between 3000°F - 5000°F, which I suspect might not entirely be due to anthropogenic causes.
Granted, the global economy has increased industrialization and excerbated deplorable practices such as slavery and pollution. Yet I feel more people are aware of those issues as a result of the far darker times through which humanity has passed, on our way to what I hope to be a brighter future for more and more people.
I think I read once that 1785 was the first year during which citizens of the United States of America were taken hostage in the Middle East. The policy of isolationism and appeasement which ensued, in my opinion, did not seem to be a sustainably viable solution.
Not many of us, in my estimation, would have been especially favored by long life or good health, much less lived as royalty nor gentry in the pasts of lives historically nasty, brutish and short.
I believe that globalization has been arguably a part of humanity's history for millennia, and continues to be as strong an impetus for progress as any other manifestation of natural economic forces.
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More Answers (7)
I think it depends who you consider the common man. If you are talking strictly about people in the US, well the average person in the US only benefits because it will keep the costs of services from companies that outsource down, however, it also means that people in the US that work in the fields that are being outsourced will be out of the job and will not be able to command as high of a salary in that field if they do manage to find a relevant position.
Now, if we are talking about the common man worldwide, it would be good on average, because it will bring more better paying jobs to people in parts of the world that did not have such opportunity previously.
Bruno R
e-payments specialist
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Hi Tom,
As you said, answers are quite polarized (not to say radical) and both parties have good reasons to think their way ... Except that they both tend to see only half of the situation.
I think seeing globalization globally ;-) tends to show us that this is a kind of transfer game, moving wealth from here to there without generating much more added value than there were anyway.
Rather, I'd say we destroy part of what we have to make it global. The best explanation I have for this is from Laurence J. Peter and his famous book "Peter pyramids"
Evan H
Director of Marketing & Communications at UM's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
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One small addition I would make to what's already been said is that the ability of the wealthier, more "powerful," more established nations to adapt as industries change and businesses move is critical for everyone to benefit from globalization. For example, if widget manufacturing moves from the US to Country X, if globalization is to benefit not only the companies that began in the US but the people and workers in the US as well, there has to be some mechanism to move the labor and intellectual capital previously invested in widget manufacturing to something else to not only open new markets but to develop new ideas and new industries. Right now, education, job training, and support for people who have been downsized is so poor in the US that I think most folks focused on short-term benefits for the middle class would argue that globalization is a terrible thing. But that shouldn't necessarily be the case.
Jageshwar T
General Manager at Steria
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Yes it is good for common people.
They will get chance to have better quality and competition in terms of better products, jobs and knowledge too.
Joy M
building your business system so you can build your business
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I don't think it's a good thing for the "common man" when the motivation seems to be to drive wages down everywhere.
Sanjay N
CIO at Technology for Business Solutions
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If the world was one country with no borders, we would be frowning upon any barriers to free trade and commerce.
Nation states are a relic of our wretched barbaric past where borders and barriers were erected for safety and administrative convenience. These are increasingly becoming irrelevant in a globalizing world and any country which resists this momentum will fall behind others.
Therefore the "common man" of all countries is best served by flowing with the tide as the devil will take the hindmost.
Let me illustrate...if the Japanese decide to source their car engineering and design from India and the Americans don't, the US car industry will get wiped out sooner than later. It would be in the interest of the common man in the US to keep pace with the globalization of car design and engineering.
In a sense this question is leading as it suggests there is a choice here...there is actually none.
sanjay9negi@hotmail.com
Bob G
COO at JGPHL
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Well I think we have found and continue to see that outsourcing to the 3rd world continues to be a problem. There is more to business than the bottom line. Bring back IT to the US be need better support
