Respond to the below statement with a min of 150 words also include a direct question.
In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of globalization?
Globalization is a very complex subject, and it''s not something that''s easily labeled as good or bad. As such, there are many pros and cons, depending on which viewpoint you''re looking at it from. However, I believe that a very important aspect of globalization is understanding that ethics and morals are extremely subjective, and that our Western mindset isn''t necessarily going to apply everywhere else in the world where globalization is occurring. While I think that our provided video was very insightful and inspiring, I also think that it showed a fair amount of naivety concerning exactly what globalization is and painting it as all roses with positive effects.
I''ll begin with a con of globalization, and for this viewpoint I''ll focus on a common theme that is heard among American laborers, which is that the off-shoring of American jobs is hurting our economy. In an increasingly globalized world, there are certain countries, such as China and India, that are developing and happen to have robust sources of labor that is substantially cheaper than American labor (Autor et al, 2012). Although this may immediately bring to mind terrible working conditions and abusive employers, but that scenario is the exception, rather than the rule. In places such as India, there are massive call centers where Indian employees come and handle technical support for very large companies - AT&T being a big player in this game (Dreher et al, 2011). They are treated well and have very good working conditions; however, they are able to be paid much less than American worked due to complex financial relationships and exchange rates (Autor et al, 2012). This is negative for the American worker because globalization directly takes jobs away from them and hands them off to another country that has more readily available labor at a much cheaper price.
Now I will describe a pro of globalization. For this viewpoint, I will focus again on the labor market, and once again in the case of China and India having robust pools of labor that can work for relatively low amounts of money (Dreher et al, 2011). In China, this availability of cheap labor has helped the country economically develop in a big way. Globalization of product markets over the past twenty years has provided the country with critical avenues to grow its own economy and continue to excel in the world market altogether (Autor et al, 2012). This concept - that under-developed countries can now develop more quickly in a more globalized world - is a very big positive effect of increasing globalization as a whole.
How was the economic downturn impacted trends in protectionism and nationalism?
The economic downturn has absolutely played a role in increased trade protectionism in varying ways around the world. However, it is a sure-fire way for a country to signal that it cares much more about its own trade than it does about the world in general. Although this is not always a bad thing, protectionism is often a very attractive short-sighted political goal that can have much more negative long-term global effects. During the 1930s, many major countries, including the US and the UK, put into place some very protectionist policies that economists widely agree only lead to a Great Depression that was much more involved than it should have been (Dreher et al, 2011). Overall, every country exhibits some forms of protectionism whenever economic crises come out on the world stage; however, the extremity of those measures can often decide the fate of the world market as a whole.