Globalization

By Sarah Davis
Global Studies
Nick Longo
10/4/11

2
Davis
McDonalds taught me about globalization. I was a sophomore in high school
when our school went on a European trip to Barcelona, Paris, and Province for spring
break. My best friend and I were walking the streets of Barcelona at night when we
decided that we were hungry and wanted to eat, so we ran into a McDonalds. This
McDonalds was nothing like the ones in America. It was fancy, and clean. The table was
inviting to sit in, and we could see TVs from every angle. The menu was even different, it
had shrimp on it, but the thing that caught my eye was the magnum ice cream mcflurry. It
was delicious with dark chocolate and brownie chunks. I just wish that the McDonalds
back in the United States would have this. Two years later as a senior in high school, I
was watching TV one day when I came home from school, and there it was. A
commercial for Magnum ice cream, I was so shocked. I thought Magnum was just a
European thing, but now it was accessible to get here in the states. This was my first
experience with globalization. It did not have a big impact on me because it was only
something as small as ice cream. I was excited to have it in my house but other than that
my life was the same. I guess the only down side is that it is not anything special to me
anymore. It is just ice cream, it is not that delicious flavor that I dream about or plan trip
to go to Europe just to get that ice cream. It is now just a common ice cream like any
other here in the states. Like my experience with ice cream, globalization has its benefits,
but it also has its disadvantages.
Globalization effects more than food, it effect from politics to technology. One
definition of globalization is the idea of Cosmopolitan, belonging to all parts of the
world; not restricted to anyone country or its inhabitants. ( Tarrow,40). Just like my
globalization experience, today everything is accessible. With globalization is the process

3
Davis
of becoming single world society (Croucher,10). Globalization is the idea of fugitively
reducing the distance from each country, pulling the countries close together making one
big country. Today nation states have already lost their role as meaningful units of
participation in the global economy of todays borderless world ( Ohmae,223).
Globalization is everyone belonging to one nation, rather then identifying themselves
with their own nation state.
Globalization is not a new concept, it has been positive transforming the world for
hundred of years. For instance, trade did not exist between countries, The East India
Company was the first main trading company. They used sea route to connect countries.
This would be an advantage of globalization. Today because of our trade agreement with
Mexico, we are able to have banana all season long. We are not limited to what the
United States can offer because of globalization.
Technology is probably one of the best examples of the good accomplishment that
came from globalization. It all started with Alexander Graham Bells invention of the
telephone, which later on led to face time via cell phone. The invention of the cell phone
allows people to always be able to keep in contact, no matter what time, where they are,
and what they are doing. We will never be out of touch with anyone. We are constantly
able to stay connected with people, even if they are half way across the world. We started
out with letters as only way of communication, until Alexander Graham Bell and now we
have cell phone, lightning fast text messages and emails, and Skype or face time. With
the invention of face time and Skype we are able to see the persons face and the
environment that they are in.

4
Davis
There are more complex and important things that globalization has an effect on such
as politics. Globalization has allowed for the spread of democracy, and human rights
universally. For example, we see that more and more countries are giving equal rights to
women and that women are now getting educated in countries that before ignored and
overlooked them. America can share their ideals of democracy a government of the
people, for the people, by the people with other countries that have an absolute power.
Globalization does not only affect technology and politics, but our culture as well.
Inventions arent the only form of spreading globalization, we as people help spread
globalization Social and cultural globalism involves the movement of ideas,
information, images and people (who, of course, carry ideas and information with
them)( Keohane, 107). Technology enable cultural interaction like Pandora, a music
website that allows us to just listen to music from any culture such as Latin America and
Asia. Also we are able to socialize with people in other countries, which decreased
ignorance. With this communication we are becoming knowledgeable about the world
and less sheltered by our own cultures views. People are not staying static, which allows
globalization to spread religion, originally most Muslims where from the Middle East,
but now we can find a Muslim in every country. Americans can now learn about
Muslims religion and are influenced by it too.
Globalization also has a positive effect on the economy. With globalization, business
and markets have expanded. We are now able to sell our goods to any country, like China.
With foreign investment we can create more jobs for people, especially in third world
countries, where jobs are limited. Economic integration raised the prices for the
products of poor farmersrice, fish, cashewsand also created large numbers of factory

5
Davis
jobs in footwear and garments, jobs that paid a lot more than existing opportunities in
Vietnam (http://youthink.worldbank.org/issues/globalization/). Globalization effects
business to where they are more likely to create new jobs in other countries such as
Vietnam.
Globalization is the biggest contributor to our life style today. Without globalization we
would have no cell phones, no knowledge of other religions and culture, and we could
not show the other countries of our way of ruling and vice versa. Globalization helps
create jobs in the world, improve goods in other counties, and increase the standard of
living in underdeveloped and developing countries.
Globalization does have its advantages but, as anything in the world, it also has its
disadvantages. For example globalization has help to expand the economy, but it has also
hurt small business. Globalization makes it easy for big corporations to take out small
businesses. Berry a economic critic said in his Conserving Communities Would we
rather support one large enterprise or many small ones? And they have chosen the large
over small (Berry, 2). Globalization has made it harder for small business owner to
compete with large corporation. The large corporations can produce twice as much as
they can and do it for half the price. Big business take as much value as they can take,
cheaply, and as quickly as they can take it. They are interested in job creation only so
long as the jobs can be done more cheaply by humans than by machines (Berry,2). In
Food Inc. we saw big food corporations like Prude and Tyson treat their animals worse
than people treated slaves before the civil war. They feed their animals cheap materials
that make them grow bigger, which sometime causes bacteria in the animal that they feed
us. They do not want to waste any space, so they put as many animals as they can in one

6
Davis
room, even if that eliminates walking area. For example they put the cows in the cows
hut so tight that none of them can move, which means they are standing in high amounts
of manure which could ended up on the meat we eat at some point. Big corporations
such as Purdue and Tyson believe that a farm or forest is or ought to be the same as a
factory (Berry, 2). The large business over looks the ethical impaction of globalization.
Globalization is not just exploiting animals but also countries and people.
Globalization allows for exploitation like in, the movie Even the Rain where the actor
only got paid two dollars. This leads to globalization allowing major company out source
it works, cause a decrees number of jobs here in the States. One of the main fears of
Globalization today is that the globalization is allowing the wealthy to become more
wealthy and dominant, while the poor is taken advantage of. Globalization is allowing
American to become ignorant to the basic of interacting with one another.
Globalization has lead to some cultural extinction, especially when it comes to
languages. When Christopher Columbus set sail and met the Native Americans, he
allowed the their language to be replaced by English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Today, immigrants do not get to study their language in the public school system here in
the United States unless it is offered as an elective class. The immigrants will learn in the
country primary language, which will lead him to losing his knowledge of his native
language. Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say,
nearly half are in danger of extinction and likely to disappear in this century (Wilford,1).
One example of language extinction is the Adai people. These were the first people in
North America to experience European contact, but now their language is gone. Another
example is the Chicomuceltec language, for all the living native speakers had died

7
Davis
between 1970s-1980s. The living Chicomuceltec people now converse in Spanish. The
dominant languages today that are most likely to replace all other native languages are
English, Spanish and Chinese. Language allows us to be different from one another,
giving us a unique quality, but with globalization we could all lose that unique quality
and all speak the same three languages.
While there have been many social benefit because of globalization there has also been
huge social negative effect because of globalization. We no longer have to interact in
person; we have the option of text messaging, facebook, Skype, and emails. Some people
might think this a great, but we have just become ignorant to social interaction. My
generation will not know how to hold a proper interview. We lose the physical interaction
with people; I can be talking to my friend all day without ever seeing her or hearing her
voice. We are able to know what someone is doing even if they did not tell us, because of
facebook. Generations to come will not know how to interact with other if it is not
through technology; we have lost the basic knowledge of interaction.
McDonalds did not teach me all the effects of globalization. Globalization is inevitable
it cannot be stopped. Globalization has an effect on everyone life. There are both positive
and negative effects to globalization, and with it being inevitable is globalization more
helpful or hurtful?

8
Davis

Bibliography
Berry, Wendell. Another Turn of the Crank: Essays. Washington,
DC: Counterpoint, 1995. Print.
Croucher, Sheila L. Globalisation and Belonging. Oxford UK: Rowman & Littlefield.,
2004. Print.
Friedman, Thomas L. "It's a Flat World After All." Nytimes.com. New York
Times, 3 Apr. 2005. Web.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03DOMINANCE.html>.
http://youthink.worldbank.org/issues/globalization/
Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph S. Nye Jr. "Globalization: What's New? What's Not?
(And so What?)." Foreign Policy (2000): 104-19. Print.
mae, Kenichi. The End of the Nation State: the Rise of Regional Economies. New
York: Free, 1995. Print.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. Making Globalization Work. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2006.
Print.
Tarrow, Sidney G. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.
Print.
Wilford, John N. "Languages Die, but Not Their Last Words." Nytimes.com. New
York Times, 17 Sept. 2007. Web.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/science/19language.html?sq=Extinct
%20languages&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1317656986VGzr5rclXAvuO6IqawuQtQ>

9
Davis