GLOBALIZATION

May 9, 2008

In recent years globalization has stepped into the for-front of our nations political and social debate.

While globalization is not a new idea, every era of civilization has been another step in globalization, more recently it's taken on a very corporate definition. Although there are more aspects of globalization then this such as the Internet and terrorism, the corporate entity was the first form of modern globalization. Therefor it is this corporate perspective on globalization that has come under the greatest amount of fire, figuratively speaking. It is this form of globalization that has led to the loss of jobs in the United States and the degradation of civil liberties in third world countries.

So is it wrong, and if so, what's so bad about it? It has been my view for some time that globalization, like the corporation, is not inherently evil. In fact, it's a natural process in a capitalist system as the proliferation of education and knowledge continues to grow. Columnist and Economist, Thomas Friedman has maintained that the processes of outsourcing should be viewed as an opportunity and not a detriment to our nation. The “freeing up” of certain service jobs provides an opportunity to create new industries and markets. This is similar to the industrial revolution in America, where the loss of workers on farms led to growth of the factory industry and subsequently the mechanization of farming.

At the same time, the outsourcing of jobs allows global growth in third world countries, thereby creating new markets and increasing the spread of education, at least in theory.

It is the short-comings of this theory that have led to outcries of social injustice around the world.

Naomi Klein, Economic and Social Theorist and author of No Logo, has used corporate “Export Processing Zones” as an example of the serious down side of Free Trade. She describes these areas as work camps, going so far as to equate employment in these camps as slavery. She sites examples of workers sleeping under the very sewing machines that they labor at all day, of workers dieing from exhaustion and other such abuses. This is the side of corporate globalization that you don't see in a label.

The distinction between Free Trade and Fair Trade is very important when it comes to this debate of globalization. As I stated earlier, globalization is not inherently evil, but it is the rampant acceptance of Free trade that creates these atrocious labor conditions and the violation of civil liberties around the world. If governments formed Fair Trade agreements and corporations practiced Fair Trade policies we would see a dynamic shift from “corporate oppression” to social benefactor. Of course this would mean that the jeans you buy at Wal-mart might coast twenty dollars instead of eight, but I think the social, economic and environmental improvements would be staggering and well worth it. The adoption of Fair Trade negotiation practices is the key to start the trend toward the globalization of humane rights and civil liberties.