The follies of globalization

The last couple of centuries have witnessed an ongoing march of a phenomenon that most people in business applaud, but which often has been fought against, protested, and accused of the worst of atrocities. I speak of the phenomenon of globalization. The economic practice and concept is the removal of barriers between national borders in order to facilitate the flow of goods, capital, services and labor, so that all parts of the world make specialized goods and compete in a global marketplace for these things. There is much debate over the benefits and ill effects of globalization, but perhaps the strongest effect is that no-one is immune.

For the poor of the earth, good times under globalization means that they have sweatshop type job opportunities and many chances to be exploited. For the richest of individuals, good times under globalization mean a great increase in wealth and expansion of power. For the bulk of us in the United States, good times under globalization means we have ever increasing options of cheap consumer goods to purchase to pad our consumption centered lives. Under bad times, globalization means much worse news for the poor, not much difference for the richest, and probable economic discomfort for those with a standard of living equivalent to the average Americans.

There is some mobility between groups, and globalization has generally had the effect of increased mobility for the highest and lowest performers from each group. However, for many, globalization means the loss of dreams and traditions. Especially for those engaged in the more traditional forms of business. Most of the small independent retail and service business are gone world wide. The more industrialized an place, the worse it is. Besides the obvious loss of quality and custom hand made goods and custom lunches at the local diners, there is significant loss of opportunity to build ones own future with your own hard work. Beyond that, and perhaps most tragic of all, is that now it is very difficult to be truly self sufficient as individuals and impossible as communities and towns. I applaud the global dissemination of technology and even culture, but at the cost of destroying any long term security, and often the freedoms that come with it, I have to conclude that unrestrained globalization isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

A while back, I applauded a move by Walmart to help restore some local viability into local markets, but the effort so far has been weak and insufficient to have much of an effect. I suggested at the time that they should try to get more of what they sell manufactured and produced locally. I recognize that some things will always have to be brought in from elsewhere. Wisconsin will never grow bananas or pineapples, but they can do a lot of other things. If the means for local economies to produce their goods locally were more prevalent, then perhaps all this social and economic upheaval that we call globalization might not be so bad.