Globalization is a phenomenon that has been going on for centuries, and a trend that has both wonderful and horrible impacts. Globalization is responsible for some of the best and the worst aspects of the era we are living through. It cannot be prevented without returning us to a prehistoric level of technology, but it will hasten our destruction unless we manage it with care and forethought.
Globalization started the first time someone ventured beyond the limits of their home valley. When humans moved from place to place, we brought with us our germs, our ways of doing things, and our genes, as well as our favorite food animals and seeds for our special food plants. Almost as soon as contact was made and colonies established, enforced labor entered the picture, leaving behind diaspora populations around the globe, and inheritance of resentment. What else have we left behind? The movement of people has altered landscapes by extracting valued resources, logging, losing alien animals and plants, and thereby destroying species habitats. We leave behind indigenous societies made rootless by the loss of traditional means of getting their livelihoods, if they are not refugees.
From the era of heroic exploration onwards, this pattern seems to recur. However, today’s movement of people and technology is happening at a rate that is many times faster and more comprehensive.
Endangered species are disappearing, diseases infect new populations, and children are exploited. Traditional and unique crafts, skills, languages, and lifeways are being lost forever, often as a direct result of the introduction of foodstuffs or technology by profit-oriented firms. An example not pictured is the aggressive marketing of baby formula instead of breastfeeding and soy milk as a substitute for the milk in Chai, with potentially devastating nutritional and social consequences. The result is that the world has become a much more boring place in which to travel.
However, the speeded-up movement of people and ideas has created very positive results as well. For example, ideas now spread with the speed of lightning. Music, fashion, fads, food items, and recipes catch phrases, jokes, and memes, spread with unprecedented speed. Online education and access to the great libraries of the world means that a scholar anywhere has the chance at intellectual achievement.
While the internet can be a conduit for silliness and frivolous material, as well as the extremist ideas of some people, the internet also gives a lifeline to people whose societies oppress them. The cell phone has allowed democracy movements to mount revolutions with virtually no resources. The ubiquitous cell phone camera imposes an unheard-of level of transparency.
Sometimes, the very characteristics of globalization become, ironically, the tools of opposing it. In places as far apart as the Occupy protests and anti-western militants, the cell phone and the internet give their users the leverage to complain and exert pressure on the very firms that provide the cell phones and the service. The stories about the abuse of workers who manufacture cell phones and iPods are passed on via those very pieces of equipment. Are the protesters hypocritical? Not necessarily. The world is connected – we get information from these devices about the abusive working conditions of the makers of these devices. It is sensible to use those technologies to push for more humane manufacturing practices.
If we behave responsibly and thoughtfully, we can make globalization a powerful tool for good. If we are selfish and oblivious, globalization can devastate us.