| Globalization Essay, Research Paper
As the world economic forum took place last week in Davos, Switzerland, globalization and the World Trade Organization are two of the hottest topics in the news. The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum business summit was “bridging the divides,” but the meeting showed that divisions over globalization remain as wide as ever.Globalization became a very sensitive moral issue. Most industrialized nations in the world want to make the world a single consumer market where there will be a free flow of products across borders of countries around the world. This, would promote economic efficiency, and would benefit the consumer, as it will allow him to get the best product for the lower price possible. While this sounds like a tempting deal for rich countries protestors say that, the elimination of tariffs will cause people to lose their jobs and will increase the gab between the rich and the poor. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a rules-based, member-driven organization. All decisions are made by the member governments, and the rules are the outcome of negotiations among members. However, rich nations are very significantly represented in the organization, therefore the future of globalization is under their control, and so is the future of the poor nations. Globalization is definitely in favor of the powerful countries. Therefore, it would be logical for them to pursue their economic prosperity and the welfare of their nations and people. But Is it right to do so if you know that your actions are going to harm others? This question is not very easy to answer, and it is what is bringing the problem to the surface.
How can globalization harm the economies of developing countries? Globalization will allow multinational companies to access whatever consumer market in the world it chooses to enter. It can sell its products in that market and will create competition to the local producers. Since a multinational company is very likely to be from a developed country, it is also very likely to produce better, more efficient, and therefore cheaper products than those produced locally. What will happen then is that consumers will naturally tend to purchase the cheaper product, which is the foreign one. As a result, we will see local companies go out of business, which will cause local employees to lose their jobs, and the local economy to worsen. South African President Thabo Mbeki in a speech of him at the Davos forum said When people talk about globalization, what we see is a global world that is divided into two. There is a structural fault of poverty. On one side of that fault are the powerful and the wealthy; on the other side are the powerless and the poor .
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