Globalization

What is globalization? Globalization is the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. Lately, here in the U.S., we are seeing a lot of our jobs being moved outside the country to other countries. There are quite a few reasons for this. We are also seeing the trend of branding, which establishes some sort of personality that a company represents itself to have so that people will buy their products. A lot of these brands are also part of the problem of outsourcing because they are closing down their factories here and moving them overseas.

Why are companies outsourcing themselves? Well there are a few key reasons, the major one being cost. The cost of labor is much cheaper in other countries. They have a minimum wage that is much below that of our standard. Another reason is there is a lot less regulation on companies when they are producing there products in other countries. There are fewer restrictions against things like how many hours a person can work in a day and less laws against child labor.

I am more on the fence about globalization, leaning towards the anti-globalization side. I do see the positive in that it helps to stimulate other countries economies that are in need of economic help. Even though the people that work for these companies aren’t paid anything close to our standard of pay, to them it is a lot and will go a long ways in a poor economy. But at what cost is this globalization coming to us?

Globalization causes a lot of jobs to be lost here in the U.S. These factories that are moving overseas provide thousands of jobs and at this time our economy is struggling and it is putting a lot of pressure on people here to find a job. Communities have been destroyed because one plant may provide jobs for a whole town and once it leaves those people are out of a job and have no where else to work.

Globalization has bad sides to even the people overseas who should be benefiting from it. It leads to things like sweatshops which support child labor and very low wages with long hours. People are overworked and some even end up dying because of the conditions they are made to work in.

We are also seeing branding by some of these companies that I don’t necessarily have a problem with myself. I feel they do use a certain image to promote their product in order to sell their goods. But I think people by certain companies stuff to give that same image to them selves and I don’t feel that this is necessarily bad. I am very into extreme sports and I buy the brands that support these kinds of sports because they give a lot to the community they are trying to appeal to. So my money is going to a company that is using some of that money to support the things and I activities that I love.

Globalization does have its benefits, but I believe that it comes at too high of a price to us in a time that we are struggling.