Running Head: Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? 1 Assignment 5: Persuasive Essay Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? ENGL101 – Yorkville University (21F-C-BC_1C_Z): Research & Composition Ms. Jasreen Grewal December 20, 2021 2 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? In this essay I will argue that globalization is both uniting and dividing the world, at the same time, and that the way globalization has progressed so far is mostly another form of political, economic, and social control by one group: those who have held most resources and power for the last one or two centuries, and who continue to do so, with some minor diminishes only. Globalization stripped to it’s bones is the ongoing process of creating a single global economy and society. The main goal is said to be the mutual benefit of ever more trade and economic cooperation between nations, with other benefits being greater understanding and enjoyment of each other’s' cultures, and better international politics reducing the chance of war and conflict. As the climate crisis accelerates globalization has had to coordinate global responses to it because it truly does not recognize political boundaries, for obvious reasons. Globalization has been underway for centuries in one form or another but has really become dominant in the second half of the 20th Century. What has happened is that globalization has become increasingly corporate Neoliberal globalization, with predatory business practices, corruption, tax evasion and powermongering flourishing. Like almost anything there are pros and cons to globalization and depending on how it has affected individuals personally (and their family and community perhaps) one is inclined to be more or less critical of it. I argue that given it is pretty much unstoppable, and was bound to happen one way or another, it is critical to leave no stone unturned in the campaign to change course and spread the benefits of globalization more widely and, likewise, both minimize the harms and share them more fairly. Same as it ever was a relatively few lucky ones monopolize 3 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? way more than their fair share of the pie and leave more than their fair share of the cleaning up to those lower on the food chain, a chain which they designed and control. Given that humankind has never rested in its quest to forever develop 'better' and more sophisticated ways of transportation, communication, better technology, more efficient machines and means of production, and on and on, it was certain that globalization would happen. If it lived up to its condescending ideals that would be great, very few but the most reactionary would argue against it, but it has not done so. The damage has been immense and continues to be so. These include but are not limited to Inequality within and between nations increasing consistently since the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan 'revolution' of the 1980s, when globalization truly started its neoliberal era. It is true that almost all nations have had some increase in prosperity in the past 40 years, but it is so uneven and the environmental, social, and labor harms inflicted upon many poor nations so extreme that I argue it is intolerable and must be dramatically changed. The G20 and perhaps most OECD nations have prospered out of proportion to the poorest 100 or so countries. That is not all it is also the richest and most powerful people in those developed nations, the ruling and investor classes - which have benefited out of proportion to the middle, working and underclasses. The higher one goes up the wealth pyramid the more dramatic the gains at the top and more severe the losses, and thus suffering, further down. It is almost a return to the shocking Dickensian era of the UK, or the Golden Age in the USA, and if left unchecked seems on course to usher in a new period of near feudalism. This is almost a silly statement but is worth making just to make the point more memorable; if we continue the current course for long enough then what is to stop the 4 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? very end point being one person sitting atop 99 percent of global wealth on a planet in steaming ruins as all natural resources have been plundered in the name of economic growth. Going from the global to the local, to illustrate the point of localized winners and losers resulting from global activity, the Metro Vancouver housing market is a persuasive case in point. Now, it is true that the worrying and dangerous increase in house prices in the last decade or so is because of Canadians investing in housing as commodities, through Real Estate Investment Trusts and other vehicles, but nobody is arguing that at least some of the reason is that very wealthy Chinese people are buying many of the most expensive houses and condos because they want to get their wealth out of China in case there is an economic and/or political collapse there. And some other cases are money-laundering. Nobody can blame them, I would do the same in their shoes, but it is clearly a different pattern from many decades ago, when there was very little foreign interest in local real estate. Globalization ultimately turns almost everything it can into a commodity for trading and investment, and without deliberate intervention on the part of governments, what motivation is there not to do so? That government intervention is often very insufficient (if it exists at all) because politicians and senior government officials are part of the wealthy ruling class who benefit from these alarming increases in real estate prices, and the owners of high-end housing are part of the almost automatic ruling class which funds election campaigns and has real influence in shaping government policy. Exploitation of labor is another damage of globalization somehow, long gone are the golden years of the 1960s and 1970s when in Western Europe and North America, at least, there was a reasonable bargain struck between capital and labor, principally in the form of unions, to share 5 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? more or less fairly in increasing prosperity. Again, since the onset of the dramatic turn to the right in the reigning superpower the USA, and the former one, the UK, in the 1980s, the so-called 'race to the bottom' has been on. Of course, given no government checks on it, capital will go to where it finds labor most cheaply, and its limits on exploitation of that labor will surely extend to illegal and immoral outcomes such as using children and prisoners to assemble from shoes to technology. Not all capital is like this all the time, but most of it is most of the time. It almost must be, to stay competitive, the law of modern globalization is very similar to the law of the jungle as you can see. The excesses of global behemoths such as Wal-Mart are legendary, workers almost chained to their workstations for exhausting long working-hours. Pressure against these evils has led to some mitigation but there is a long way to go. Environmental damage and the climate crisis are another important topic to discuss. Just as capital is drawn like a tractor beam to the cheapest labor, it is ceaseless in its quest for raw resources to make its products, and it wants them at least cost and inconvenience as possible. Poorer nations are under huge pressure not to impose regulations protecting the environment, otherwise capital will just go next door where a more favorable regime has acquiesced. They find themselves between a rock and a hard place - the dilemma is real for the poorest nations of the world in the present times. Globalization is supposed to be a process for working out genuinely fair and responsible policies, with an eye to the welfare of the poorest and most vulnerable, but it rarely works like that, for obvious reasons. People lie and cheat all the time, for a host of reasons from the predictable to the bizarre, and given the huge stakes in the global economic game, why would it be otherwise? Globalization is also supposed to come with international rules and unbiased referees that ensure fair play, but of course the most powerful have the most clout in being the rules in their favor. To 6 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? wit, the continued failure of the G20 nations to come to terms with developing nations over new rules governing carbon output, the heart of the matter. The latest COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, made depressingly little progress on something so serious and universal. This assignment asks whether globalization will unite or divide the world. It has already united richer nations against poorer, to large extent, and united richer people in all of those nations, the wealthy of the developed world and the wealthiest of the developing world against the less wealthy in their respective societies, because of interests aligned and competing. In the words of the American musician Ry Cooder, 'the very thing that makes them rich, will make you poor,' them being the more powerful and 'you' being the less powerful. In turn, globalization has divided people along the same lines, with increasing inequality and a growing sense of social breakdown as a result. Taken from: https://genius.com/Ry-cooder-the-very-thing-that-makes-you-rich-makes-mepoor-lyrics It is simplistic to state that globalization has not made some developing nations richer and even some of the poorest in them, less poor. The investment in factories and training and education in developing nations by multinationals headquartered mostly in wealthier nations has given the most basic peasants, in some places, a chance to work for more money than they earned previously without this intervention. The question is if the bargain is worth it, given the ills, and here the key observation is that with more wholesome intent and better government, and less avarice and manipulation by scheming actors, the outcome could have been far better for all parties involved. If it is true that “everyone does better when everyone does better” as many insist, and it is a potent concept, then globalization thus far scores a D-minus thus far and indeed must try harder. 7 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? Going back to the very first question if this present essay: Is it (globalization) another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? In conclusion, let me leave you with this thought of mine: millions of people in developing countries refuse to be vaccinated against Covid 19. The bottom line is that they think the whole thing is a bid by one group for another form of and more - political, economic, and social control. The fusion of governments and the leaders of the biggest multinationals world over has made a significant minority of people even in developing nations so distrustful of the governing class they are doing something radical in refusing free medicine. If Covid had struck in 1980 rather than 40 years later, I’m totally sure the percentage of anti-vaxxers would be tiny. 8 Globalization: Will it unite or divide the world? Is it another form of political, economic, and social control by one group? References Alternative Fuels Data Center. US Department of Energy. Retrieved from https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/how-do-natural-gas-cars-work Booth, D (June 30, 2021) Canada moves to end sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. Financial Post. Retrieved from https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/canada-moves-toban-internal-combustion-engines-by-2035 Benefits of electric cars on the environment. EDF Energy. Retrieved from https://www.edfenergy.com/for-home/energywise/electric-cars-and-environment General information about “Car” found on: . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Benz . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car Is an electric car right for you? The Personal Insurance Website. Retrieved from https://www.thepersonal.com/blog/-/is-an-electric-car-right-for-youMatousek. M (Nov 13, 2019) Electric cars may be the future, but they're still critically flawed in a key area. Businessinsider.com. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/building-electric-cars-how-much-pollution-versus-gaspowered-vehicles-2019-11 Natural Gas Vehicles: Why Aren’t We Buying Them? Compare.com. Retrieved from https://www.compare.com/ways-to-save/vehicle/natural-gas-vehicles-guide
