There are a few things that I think make this 'modern' era of globalization different from previous eras:

1. The rise of multinational (or transnational) corporations;
2. Increasing interdepedence between countries, economies, societies;
3. Increasingly global flow of labor and capital, mainly to feed consumption in industrialized countries
4. Environmental impacts of these processes whose effects may be global in scope.
5. Is globalization a social problem?

So, is the globalization around us today different than the migration of people, their stuff, their cultures, their plants, their diseases, etc., that has occurred over the past several millennia? You decide. But here are some things to consider:

• Role of private corporations--those multinational corporations
• Human migration patterns--have they accelerated? Why and how?
• Economy, trade--most of our stuff comes from elsewhere in the world--our job more and more is to sell it to each other
• Many social problems require international solutions. For example:
  • Global warming (roles of tropical forests, consumption in wealthy, car-driving countries, factories, and CO2 that's in the atmosphere after a couple of weeks)
  • Povety--Does the wealth of the rich nations come at the expense of the poorer ones? Why is it acceptable for people in China to be paid .20/hr for work that Americans used to make $20/hr to perform?
  • Migration--people more and more travel to where the opportunities lie. Or in some cases are trafficked (for example, the problem of women and girls being trafficked into sex slavery is huge, and facilitated by the Internet and burgeoning "sex tourism" industry--over 1 million women per year are sold into virtual slavery and debt bondage);
  • pollution--rivers and air especially share many international borders. Even solid waste can be dumped outside of a country's borders.
  • War--the effects of war often go far beyond the specific countries involved, and as in the case of the Iraq war, the U.S. forces of over 130,000 were supported by a small group of troops representing several other countries.
  • Nuclear proliferation-plutonium from former Soviet nuclear weapons could be sold, as can the means and technology to manufacture nuclear weapons, making the world an even less stable place than it already is;
  • Natural resource use, exploitation--natural resources are not evenly distributed across the face of the earth. The Middle East doesn't currently have the greatest climate for agriculture, but it has plenty of oil underneath. Countries who need these resources have to trade with other countries that can supply them. Or invade them, I suppose . . .
  • Trade, terms of trade--again, no country is entirely self-sufficient. The least self-sufficient country in the world is the United States--we depend on other countries to sell and trade for the products and services Americans consume.
  
  

The rise of multinationals (or TNCs, transnational corporations)

What is a multinational? It is a company that does business in different countries. And what have multinationals got to do with globalization? Consider some of the following (taken from an article by Anderson and Cavanagh):

1. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries (based on a comparison of corporate sales and country GDPs).
2. The Top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries, minus the largest 10.
3. The 1999 sales of each of the top five corporations (General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor, and DaimlerChrysler) are bigger than the GDP's of 182 countries.
4. While the sales of the Top 200 TNCs are the equivalent of 27.5 percent of world economic activity, they employ only 0.78 percent of the world's workforce.
5. Between 1983 and 1999, the profits of the Top 200 firms grew 362.4 percent, while the number of people they employ grew by only 14.4 percent.
6. A full 5 percent of the Top 200s' combined workforce is employed by Wal-Mart, the top private employer in the world, with well over 1,140,000 workers--more than twice as many as No. 2, DaimlerChrysler, which employs 466,938.
7. U.S. corporations dominate the Top 200 TNCs, with 82 slots (41 percent of the total). Japanese firms are second, with only 41 slots. Between the two--60% of the top 200.
8. Of the U.S. corporations on the list, 44 did not pay the full standard 35 percent federal corporate tax rate during the period 1996-1998. Seven of the firms actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes in 1998 (because of rebates). These include: Texaco, Chevron, PepsiCo, Enron, Worldcom, McKesson and the world's biggest corporation, General Motors.
9. In 1999, more than half the sales of the Top 200 were in just 4 economic sectors: financial services (14.5 percent), motor vehicles and parts (12.7 percent), insurance (12.4 percent), and retailing/ wholesaling (11.3 percent).
10. Sony's economic worth is bigger than Pakistan's. General Motors' is now bigger than Denmark.
11. The 82 U.S. companies on the Top 200 list made contributions to 2000 election campaigns through political action committees (not including soft money donations) that totaled $33,045,832. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, corporations in general outspent labor unions by a ratio of about 15-to-1. The group also found that candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives who outspent their opponents were victorious in 94 percent of their races. In the last Congressional elections just completed, 98 percent of the incumbents won.

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Some things to ponder:

• Multinationals are becoming increasingly important in our society, and around the world, and increasingly powerful. We discussed consolidation in the media industry--from 25 some companies in the early 1980s to only six today owning the major media outlets. The same thing is happening in other industries, and the ones that are winning the competition are all multinational corporations. They set up factories in countries with cheap sources of labor, few environmental regulations, minimal tax requirements, etc., often producing goods for immediate re-export to the wealthier countries where they're consumed, and rarely re-investing profits in that country--they're likely to go to the corporate headquarters, or be used to build factories in another place with cheap, plentiful labor. Ever wonder why a worker can make .20/hr to manufacture sneakers, which can be sold in the States for well over $100/pair? So, who's getting the profits?
• Economic clout = political power--how might TNCs get what they want, from governments, for instance?
• In the U.S., TNCs don't have to report layoffs, environmental problems, wage rates overseas, employee breakdowns by country, or locations of overseas plants. That is, the government's ability to get information out of them is limited.
• TNCs often work to eliminate competition. How?
  • absorbing other companies
  • vertically integrating (buying up different parts of the production process--for instance, if WalMart owns the factories that supply its goods, the distribution mechanisms [e.g., trucking companies], etc., they are 'vertically integrated'). If Monsanto (a large agribusiness corporation) owned its laboratories that do genetic engineering research, its own seed companies, petrochemical companies that produce fertilizer and pesticides, maybe even having a stake in retail grocery, they would be vertically integrated (they do own much of this, by the way).
  • undercutting competitors to drive them out of business (WalMart's strategy --their next target here in La Grande is the retail grocery business)
• Are TNCs a threat to democracy? If so, in what way(s)?

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Increasing interdependence

What is meant by interdependence? For the government, essentially, anything the U.S. wanted to do in the world could be affected by its relationships with other governments. If we want to go it alone in Iraq, for instance, there may be consequences. If we pull out of international treaties--which the Bush Administration did on the Kyoto protocols, the World Court's International Criminal Court, the international treaty to ban chemical or biological weapons, and the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty with Russia. Here are a few things to consider:

1. There are people in the U.S. from all over the world (hundreds of victims of the World Trade Tower attacks were foreign nationals--the largest number were from the United Kingdom);
2. There are U.S. citizens all over the world (think multinational corporations, embassies, tourists, etc.)
3. China is the largest producer of steel in the world (think warfare, steel production--what would happen if we declared war on China?);
4. Where does most of the oil, the life blood of the American economy, come from?
5. What did much of the world think about the U.S. having gone to war in Iraq without the backing of the United Nations? What consequences might such foreign policies have for American citizens, at home and/or abroad? Listen to the Bush/Cheney White House's nominee for the job of Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.
6. Al Qaida, Germany, and 'Old Europe'--France and Germany didn't go along with the Iraq invasion. Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of the 'Department of Defense,' said these countries were 'irrelevant' and part of 'Old Europe.' Well it turns out the highjackers who reportedly planned 9/11 were working out of Hamburg, Germany. In other words if we don't cooperate with German law enforcement, or other countries where terrorist 'cells' might be planning attacks, could we be handicapping ourselves in preventing another?
7. Currency and oil--OPEC has always sold oil in dollars. This requires countries to accumulate dollars to purchase oil from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein decided in 2000 to accept Euros, the European currency. This wasn't good for the American economy, and in fact as soon as U.S. troops invaded and occupied' Baghdad, one of the first things the provisional government did was to require oil to be sold in dollars. Now Iran, who the U.S. accuses of trying to develop nuclear weapons, is planning to sell oil for euros. Will this affect U.S. foreign policy?
8. Saudi Arabia--probably has $1 billion invested in the American economy. If the U.S. condemned them for any role in supporting al Qaida operations, how would this affect investment? Fifteen of the nineteen highjackers were from Saudi Arabia (none from Iraq, in case you were wondering).
9. Opting out of treaties:
   1. the international criminal court (which tries war crimes, which torture by Americans in Baghdad prisons would be defined as if we were a signatory to that treaty, which we're not),
   2. nuclear proliferation, carbon emissions, even a treaty to ban land mines
   3. How does the rest of the world perceive the U.S. when it pulls out of important multilateral treaties?
10. Global distribution of resources (for example, China and steel, Middle East and oil, Congo and coltan, Pakistan, Russia, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons--Pakistan probably sold North Korea its nuclear technology)--basically, in a global, industrialized economy, no country is self-sufficient.
11. U.S. Military presence--the U.S. military has bases all over the world (keep in mind: Osama bin Laden and al Qaida's 'crusade' against Americans was a result of placing military bases on Moslem holy land in Saudi Arabia during the first gulf war). The U.S. was asked to leave two bases in the Philippines in the 1980s, and the status of permanent bases in Iraq is still unclear.

The point of all this? We live in an interconnected world. The U.S. can act unilaterally--that is, without the consent of other countries, or the blessing of the United Nations. But that isn't to say there are no consequences for doing it. And in a world becoming increasingly interdependent, both politically and economically, there are risks to 'going it alone' for any country.

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Interdependence, politics and trade

As I mentioned above, no country can produce everything it needs. Thus trade, especially in a global economy where so much of what we consume comes from elsewhere in the world, means the U.S. and other countries must establish relations with its trading partners. Consider:

1. Russia--does business with Iraq (a lot of business). Russia has some of the largest untapped reserves of oil in world. It is still a nuclear power, and everyone has an interest in making sure that the government and its scientists act responsibly in safeguarding the world from people who might want to gain access to their arsenal. In addition the U.S. opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, and in the process trained members of the mujahadeen opposition group in insurgency and counterterrorism tactics, among those trained by the CIA was--guess who? Osama bin Laden.
2. China--where many of our multinational corporations own or operate factories. WalMart has its own website for China. China produces most of the steel in the world (an essential resource for any country with a large military). China is a major human rights violator, having crushed dissent in Tibet, broken up the Falungong, crushed domestic oppostion, for instance in the Tiannamen Square massacre in 1989. China also has well over 1.2 billion inhabitants, which American corporations see as a gold mine of commercial potential, as well as sources of cheap labor. China is also one of the biggest competitors with the U.S. for remaining world oil reserves, and carries huge trade imbalances in dollars (that means they import much more to the U.S. than we export to them).
3. Venezuela--the country is a large oil producer; it also has a democratically-elected leftist president, Hugo Chavez; the Bush Administration allegedly supported an overthrow of the government by a pro-business group in 2004, and only under pressure from the rest of Latin America withdrew its support of the coup leader. Chavez has increased taxes on the petrochemical multinational corporations that developed and operate the oil fields, and used much of the revenue to fund anti-poverty programs and solidify his support for other leftists candidates in other countries, and among the impoverished of Latin America. This makes him unpopular in the U.S. among mainstream politicians, and even mainstream media outlets like the NY Times (remember the 'anti-communist' news filer?).
4. Middle East ---the world's largest producer of oil. One of the US' staunchest allies in the region is Saudi Arabia, where the majority of the 19 highjackers from the Sept. 11 attacks were from. The U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, before we invaded Kuwait to remove him in 1990, and invaded Baghdad to remove him from power in 2003. Saudi Arabia has huge sums invested in the United States (and we're their best customer for petroleum);
5. Pakistan and India --the US Government helped Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons technology. They are in regular conflict with India (who has nuclear capabilities as well). India is democratic, and has a population of over 1 billion, representing a huge market for U.S. products, and a huge labor force, and has a relatively well-educated and English-speaking professional class that has led to widespread 'outsourcing' of jobs, many of them through US-based multinational corporations. India also has many students who study in U.S.; Pakistan has become a haven for Al Qaeda and Taliban refugees, as well as Afghan refugees who left as a result of the Taliban takeover. In addition, there is strong evidence that Pakistan has sold nuclear weapons technology to other countries, including North Korea and Iran.

Again, I'm not expecting you'll commit all of this to memory. But you should take away from this the big picture--that we live in an interconnected, interdependent world. How does economic and political interdependence affect our image in the world, or relations with other countries, our ability to 'go it alone' without consequences somewhere else in the world?

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Immigration -- another dimension of interdependence

Here are some statistics and some information on immigration within the U.S. (data from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Migration Policy Institute)

How do people become permanent residents?

• Family-sponsored immigration (immediate family, 250-300,000, family preference-260,000);
• Visa lottery
• Employment-based (140,000)
• Refugees, asylees (applying for political asylum, protection)

This is refugee data from 2002 (these people have been granted refugee status because of fear of persecution, often with only the clothes on their backs). There is a 70,000 ceiling (cap) on refugees:

• Africa-22,000
• Eastern Europe-9,000
• Former Soviet Union-17,000
• East Asia-4,000 Near East/South Asia-15,000
• Latin America and the Caribbean-3,000

Where do immigrants come from?

Stop peeking--you can figure this one out . . .

In 1998, the "Top Ten" countries from which the U.S. received legal (75%) immigrants were:

Total legal immigration for 1998: 737,000

In addition, four out of ten illegal immigrants enter legally (student visas, etc.). The percent of the U.S. population that is foreign-born has decreased from 15% in 1900 to 10% today.

What does this suggest about interdependence? Yes, the United States has always been a haven for immigration. Poet Emma Lazarus wrote this (which appears on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

But we haven't always had so many interdependent relations with other countries in the world with respect to politics, economics, culture and even the military. Richard Florida's article on the 'creative class' addresses the importance of immigration in helping to stem the flow of high-paying jobs overseas and their replacement by lower-paying service jobs, and provides a way to think about how to deal with outsourcing of well-paying jobs to countries with large pools of low-paid laborers. Much of the economic growth in the U.S. has been a result of immigrants who come here to seek their fortunes or to work in an environment that supports invention and innovation--a 'creative class' of entrepreneurs, and the United States has been historically successful in attracting the best and the brightest from the far reaches of the globe.

According to Florida, however, things are changing. Security screenings are increasing (you can likely guess which immigrants are receiving the closest scrutiny, which the least), and other countries have been more successful in attracting immigrants. In addition, current economic policies focus more on extractive economies that exploit natural resources (often at unsustainable levels)--petrochemical companies, oil and gas exploration, timber, mining, farming and ranching, etc.--rather than on what Florida calls the 'creative economy,' based more in information technologies, innovation, new ideas. Now computers and information technologies have their problems, too--how long do our PCs last, and what happens to them, and what kinds of toxic materials are inside them? Immigrants are finding other countries that support work more in line with 21st century economies, such as Ireland, Sweden and New Zealand. New Zealand, for instance, is now home to a movie production studio that is competing directly with Hollywood movie studios.

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Globalized labor and capital flows

When you shop, almost anywhere, you are consuming goods produced elsewhere in the world. Often times, these goods are incredibly cheap, considering they may have come from China, Chile, or South Africa. Consumers in the U.S. definitely benefit from low prices for consumer goods produced in a global economy. But are there costs of production that are not included in the price we pay at the store?

In a globalized economy, it is often cheaper to box up factories when wages get too high, and take them to other countries where wages are low, taxes are low, and environmental and working conditions are minimal. This reduces the costs to companies seeking investment opportunities. Writer William Greider documents the flow of labor from the U.S.-Mexico border--where the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement led to many companies investing in factories and cheaper labor in Mexico--to China, where the wage rates are .20-.25 per hour. Wages in Mexico are in some areas four times higher.

This is mostly in the name of 'free trade,' and many countries have set up 'free trade zones,' essentially 'ports designated by the government of a country for duty-free entry on any non-prohibited good. Merchandise may be stored, used or manufactured in the zone and re-exported without duties being paid' (from Michigan State University, GlobalEDGE Website).

In other words, things get produced in 'free trade zones,' and then exported to other countries (they're not produced for the consumer living in these low-wage economies). Much of the production doesn't benefit the countries directly--it is being shipped to the industrialized countries' consumers. In other words, it is being driven not by the needs of these countries, but by the demand from the industrialized countries of the 'North.' This can lead to competition among desperate countries to attract foreign investment. A so-called 'race to the bottom.' They make concessions to multinationals. Labor is cheap, and they'll take what they can get--garment factories, toys, etc. But there is always some other country willing to make the deal even sweeter, and TNCs often relocate where labor is cheaper--in other words, the flow of labor is global, and TNCs are always looking for the cheapest rates, and they take their capital with them. This may cause high unemployment rates in the countries that might have been working toward higher wages for their workers, only to see the industrial base dry up. In essence, this kind of 'economic development' is mostly multinationals exploiting cheap labor in free trade zones.

Capital works somewhat differently than labor. With respect to immigration, yes, labor can go anywhere in search of job opportunities. Companies can open factories all over the world and hire workers. Capital can move even more freely. What is capital? Money accumulated from past enterprise, savings from profits or wages, stored wealth available to finance new enterprises. Some examples:

• Physical capital: factories, machines;
• Financial capital: wealth invested-stocks, loans, etc.
• Natural capital: natural resources
• Human capital: job skills an individual has to make him/her more competitive in the labor market.

You can think of capital as something that can be invested, as assets with economic value. If you have a bachelor's degree, you can expect a higher income than if you don't. If you have a factory with machinery, you can sell the machinery. If you have cash on hand, you can invest it. And corporations are always looking for investment opportunities. You might even have money tied up in a retirement plan, like a 401K, that could be invested almost anywhere in the world. Do you know where your 401K is??

How does capital roam the world?

Yes, corporations are on the lookout for opportunities. But where does their money come from? Do you own any stock? Mutual funds? 401K? Do you know how or where it's invested? Much of the growth of mutual funds in the 1990s was in overseas investment-in factories, etc., in emerging, growth markets.

• According to columnist William Greider, 'the American middle class 'has hundreds of billions of its savings roaming the world, possibly without fully appreciating the risk exposure (these are not federally insured like banks-as we heard in the video, when the middle class gets swept up in the market, it usually means they're getting in at the peak, before the crash . . . );
• Major governments have removed controls on finance capital in the last 15 years, making it easier for money to circulate;

Externalities: How does WalMart sell at such danged low prices?

Partly because they're able to 'externalize' some of the costs of production. An 'externality' occurs when two parties transaction affects a 3rd party, who had nothing to do with it. For instance, WalMart pays low wages, wages often too low for its workers to live on. So it has also been accused of encouraging employees to apply for public assistance--paid for by taxpaying citizens, the 3rd party. If globalization stimulates factory growth in poor countries to take advantage of cheap labor, one of the lures might be that companies won't have to adhere to strict regulations on pollution, either into the air or water. People living in the region will pay that price. If workers in Mexico organize to increase wages, and companies decide it would be more cost-effective to just leave and go to China, where labor costs are still under .50/hr, it lowers costs to WalMart shoppers, but the workers who lost their jobs in Mexico pay a price, and some may seek other job opportunities in the US, visa or no. When WalMart ships its goods from China to the US, it requires lots of fossil fuels. The cost in terms of the greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere doesn't get paid by WalMart or passed on to its customers--the costs are 'externalized.' If all that stuff WalMart buys ends up breaking, and we all know it's cheaper to buy a new one that find someone to do repair, then consumers just throw the stuff in the garbage, and it ends up in the landfill, which emits methane gas (a greenhouse gas), and causes other environmental problems. Who pays that price? It's not reflected in the everyday low prices. The price of gasoline, for instance, doesn't reflect that many people drive to work because it's relatively cheap, increasing congestion in large cities, increasing pollution and respiratory ailments, increasing the consumption of health care, etc.

Now, to be fair to WalMart, they're only doing what any other corporation would do it if could and had the financial and political resources. Shareholders are pretty happy about WalMart's success. There are clear beneficiaries to a world in which corporations run much of the commerce. But the wealth may end up being concentrated in--you guessed it--the industrialized countries of the North where investment is high.

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Environmental impacts

We've previously discussed the greenhouse effect, one way in which the industrialized countries of the world contribute to global-scale environmental problems. Remember the three general functions of the environment--waste dump, living space, and resource repository. Can you think of ways in which the use of these functions might become more global in scope? For instance, might industrialized countries be willing to pay to send toxic waste to other countries desperate for foreign capital? Is it possible that multinational corporations are cutting down tropical forests to feed the demand for tropical woods and furniture in the industrialized countries? Next time you go check out furniture, see how much of it claims to be some sort of high quality tropical wood, and imagine where it might have come from.

We discussed in class the resource process. This is the process by which natural resources are used and transformed by humans. In a globalizing economy, the resource process can get quite complicated, and have major environmental impacts.

Here are the general stages of the process (just to refresh your memory):

1. Discovery (first it has to be defined as a resource of value to humans)
2. cultivation/extraction (the raw material needs to be logged, mined, harvested, etc.)
3. transportation (getting raw material to where it will be processed)
4. processing
5. Distribution (getting refined goods to where they will be sold)
6. Transformation (consumption, but remember--matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, so we just 'transform' them into heat and waste products, eventually--like a landfill)

So, now think in global terms. If I were you, I'd try to think up some examples.

• How to table grapes from Chile get here in the dead of winter? How does coffee get to the Starbucks from other parts of the world?
• What sort of demand creates a system in which we need to have year-round access to fruits/vegetables, rather than seasonal variety?
• And what are the environmental consequences of a global system of production and consumption?
• think of this another way--if you bought your food locally from a farmer's market, how much fossil fuel would be consumed versus buying grapes from South Africa, in the middle of the Northern hemisphere's winter? If you're having trouble taking some resource through this process, or understanding how globalization increases the environmental impacts of the resource process.

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Is globalization a social problem?

Some would say globalization has many benefits. It gives us access to products we wouldn't have had access to before. It leads to a mixing of cultures and the possibility of better understanding and cooperation among cultures and nations (of course that 'mixing' can lead to more conflict). It does 'shrink' the globe in many respects. Could it be that we need to think in narrower terms? In other words, globalization may be too large and unwieldy to be a useful concept. What about free trade? Or political globalization? Spread of Western pop culture? There are some basic questions that apply here, as they have for other topics in the class.

Who benefits?

• Multinational corporations (and their investors), or workers around the world, or both?
• Consumers in countries that have access to cheap products produced by cheap labor elsewhere?
• Governments who host TNCs (they may get tax revenue, and these companies provide jobs for their citizens), or their citizens, or both?
• Workers in countries with cheap, plentiful labor. At least the ones lucky enough to get jobs. Do we know for sure that, for instance, a woman working in a factory in Thailand is worse off there than she would be back in her village transplanting rice in ankle-deep paddies?
• Those in the financial industry (facilitating trade between nations, encouraging investment in stock market have been lucrative for stock brokers, bankers, insurers, etc.);
• Countries with good terms of trade (the industrialized states), strong money currencies (in other words, if a country whose currency is rupies wants to import oil, it may need to sell something that another country is willing to pay for in dollars or euros)--not all currencies are traded on world markets, and this is an advantage to the countries whose currencies do get traded.
• In terms of the 'developed' and 'developing' countries, which we often refer to as the 'North' (developed) and 'South' (underdeveloped), who benefits? What about consumers? Which consumers benefit most from global trade? I mentioned in class that even in remote African villages, women now can get MSG (monosodium glutamate), which they can use in their cooking. How are the benefits of globalization distributed? Who gets the cheap stuff that scouring the world for cheap labor provides?
• People who've had their cultural awareness expanded. Clearly we can learn more about the rest of the world now, and they can learn more about us, largely because of increased migration and expanded media. Yes sometimes, commercial media are guilty of gross stereotyping of other cultures--any examples come to mind [hint: Rambo, Moslems)?
• Organized crime organizations involved especially in sex, arms and drug trade;
• Some democratic movements--international pressure has helped several countries in Africa break the cycle of dictatorship. Other countries have suffered, however, such as Haiti. And Venezuela. Companies may be less likely to invest in politically 'unstable' countries, and sometimes dictatorships receive support because they offer 'stability' (but maybe in the same way Orwell's Oceania was 'stable').

Who's harmed?

• High wage workers in industrialized countries? What happens to the jobs, the structure of the economy? What jobs are left when the factory jobs go (hint: 'Can I help you find something, cherished consumer?')
• Workers in other countries, when cheaper workers are found elsewhere (e.g., the migration of jobs from Mexico to China). And even though some workers benefit in other countries, for every person who finds work in one of these factories, how many others migrated to the big city and find themselves stuck, looking for whatever work they can find to support themselves? What might this do to sex and drug trade? Trafficking of women is a multibillion dollar business, and many become sex slaves in other countries. In addition, urban areas grow too fast, can't absorb the growth, and become very unhealthy, congested places to live.
• Countries that can't compete (countries with 'bifurcated development'--that is, factories in cities producing for export, with an agrarian countryside and people producing their own food); globalization of capital means there isn't much money being plowed into reinvestment in the country--someone somewhere else in the world (shareholders, executives from a multinational corporation) is benefiting from foreign investment, but it may not respond to the needs of the people who live outside the free trade zones; The terms of trade may not favor third world governments, and in fact may favor in some cases multinationals over any government. For instance, if developing countries are producing raw materials for industrial processing elsewhere (or even in free trade zones), and the price of those commodities drops, they'll receive less foreign currency for them (that is, less dollars, yen, Euros) and have less money to invest or import goods. Many of these countries are already at a disadvantage, because their own currencies aren't valued and aren't traded on world commodity markets. The terms of trade are often stacked against developing countries. Large powerful countries can wield great leverage with respect to terms of trade, as can multinationals. Put simply, free trade isn't always that free. Some countries are not in a position to refuse, even when the terms of trade seem stacked against them. And with the increased consumption that comes with mass producing plastic stuff at criminally low wages, who will end up getting most of the garbage?
• Anyone dependent on income in developing countries. We talked in class about what happens when countries 'devalue' their currencies (relative to the ones that get traded internationally--the dollar, euro and yen, mostly). Their income has suddenly been reduced, sometimes in half. Combine this with the fact that people all over the world are becoming more dependent on goods from markets (especially as urbanization means there are less people producing all of the things they need to survive), and currency devaluation, designed to facilitate free trade, makes the concept of 'free trade' seem more like a gift to large corporations that a means of emanicipating poor countries of the world.
• Women in poor countries (especially with respect to sex trafficking, where women and girls have few other economic options and are lured by false promises of employment in other countries);
• Democracy? If our lives are more and more dominated by very undemocratic multinational organizations, can this bode well for democracy, anywhere?
• Environment--global production and consumption means much more transportation, much higher rates of fossil fuel consumption, more CO2 into the atmosphere, more people in the world aspiring to enjoy a high consumption lifestyle (that is, ecologically unsustainable), etc.
• Future generations? Can you figure out how?

Who has the power to define the debate?

Where do you think the mainstream, commercial press' loyalties lie? Journalists like the NY Times' Thomas Friedman are respected columnists and proponents for globalization. Others (less mainstream or well-read) like Greg Palast offer scathing critiques of both mainstream coverage and globalization. There are a few groups working to try to change the nature of the debate, to 'correct' the identities of what they believe are criminally negligent corporations (for instance, look at Cargill's website, and then look at this one --oops! Looks like Cargill's lawyers took it down. Try Dow Chemical, First the Bhopal page, and then this renegade Dow Chemical's ethics page). Or look at the World Trade Organization's site, and then this one). Or the Exxon hoax rollout of 'vivoleum' (and a tribute to Reggie). Even groups like Coldplay have used whatever influence they might have to discuss fair trade.

Who should do something about it?

Do corporations have a social or ethical responsibility in terms of fairness, treatment of workers, the environment, etc.? What role should governments play in regulating working conditions, in ensuring that corporations don't make things worse for some of their citizens? What about large, multilateral organizations (multilateral means they're made up of representatives from several countries)? These include WTO (World Trade Organization), UN (United Nations), World Bank, IMF (International Monetary Fund), NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), GATT (General agreement on tax and tariffs), FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). Who do you think is represented in these groups? Multinationals? Government offficials? The world's subsistence farmers? Want a really cynical view?

What can you do? Wikipedia has an entire page devoted to the concept of 'ethical consumerism.' We can become better informed about the companies that produce the goods we purchase, how they treat their workers, farmers, etc. Coop American has a responsible shopper website. ZMag has a site that focuses on social and economic justice issues, and CorpWatch and Multinational Monitor are also full of resources.

Fair trade

The 'fair trade' movement is an effort by many organizations, advocating on the part of people at the production end of globalization (rather than the consumption end), to improve working conditions, distribute the benefits of globalization more equitably, and raise awareness on the part of consumers who ultimately make decisions about what kinds of trade practices to support. Some of the key principles of fair trade include:

• protection of the environment--trade shouldn't degrade the environment and make it more difficult for people to meet their needs from it, just to satisfy consumer demand elsewhere;
• improvements in working and living conditions--workers producing goods for the global economy in many areas are children, work very long hours for as little as .10 per hour, may be harrassed and in some cases beaten on the job to increase production and meet contracts, and may make too little to support their families and escape poverty;
• more leverage for workers and producers--cutting out some of the 'middlemen' and helping producers organize can increase their ability to negotiate higher prices for their goods. A coffee producer may sell beans for .35 per pound, and we know how much the coffee gets marked up at the other end. At least for farmers or other producers, fair trade seeks to help them get direct access to markets, rather than going through intermediary buyers;
• attention to community and household welfare--essentially fair trade is designed to raise living standards among those who are producing for the global economy, to (once again) distribute the benefits more equitably, and to raise awareness of some of the problems and exploitation that currently exist. It's hard to do that without considering workers' living arrangements, families, and communities, schools, public services, etc.

Some other issues:

• What about the environment? Which groups are harmed by environmental problems related to globalization? Think about factory production in cities and free trade zones, in particular, and the people living around these areas, often times huge populations also migrating to these areas in search of work, arriving with little besides the clothes on their backs.
• What are implications of global system of production, distribution? (need lots more fossil fuels, for what?); we have much more infrastructure, more roads, more trucks, more supertankers, more airplanes and airports--all of the physical supports necessary to facilitate global trade;
• Genetic engineering--'contamination' of seed stocks, more engineering to facilitate global production and distribution (square tomatoes, for instance--it's not easy getting things from the field in South Africa to the grocery store in New York, without those pesky natural processes that characterize perishable goods causing problems);
• Climate change issues

Summing up globalization

Ha! I'm not touching that one--globalization is a complex historical process. Yes, we are increasingly interconnected, but people and goods have been moving around the world for thousands of years. It is a multi-dimensional process--it is not just about jobs, fair trade, exporting American Cinema, immigration, international treaties, etc. As we see more and more ways that people and societies interact, we will see more and more complexity, and remember what sociologist Max Weber had to say about that (from McDonaldization)--as societies increase in size and complexity, new sorts of economic and political and social institutions will emerge that serve to maintain some semblance of social order. That doesn't mean the social order benefits everyone--for instance, warfare leads to a certain kind of social order where some societies dominate others. Free trade also benefits some countries over others.

Also remember that globalization is an uneven process--not everyone is experiencing it to the same degree or level of intensity. Rural areas may seem less 'globalized' than urban areas. Rich countries may be more connected than poor countries. Rich individuals and corporations may be more connected than poor individuals in a country. In addition, much of the economic and political globalization is being driven by large, powerful private corporations, that in many cases are wealthier than countries.

Globalization has its proponents that say it is a beneficial process, that even if it is unevenly occurring, 'a rising tide ifts all boats.' In other words, everyone benefits to some extent, especially in terms of improved material living standards. There are critics who contend that the global spread of capitalism is destroying cultures and their environments, and enriching the wealthiest countries, corporations and individuals, at the expense of the world's poorest. So what we've discussed in this unit is how these arguments play out, what are the mechanisms by which groups may benefit or be harmed by globalizing processes.

C. Wright Mills wrote over 40 years ago that humans are caught up in their own history--we are products of the times we live in. Globalization affects us all in many ways, whether we are aware of it or not. And our actions, whether we realize it or not, like filling up our cars with gas, buying that $2 T-shirt at WalMart, trading in the car every two years, enjoying our Tall Skinny Double Shot Caffe Latte/Frappuccino at Starbucks, affect people in other parts of the world.

Anderson, S. and C. Cavanagh. 2000. Top 200: The rise of corporate global power.

Alixis Rockman's 'the farm' (note square tomatoes in foreground)