Еssay on Globalization: pro et contra

The growth of interaction between nations and countries and creating of one economical space gives more and more reasons to talk about the growing temps of globalization. Nowadays it’s a phenomenon nobody can escape. Australia has to decide on its attitude toward the process of world globalization and find its own way in treating this phenomenon. It’s necessary to consider all positive and negative effects globalization can have on Australia in order to take the right decision.

Introduction

The states lose their bodies but no intervention is made. The politicians lose their influence on the world politics despite nobody deprived them of their rights. Keniche Ohmae, the Japanese business writer says, “nations have become mere ficitons”(Ohmae, 1995, 125). The reason of all these transformations is globalization.

The term “globalization” came in use from the beginning of the 90s of the last century. It has so many shades of meaning and is used in so many fields that it’s sometimes difficult to give its direct interpretation. Generally, under globalization we understand economic integration and liberalization, deregulation of trade, development of macroeconomics, changes into the understanding of functions and role of state and integration of globalization of information systems (Watson, 2002). All factors mentioned above can have both ”“ positive and negative influences on different states and different people. In my paper I will try to cover positive and negative effects globalization can have for Australia.

Those who support extremely negative view on globalization state that it leads to inequality, poverty and increased threat to the environment. Those who support opposing view and see globalization from the optimistic perspective name positive effects, such as rapid development and reformation of stagnant areas, increase of environmental awareness and new opportunities for integration in problem solving.

Despite the term globalization can be used in different spheres of our life most often it’s used in economic context.

The global market develops with high velocity and globalization plays an important role in this process. We can not compare the world market and its turnover to those we had even two decades ago. The turnover of the world trade grows with every year and the range of goods and services presented in this market grows also. It’s the first time in the history of mankind when huge amounts of money, which exist in electronic form can be transferred from one computer to another in several seconds. The speed and technology are amazing but lack of stability and unpredictability causes negative reactions of skeptics. More than a trillion dollar is turned over every day on global market and it has great influence on all spheres of our life.

Australia and Globalization

Globalization is not a remote phenomenon, which influences only world economy. It touches intimate, individual spheres of life of many people all over the world. Changing of social norms, historical traditions and cultural values are very often conditioned by the necessity to meet the needs of globalization. Globalization is a complex phenomenon, which consists of several processes. Contradictory driving forces direct the processes conditioned by globalization. For example, the decrease of the power of nations and moving the accent to global area has shadow effect. The decrease of the potency of major dominating nations has provoked the increase of the national identity of national minorities, such as Scots in the UK or separatists in Quebec. There are a lot of other contradictions caused by globalization and the temps of growths and development are so high that it’s often hard to predict all possible consequences.

Every country has to deal with the problem of globalization and change its policy towards this phenomenon.

Australia is not an exception. It has to develop its own strategies in order to use all possible benefits of globalization and to minimize possible damages. Technical development, rational investment policy, rapid development of informational technologies and readiness to trade cooperation are those factors, which can make the country competitive force in the age of globalization and not be left on the subway of the world market and Australia works hard to correspond the these requirements. Openness and readiness to the expanding of trade markets and broadening of the investment policy are among the main factors, which can put the basement of stable economic growth and reduce the poverty rate in the country. Information exchange and sharing innovative technologies are another factors, which make the country competitive on the global market. The difference between poor and rich countries lies not only in the amounts of money they have but also in the level of development of informational technologies.

Positive and Negative effects of Globalization

Now we will try to analyze positive and negative effects globalization can have for Australia. Everybody who talks about globalization can be conditionally placed to one of two big camps ”“ camps of those who support globalization and those who is frightened by possible negative consequences it can have for Australia. Those, who are sure in positive effect of globalization stress on new opportunities for economic growth, reduction of poverty and information exchange as possible advantages of globalization. An example of developing countries can be good evidence on the support of globalization. We can see the big progress and economic growth in the countries of East Asia, which actively participate in the world trade and are involved in the process of globalization (Wolf, 2002). They have made a big step forward in comparison with some African countries who are closed for new opportunities of globalization. Supporters of globalization see it as liberalization in many fields, such as agriculture, industry, informational technologies, trade, etc. Liberalization means getting rid of political influence in the economy. It’s an important factor as trade and economy in this case get the opportunities for free development without limitations from the governments of separate countries. Supporters of the globalization stress on the necessity to perform gradual and considerable reforms on the way to globalization to be sure all social layers benefit from it. When it comes to globalization, there is a threat that economic growth can benefit only rich citizens of the country and thus will strengthen the separation between rich and poor.

Like any controversial issue, globalization in Australia has a lot of opponents. Those, who emphasize on the negative effects of globalization call ecological risk, the growth of inequality and poverty as the main risks. Another reason of negative attitude to globalization set forward by its opponents is the danger of Westernisation. Globalization itself isn’t as frightening as Westernalization when the world economy is subdued to the interests of several Western countries and these interests are promoted in all spheres of life. Those, who set arguments against globalization state that it can exhaust the inner resources of the countries of the third world who take part in this process. This happens in countries like Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Natural resources of these countries are exploited by richer countries (Sullivan, 2001). These are the results of Australia’s participation in the world globalization. From the others side the opening of Australian markets can also have negative effect for the country as accepting good from the countries where child labor is applied or labor units are prohibited Australia supports inhuman policies of such countries.

Globalization means sharing everything ”“ good and bad. Negative effect of globalization can be the crises the country can face in the case of the crises on the global market. In other words, opening means accepting good and bad tendencies of the world economy and little opportunity to defense from them.

Some critics of the globalization threaten with the increase of spread of human, animal and plant diseases, like HIV/AIDS, SARS and bird flu (Sullivan, 2002). If we remember, globalization caused the spread of alcohol and tobacco to the countries of the third world where they haven’t been used before. Now nicotinomania and alcoholism cause serious problems in those countries.

Conclusion

Australia has developed the number of policies aiming to take into account of pluses and minuses of globalization.

The number of policies is directed to increase productivity as  factors which lead to economic growth. All the policies developed by the country take into account its specific cultural, historical and political factors in order not be dissolved by the global processes. Australia takes active part in the process of globalizations and participates a lot of international programs. These programs include supporting the World Trade Organization Global Trust Fund, supporting the Agency for International Trade Information and Cooperation and participation in the Pacific Financial Technical Assistance Center(White).

Taking active part in the process of globalization, Australia can benefit from export of wool, wheat, mineral resources. It can also benefit from big borrows it obtains. Participation in the globalization means not only taking active part in the world economy development but also help to the developing counties for them to correspond high economic standards of the world. What is notable, Australia can benefit from these also. Being surrounded by the developing countries it has to use their help in exporting goods. Better economic situation in the developing counties, which surround Australia can give better opportunities for export.

I think, taking active participation in world economy and politics Australia has chosen to take part in the process of globalization. I think there is nothing wrong about it if to take into account all possible difficulties and complications, which could be provoked by such participation. Thoughtful and balanced state policy can help to escape these problems and benefit from positive effect globalization can bring to the country.



Leave a Reply