Globalization

Globalization in a literal sense is international integration. It can be described as a

process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and functioning
together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and
political forces. Globalization, as a term, is very often used to refer to economic
globalization, that is integration of national economies into the international economy
through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and spread of
technology. The word globalization is also used, in a doctrinal sense to describe the
neoliberal form of economic globalization. Globalization is also defined as
internationalism, however such usage is typically incorrect as "global" implies "one
world" as a single unit, while "international" (between nations) recognizes that different
peoples, cultures, languages, nations, borders, economies, and ecosystems exist.

However, currently globalization has been due to North American business and trade
developments throughout the world. Thomas L. Friedman "examines the impact of the
'flattening' of the globe", Friedman argues that globalized trade, outsourcing, supply-
chaining, and political forces have changed the world permanently for good and bad. He
examines the positive and negative effects flattening has had and will continue to have on
global politics and business.

Terms
Sometimes the terms internationalization and globalization are used interchangeably but
there is a slight formal difference. The term internationalization refers to the importance
of international trade, relations, treaties etc. Inter+national means between or among
nations; hence internationalization refers to the increased importance of relations between
nations - the basic unit remains the nation. In contrast, the term globalization refers to
economic integration on a global scale, into a global economy, which blurs national
boundaries. In the extreme, globalization would mean erasure of national boundaries for
economic purposes; international trade (governed by comparative advantages) would
become interregional trade (governed by absolute advantages

The terms globalisation and anti-globalisation are used in various ways. Noam Chomsky
states that

The term "globalization" has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a

“ specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor
rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press,
in its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free
investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other
forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and some,
unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that
should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to
globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the
workers movements, which were founded on the principle of international
solidarity - that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people,
not private power systems. ”
"The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term
“ "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic
integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and
lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who
favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights
of human beings, become "anti-globalist." This is simply vulgar propaganda,
like the term "anti-Soviet" used by the most disgusting commissars to refer to
dissidents. It is not only vulgar, but idiotic. Take the World Social Forum,
called "anti-globalization" in the propaganda system -- which happens to
include the media, the educated classes, etc., with rare exceptions. The WSF
is a paradigm example of globalization. It is a gathering of huge numbers of
people from all over the world, from just about every corner of life one can
think of, apart from the extremely narrow highly privileged elites who meet at
the competing World Economic Forum, and are called "pro-globalization" by
the propaganda system. An observer watching this farce from Mars would
collapse in hysterical laughter at the antics of the educated classes." ”
History
The word "Globalization" has been used by economists since 1981; however, its
concepts did not become popular until the later half of the 1980's and 1990's.

Globalization in its largest extent began a bit before the turn of the 16th century, in
Portugal. The country's global adventurism in the 16th century linked continents,
economies and cultures as never before. The Kingdom of Portugal kicked off what has
come to be known as the Age of Discovery, in the mid-1400s. The westernmost country
in Europe, was the first to significantly probe the Atlantic Ocean, colonizing the Azores,
Madeira and other Atlantic islands, then braving the west coast of Africa. In 1488,
Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to sail around the southern tip of
Africa, and in 1498 his countryman Vasco da Gama repeated the experiment, making it as
far as India. The Portuguese Empire would establish ports, forts and trading posts as far
west as Brazil, as far east as Japan and Timor, and along the coasts of Africa, India and
China. For the first time in history, a wave of global trade, colonization, and enculturation
reached all corners of the world.

Globalization is viewed as a centuries long process, tracking the expansion of human

population and the growth of civilization, that has accelerated dramatically in the past 50
years. Early forms of globalization existed during the Roman Empire, the Parthian
empire, and the Han Dynasty, when the silk road started in China, reached the boundaries
of the Parthian empire, and continued onwards towards Rome. The Islamic Golden Age is
also an example, when Muslim traders and explorers established an early global economy
across the Old World resulting in a globalization of crops, trade, knowledge and
technology; and later during the Mongol Empire, when there was greater integration
along the Silk Road. Global integration continued through the expansion of European
trade, as in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Portuguese and Spanish Empires
reached to all corners of the world after expanding to the Americas.

In the 17th century, Globalization became a business phenomenon when the Dutch East
India Company, which is often described as the first multinational corporation, was
established. Because of the high risks involved with international trade, the Dutch East
India Company became the first company in the world to share risk and enable joint
ownership through the issuing of shares: an important driver for globalization.

In the 19th century it was sometimes called "The First Era of Globalization" a period
characterized by rapid growth in international trade and investment, between the
European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States. It was in this
period that areas of sub-saharan Africa and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the
world system. The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning
with the first World War, and later collapsed during the gold standard crisis in the late
1920s and early 1930s.
Modern Globalization

Globalization in the era since World War II was first the result of planning by economists,
business interests, and politicians who recognized the costs associated with protectionism
and declining international economic integration. Their work led to the Bretton Woods
conference and the founding of several international institutions intended to oversee the
renewed processes of globalization, promoting growth and managing adverse
consequences.

These were the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World
Bank) and the International Monetary Fund. It has been facilitated by advances in
technology which have reduced the costs of trade, and trade negotiation rounds,
originally under the auspices of GATT, which led to a series of agreements to remove
restrictions on free trade.

Since World War II, barriers to international trade have been considerably lowered
through international agreements - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the World Trade Organisation
(WTO), for which GATT is the foundation, have included:

• Promotion of free trade:

o Reduction or elimination of tariffs; construction of free trade zones with
small or no tariffs
o Reduced transportation costs, especially from development of
containerization for ocean shipping.
o Reduction or elimination of capital controls
o Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for local businesses
• Restriction of free trade:
o Harmonization of intellectual property laws across the majority of states,
with more restrictions.
o Supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions (e.g. patents
granted by China would be recognized in the United States)

The Uruguay round (1984 to 1995) led to a treaty to create the World Trade Organization
(WTO), to mediate trade disputes and set up a uniform platform of trading. Other bi- and
multilateral trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have also been signed in pursuit of the
goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.

The use of the term globalization (in the doctrinal sense), in the context of these
developments has been analysed by many including Noam Chomsky who states

... That enhances what's called "globalization," a term of propaganda used

“ conventionally to refer to a certain particular form of international integration
that is (not surprisingly) beneficial to its designers: Multinational
corporations and the powerful states to which they are closely linked. ”
Critics have observed that the term's contemporary usage comprises several meanings,
for example Noam Chomsky states that

The term "globalization," like most terms of public discourse, has two
“ meanings: its literal meaning, and a technical sense used for doctrinal
purposes. In its literal sense, "globalization" means international integration.
Its strongest proponents since its origins have been the workers movements
and the left (which is why unions are called "internationals"), and the
strongest proponents today are those who meet annually in the World Social
Forum and its many regional offshoots. In the technical sense defined by the
powerful, they are described as "anti-globalization," which means that they
favor globalization directed to the needs and concerns of people, not
investors, financial institutions and other sectors of power, with the interests
of people incidental. That's "globalization" in the technical doctrinal sense. ”
Measuring globalization
Japanese McDonald's fast food as an evidence of international integration.

Looking specifically at economic globalization, it can be measured in different ways.

These centre around the four main economic flows that characterize globalization:

• Goods and services, e.g. exports plus imports as a proportion of national income
or per capita of population
• labor/people, e.g. net migration rates; inward or outward migration flows,
weighted by population
• Capital, e.g. inward or outward direct investment as a proportion of national
income or per head of population
• Technology, e.g. international research & development flows; proportion of
populations (and rates of change thereof) using particular inventions (especially
As globalization is not only an economic phenomenon, a multivariate approach to
measuring globalization is the recent index calculated by the Swiss think tank
KOF. The index measures the three main dimensions of globalization: economic,
social, and political. In addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, an
overall index of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows,
economic restrictions, data on personal contact, data on information flows, and
data on cultural proximity is calculated. Data is available on a yearly basis for 122
countries, as detailed in Dreher, Gaston and Martens (2008). According to the
index, the world's most globalized country is Belgium, followed by Austria,
Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The least globalized countries
according to the KOF-index are Haiti, Myanmar the Central African Republic and
Burundi.[12] Other measures conceptualize Globalization as diffusion and develop
interactive procedure to capture the degree of its impact Jahn 2006.

A.T. Kearney and Foreign Policy Magazine jointly publish another Globalization Index.
According to the 2006 index, Singapore, Ireland, Switzerland, the U.S., the Netherlands,
Canada and Denmark are the most globalized, while Egypt, Indonesia, India and Iran are
the least globalized among countries listed.

Effects of globalization
Globalization has various aspects which affect the world in several different ways such
as:

• Industrial (alias trans nationalization) - emergence of worldwide production

markets and broader access to a range of foreign products for consumers and
companies
• Financial - emergence of worldwide financial markets and better access to
external financing for corporate, national and subnational borrowers
• Economic - realization of a global common market, based on the freedom of
exchange of goods and capital.
• Political - political globalization is the creation of a world government which
regulates the relationships among nations and guarantees the rights arising from
social and economic globalization. Politically, the United States has enjoyed a
position of power among the world powers; in part because of its strong and
wealthy economy. With the influence of Globalization and with the help of The
United States’ own economy, China has experience some tremendous growth
within the past decade. If China continues to grow at the rate projected by the
trends, then it is very likely that in the next twenty years, there will be a major
reallocation of power among the world leaders. China will have enough wealth,
industry, and technology to rival the United States for the position of leading
world power
• Informational - increase in information flows between geographically remote
locations
• Cultural - growth of cross-cultural contacts; advent of new categories of
consciousness and identities such as Globalism - which embodies cultural
diffusion, the desire to consume and enjoy foreign products and ideas, adopt new
technology and practices, and participate in a "world culture"
• Ecological- the advent of global environmental challenges that can not be solved
without international cooperation, such as climate change, cross-boundary water
and air pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread of invasive species.
Many factories are built in developing countries where they can pollute freely.
• Social - the achievement of free circulation by people of all nations
• Transportation - fewer and fewer European cars on European roads each year (the
same can also be said about American cars on American roads) and the death of
distance through the incorporation of technology to decrease travel time
• Greater international cultural exchange
o Spreading of multiculturalism, and better individual access to cultural
diversity (e.g. through the export of Hollywood and Bollywood movies).
However, the imported culture can easily supplant the local culture,
causing reduction in diversity through hybridization or even assimilation.
The most prominent form of this is Westernization, but Sinicization of
cultures has taken place over most of Asia for many centuries.
o Greater international travel and tourism
o Greater immigration, including illegal immigration
o Spread of local consumer products (e.g. food) to other countries (often
adapted to their culture)
 o World-wide fads and pop culture such as Pokémon, Sudoku, Numa Numa,
Origami, Idol series, YouTube, Orkut, Facebook, and MySpace.
o World-wide sporting events such as FIFA World Cup and the Olympic
Games.
o Formation or development of a set of universal values
• Technical/legal
o Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater
transborder data flow, using such technologies as the Internet,
communication satellites, submarine fiber optic cable, and wireless
telephones
o Increase in the number of standards applied globally; e.g. copyright laws,
patents and world trade agreements.
o The push by many advocates for an international criminal court and
international justice movements.

• Sexual awareness – It is often easy to only focus on the economic aspects of

Globalization. This term also has strong social meanings behind it. Globalization
can also mean a cultural interaction between different countries. Globalization
may also have social effects such changes in sexual inequality, and to this issue
brought about a greater awareness of the different (often more brutal) types of
gender discrimination throughout the world. For example, Women and girls in
African countries have long been subjected to female circumcision- such a
harmful procedure has been since exposed to the world, and the practice is now
decreasing in occurrence.

Pro-globalization (globalism)
Economic

Globalization advocates such as Jeffrey Sachs point to the above average drop in poverty
rates in countries, such as China, where globalization has taken a strong foothold,
compared to areas less affected by globalization, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where
poverty rates have remained stagnant.

Supporters of free trade claim that it increases economic prosperity as well as

opportunity, especially among developing nations, enhances civil liberties and leads to a
more efficient allocation of resources. Economic theories of comparative advantage
suggest that free trade leads to a more efficient allocation of resources, with all countries
involved in the trade benefiting. In general, this leads to lower prices, more employment,
higher output and a higher standard of living for those in developing countries.
One of the ironies of the recent success of India and China is the fear that... success in these two
countries comes at the expense of the United States. These fears are fundamentally wrong and,
even worse, dangerous. They are wrong because the world is not a zero-sum struggle... but rather
is a positive-sum opportunity in which improving technologies and skills can raise living
standards around the world.

Libertarians and other proponents of laissez-faire capitalism say that higher degrees of
political and economic freedom in the form of democracy and capitalism in the
developed world are ends in themselves and also produce higher levels of material
wealth. They see globalization as the beneficial spread of liberty and capitalism. [15]

Supporters of democratic globalization are sometimes called pro-globalists. They believe

that the first phase of globalization, which was market-oriented, should be followed by a
phase of building global political institutions representing the will of world citizens. The
difference from other globalists is that they do not define in advance any ideology to
orient this will, but would leave it to the free choice of those citizens via a democratic
process[citation needed].

Some, such as Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., simply view globalization as inevitable and
advocate creating institutions such as a directly-elected United Nations Parliamentary
Assembly to exercise oversight over unelected international bodies.

Supporters of globalization argue that the anti-globalization movement uses anecdotal

evidence[citation needed] to support their protectionist view, whereas worldwide statistics
strongly support globalization:

• From 1981 to 2001, according to World Bank figures, the number of people living
on $1 a day or less declined from 1.5 billion to 1.1 billion in absolute terms. At
the same time, the world population increased, so in percentage terms the number
of such people in developing nations declined from 40% to 20% of the
population. with the greatest improvements occurring in economies rapidly
reducing barriers to trade and investment; yet, some critics argue that more
detailed variables measuring poverty should be studied instead
• The percentage of people living on less than $2 a day has decreased greatly in
areas effected by globalization, whereas poverty rates in other areas have
remained largely stagnant. In East-Asia, including China, the percentage has
decreased by 50.1% compared to a 2.2% increase in Sub-Saharan Africa

Percentag
Demographi
Area 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 e Change
c
1981-2002
 Less than $1
57.7% 38.9% 28.0% 29.6% 24.9% 16.6% 15.7% 11.1% -80.76%
East a day
Asia
and
Pacific Less than $2
84.8% 76.6% 67.7% 69.9% 64.8% 53.3% 50.3% 40.7% -52.00%
a day

Less than $1
9.7% 11.8% 10.9% 11.3% 11.3% 10.7% 10.5% 8.9% -8.25%
a day
Latin
Americ
a
Less than $2
29.6% 30.4% 27.8% 28.4% 29.5% 24.1% 25.1% 23.4% -29.94%
a day

Less than $1
41.6% 46.3% 46.8% 44.6% 44.0% 45.6% 45.7% 44.0% +5.77%
Sub- a day
Sahara
n
Africa Less than $2
73.3% 76.1% 76.1% 75.0% 74.6% 75.1% 76.1% 74.9% +2.18%
a day

'SOURCE: World Bank, Poverty Estimates, 2002

• Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing. Due to definitional

issues and data availability, there is disagreement with regards to the pace of the
decline in extreme poverty. Income inequality for the world as a whole is
diminishing As noted below, there are others disputing this. The economist Xavier
Sala-i-Martin in a 2007 analysis argues that this is incorrect, income inequality for
the world as a whole has diminished. Regardless of who is right about the past
trend in income inequality, is has been argued that improving absolute poverty is
more important than relative inequality.
• Life expectancy has almost doubled in the developing world since World War II
and is starting to close the gap between itself and the developed world where the
improvement has been smaller. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, the least developed
 region, life expectancy increased from 30 years before World War II to about a
peak of about 50 years before the AIDS pandemic and other diseases started to
force it down to the current level of 47 years. Infant mortality has decreased in
every developing region of the world.
• Democracy has increased dramatically from there being almost no nations with
universal suffrage in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations having it in 2000.
• Feminism has made advances in areas such as Bangladesh through providing
women with jobs and economic safety.
• The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food
supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from
56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s.
• Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world.
Women made up much of the gap: female literacy as a percentage of male literacy
has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in 2000.
• The percentage of children in the labor force has fallen from 24% in 1960 to 10%
in 2000.
• There are similar increasing trends toward electric power, cars, radios, and
telephones per capita, as well as a growing proportion of the population with
access to clean water.
• The book The Improving State of the World also finds evidence for that these, and
other, measures of human well-being has improved and that globalization is part
of the explanation. It also responds to arguments that environmental impact will
limit the progress.

Although critics of globalization complain of Westernization, a 2005 UNESCO

reportshowed that cultural exchange is becoming mutual. In 2002, China was the third
largest exporter of cultural goods, after the UK and US. Between 1994 and 2002, both
North America's and the European Union's shares of cultural exports declined, while
Asia's cultural exports grew to surpass North America.

Social

International Social Forums

See main articles: European Social Forum, the Asian Social Forum, World Social Forum
(WSF).

The first WSF was an initiative of the administration of Porto Alegre in Brazil.

The slogan of the World Social Forum was "Another World Is Possible". It was here that
the WSF's Charter of Principles was adopted to provide a framework for the forums.

The WSF became a periodic meeting: in 2002 and 2003 it was held again in Porto Alegre
and became a rallying point for worldwide protest against the American invasion of Iraq.
In 2004 it was moved to Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay, in India), to make it more
accessible to the populations of Asia and Africa. This last appointment saw the
participation of 75,000 delegates.

In the meantime, regional forums took place following the example of the WSF, adopting
its Charter of Principles. The first European Social Forum (ESF) was held in November
2002 in Florence. The slogan was "Against the war, against racism and against neo-
liberalism". It saw the participation of 60,000 delegates and ended with a huge
demonstration against the war (1,000,000 people according to the organizers). The other
two ESFs took place in Paris and London, in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

Recently there has been some discussion behind the movement about the role of the
social forums. Some see them as a "popular university", an occasion to make many
people aware of the problems of globalization. Others would prefer that delegates
concentrate their efforts on the coordination and organization of the movement and on the
planning of new campaigns. However it has often been argued that in the dominated
countries (most of the world) the WSF is little more than an 'NGO fair' driven by
Northern NGOs and donors most of which are hostile to popular movements of the poor.

Anti-globalization (mundialism)
Main article: Anti-globalization

Anti-globalization is a pejorative term used to describe the political stance of people and
groups who oppose the neoliberal version of globalization.

“Anti-globalization" may involve the process or actions taken by a state in order to

demonstrate its sovereignty and practice democratic decision-making. Anti-globalization
may occur in order to put brakes on the international transfer of people, goods and
ideology, particularly those determined by the organizations such as the IMF or the WTO
in imposing the radical deregulation program of free market fundamentalism on local
governments and populations. Moreover, as Canadian journalist Naomi Klein argues in
her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (also subtitled No Space, No Choice,
No Jobs) anti-globalism can denote either a single social movement or an umbrella term
that encompasses a number of separate social movements [29] such as nationalists and
socialists. In either case, participants stand in opposition to the unregulated political
power of large, multi-national corporations, as the corporations exercise power through
leveraging trade agreements which damage in some instances the democratic rights of
citizens, the environment particularly air quality index and rain forests, as well as
national governments sovereignty to determine labor rights including the right to
unionize for better pay, and better working conditions, or laws as they may otherwise
infringe on cultural practices and traditions of developing countries.

Most people who are labeled "anti-globalization" consider the term to be too vague and
inaccurate Podobnik states that "the vast majority of groups that participate in these
protests draw on international networks of support, and they generally call for forms of
globalization that enhance democratic representation, human rights, and egalitarianism."
Stiglitz, Joseph and Andrew Charlton write:

The anti-globalization movement developed in opposition to the perceived

“ negative aspects of globalization. The term 'anti-globalization' is in many
ways a misnomer, since the group represents a wide range of interests and
issues and many of the people involved in the anti-globalization movement
do support closer ties between the various peoples and cultures of the world
through, for example, aid, assistance for refugees, and global environmental
issues. ”
Members aligned with this viewpoint prefer instead to describe themselves as the Global
Justice Movement, the Anti-Corporate-Globalization Movement, the Movement of
Movements (a popular term in Italy), the "Alter-globalization" movement (popular in
France), the "Counter-Globalization" movement, and a number of other terms.

Critiques of the current wave of economic globalization typically look at both the damage
to the planet, in terms of the perceived unsustainable harm done to the biosphere, as well
as the perceived human costs, such as increased poverty, inequality, miscegenation,
injustice and the erosion of traditional culture which, the critics contend, all occur as a
result of the economic transformations related to globalization. They challenge directly
the metrics, such as GDP, used to measure progress promulgated by institutions such as
the World Bank, and look to other measures, such as the Happy Planet Index, created by
the New Economics Foundation. They point to a "multitude of interconnected fatal
consequences--social disintegration, a breakdown of democracy, more rapid and
extensive deterioration of the environment, the spread of new diseases, increasing
poverty and alienation

which they claim are the unintended but very real consequences of globalization.

Critics argue that:

•
o Poorer countries are sometimes at disadvantage: While it is true that
globalization encourages free trade among countries on an international
level, there are also negative consequences because some countries try to
save their national markets. The main export of poorer countries is usually
agricultural goods. It is difficult for these countries to compete with
stronger countries that subsidize their own farmers. Because the farmers in
the poorer countries cannot compete, they are forced to sell their crops at
much lower price than what the market is paying.
o Exploitation of foreign impoverished workers: The deterioration of
protections for weaker nations by stronger industrialized powers has
resulted in the exploitation of the people in those nations to become cheap
labor. Due to the lack of protections, companies from powerful
industrialized nations are able to offer workers enough salary to entice
 them to endure extremely long hours and unsafe working conditions. The
abundance of cheap labor is giving the countries in power incentive not to
rectify the inequality between nations. If these nations developed into
industrialized nations, the army of cheap labor would slowly disappear
alongside development. With the world in this current state, it is
impossible for the exploited workers to escape poverty. It is true that the
workers are free to leave their jobs, but in many poorer countries, this
would mean starvation for the worker, and possible even his/her family.
o The shift to service work: The low cost of offshore workers have enticed
corporations to move production to foreign countries. The laid off
unskilled workers are forced into the service sector where wages and
benefits are low, but turnover is high. This has contributed to the widening
economic gap between skilled and unskilled workers. The loss of these
jobs has also contributed greatly to the slow decline of the middle class
which is a major factor in the increasing economic inequality in the United
States. Families that were once part of the middle class are forced into
lower positions by massive layoffs and outsourcing to another country.
This also means that people in the lower class have a much harder time
climbing out of poverty because of the absence of the middle class as a
stepping stone.
o Weak labor unions: The surplus in cheap labor coupled with an ever
growing number of companies in transition has caused a weakening of
labor unions in the United States. Unions lose their effectiveness when
their membership begins to decline. As a result unions hold less power
over corporations that are able to easily replace workers, often for lower
wages, and have the option to not offer unionized jobs anymore.
o In December 2007, World Bank economist Branko Milanovichas called
much previous empirical research on global poverty and inequality into
question because, according to him, improved estimates of purchasing
power parity indicate that developing countries are worse off than
previously believed. Milanovic remarks that "literally hundreds of
scholarly papers on convergence or divergence of countries’ incomes have
been published in the last decade based on what we know now were faulty
numbers. With the new data, economists will revise calculations and
possibly reach new conclusions" moreover noting that "implications for
the estimates of global inequality and poverty are enormous. The new
numbers show global inequality to be significantly greater than even the
most pessimistic authors had thought. Until the last month, global
inequality, or difference in real incomes between all individuals of the
world, was estimated at around 65 Gini points – with 100 denoting
complete inequality and 0 denoting total equality, with everybody’s
income the same – a level of inequality somewhat higher than that of
South Africa. But the new numbers show global inequality to be 70 Gini
points – a level of inequality never recorded anywhere."
The critics of globalization typically emphasize that globalization is a process that is
mediated according to corporate interests, and typically raise the possibility of alternative
global institutions and policies, which they believe address the moral claims of poor and
working classes throughout the globe, as well as environmental concerns in a more
equitable way. The movement is very broad, including church groups, national liberation
factions, peasant unionists, intellectuals, artists, protectionists, anarchists, those in
support of relocalization and others. Some are reformist, (arguing for a more humane
form of capitalism) while others are more revolutionary (arguing for what they believe is
a more humane system than capitalism) and others are reactionary, believing
globalization destroys national industry and jobs.

One of the key points made by critics of recent economic globalization is that income
inequality, both between and within nations, is increasing as a result of these processes.
One article from 2001 found that significantly, in 7 out of 8 metrics, income inequality
has increased in the twenty years ending 2001. Also, "incomes in the lower deciles of
world income distribution have probably fallen absolutely since the 1980s". Furthermore,
the World Bank's figures on absolute poverty were challenged. The article was skeptical
of the World Bank's claim that the number of people living on less than $1 a day has held
steady at 1.2 billion from 1987 to 1998, because of biased methodology.

A chart that gave the inequality a very visible and comprehensible form, the so-called
'champagne glass' effect, was contained in the 1992 United Nations Development
Program Report, which showed the distribution of global income to be very uneven, with
the richest 20% of the world's population controlling 82.7% of the world's income

+ Distribution of world GDP, 1989

Quintile of Population Income

Richest 20% 82.7%

Second 20% 11.7%

Third 20% 2.3%

Fourth 20% 1.4%

Poorest 20% 1.2%

SOURCE: United Nations Development Program. 1992 Human Development

Economic arguments by fair trade theorists claim that unrestricted free trade benefits
those with more financial leverage (i.e. the rich) at the expense of the poor.

Americanization related to a period of high political American clout and of significant

growth of America's shops, markets and object being brought into other countries. So
globalization, a much more diversified phenomenon, relates to a multilateral political
world and to the increase of objects, markets and so on into each others countries.

Some opponents of globalization see the phenomenon as the promotion of corporatist

interests They also claim that the increasing autonomy and strength of corporate entities
shapes the political policy of countries.