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THE ORIGINS OF GLOBALIZATION

GLOBALIZATION AND COMPETITIVENESS


Author: Julio César Botero Robayo/ Translation and update: Johana Paola Hoyos
INDEX

1. THE ORIGINS OF GLOBALIZATION

2. MAIN EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF GLOBALIZATION

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THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT
“A lot of people, including business leaders,
think the future belongs to China. Globalization
is not a zero-sum game, but we need to hone
our skills to stay in play”.
Jon Meacha

Figure 1. Business man

Source: Ximagination (s.f)

To study the history of globalization can become as extensive as to study the history of humanity.
As well as all the issues of human interaction fit into globalization, tracking the exact moment in
human history where it all started is really complex.
Different authors suggest different beginning of the process we call globalization. Some of them
argue that it all begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism as an economic
system. Others argue that the origins of globalization coincide with the creation of inter-
governmental organizations such as the Organization of the United Nations, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Some people go further back in history and suggest that the beginnings of globalization are
related to world trade and the first multinational corporation, or even further back and present
the discovery of America as the beginning of the process. Others, more daring, present the Silk
Road as the first global interaction, and a few think that since men get out of Africa we can talk
about globalization.
The events of the previous paragraph, are all valid. This is not to discredit the studies that have
been done and from which we have learned a lot and serve as the basis and complement in the
study of globalization. The purpose of this primer is to review the highlights in the history of
globalization and frame the process within a suitable period for the study of the subject without
forgetting elements of the past that will be revisited later to explain particular situations specific
locations.

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1. THE ORIGINS OF GLOBALIZATION
As for the origins of globalization, it is necessary to make a conceptual clarification: to consider
the origins of the process as such and the origins of the term within economic theory. That is, to
study the origins of globalization have two main strands: on the one hand, studying the origins of
the concept of globalization, it means, what time people began to talk about it? On the other
hand, studying the history when the process of interaction that transcends national barriers
began.
First, the origins of the term globalization as a process that we understand today, date back to
the end of the 1960s. In 1967, the Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan published the book
"The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man "(1962). In that text, McLuhan
introduced the term by first time, Global Village, which refers to how the world has been reduced
by extension to be almost like a village, the above thanks to technological advances in
telecommunications. Thanks to McLuhan, the term globalization was put in the international
debate.
Once clarified the point in history when it begins to speak of globalization as such, it is necessary
to check on what time begins the process of globalization as such? From the definition given in
the first primer in which globalization is an increase in human activities beyond national borders,
we have as starting point nation-states.
While there are elements within the history that have been of vital importance to the entire
globe, it is necessary to restrict our analysis to the rigor the study merits. Therefore, globalization
cannot be a prior event to the creation of national states, which originated in the year 1648 with
the Peace of Westphalia, first diplomatic congress of all history and landmark founder of the
Nation State.

2. MAIN EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF GLOBALIZATION


Here there will be presented the most important elements in history that have led or contributed
to the state of globalization today. The Silk Road can be considered as the first global trading
history. From 206 BC can be traced elements related to trade of the precious and delicate textiles
made in China and distributed by merchants throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.

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Figure 2. The Silk Road

Source: Sunyuan007 (s.f)

The global development is in a kind of historical pause while gestating national struggles, religious
persecution and the development of economies within the same.in the year 1492 the arrival of
Christopher Columbus to a new continent, this without being aware of what was happening,
trade and global relations revitalizes. European powers begin a process of accumulation of wealth
at the expense of the exploitation of the same in its overseas colonies.

Figure 3. Christopher Columbus:

Source: Neftali77 (1992)

The inter-oceanic trade of spices, food, weapons, ammunition, animals, and even people, allowed
crowns as Spain, England, Portugal and France, to position as the powers in political military and
economic matters for about the next five hundred years. The same way was also the source of
one of the phenomena that we will study later:
In the context of trade between the metropolis and its colonies, it was founded in 1602 the Dutch
East India Company, VOC for its acronym in Dutch, better known as the Dutch East India Trading

GLOBALIZATION AND COMPETITIVENESS 5


Company. Reading its bombastic name may seem alien in the first instance, but those who saw
the adventure saga Pirates of the Caribbean, will remember it as the merchant company around
which the story revolves. Taking up the theme, the importance of VOC is that it was the first
multinational company.

Figure 4. VOC flag

Source: Chelovek (s.f)

Employing more than one million Europeans, it had a fleet of about five thousand ships. While it
was a Dutch company and employed people from across Europe, its headquarters was in Jakarta,
Indonesia, from which the most important logistics operations were organized until then.
Two centuries later came the first of the innovations in technology shaping the currently world,
the invention of the steam engine in the eighteenth century. With the development of the steam
engine of Mr. James Watt, it was not only the industrial revolution, which displaced the labor of
thousands of people for the implementation of the first machines in British industries, but also by
implementing propulsion steam engine on merchant ships, transport times between continents
was considerably reduced.

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Figure 5. Steam locomotive Figure 6. Steam engine

Source: Jan Gorzynik (s.f) Source: Skdesign (s.f )

Another consequence of the Industrial Revolution has to do with the accumulation of wealth in
the northern hemisphere. In the seventeenth century, the relationship of the most industrialized
nation with the least was no more than 3 to 1. After the industrial revolution, the most developed
nation in economic terms boasts a wealth thousand times higher than the world's poorest
nations.
The gap between rich and poor is presented for the first time between countries and this
coincides geographically. North of the planet with industrialization became the center of
production while the south of the world with natural resources, was supplier of raw materials.
It comes the nineteenth century and with it the electricity. In 1830, Pavel Schilling, dissociated
from the wires the electrical impulses and invented the telegraph. This was a milestone key in
currently globalization as it is the first time that communications are detached from the means of
transport. Previously, the mail depended on postmen, bicycles, horses and boats. Now, with the
invention of telecommunications, times to send messages and receive responses they are
reduced to moments

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Figure 7. Telegraph
Source: Jiri Vaclavek (s.f)

During 1914 and 1945 the world has experienced the worst horrors, the two world wars. The
scope of these events was brutal, both wars, especially the second, covered the world with its
shadow. However, the military advances especially in terms of logistics and technological
developments were very important for humanity.

Figure 8. Worl War I Figure 9. Worl War II

Source: Stuart Miles (s.f) Source: Stuart Miles (s.f)

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The most important contribution of wars has been its end and with it the creation of
supranational institutions that seek to regulate international interactions under the principles of
peace and brotherhood.
With the end of World War II, in 1946 the Allies, led by the United States, the United Kingdom,
France, China and the Soviet Union met in San Francisco to create an institution responsible for
managing world peace. The United Nations Organization

Figure 10. The United Nations Organization

Source: PaylessImages (s.f)

While the United Nations is not a government of governments; it is a forum in which


representatives of the states of the world gather to present their interests, goals, and ideals. It is
also a space in which the differences between each other are presented and through different
mechanisms, try to solve them.
In the same year, but in the resort of Bretton Woods in New England, were formed other
institutions responsible for addressing macroeconomic, monetary and trade policies in the world:
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade GATT, now WTO, World Trade Organization. A milestone for globalization because, for the
first time was presented a set of rules and recommendations standardized in the world for
countries to work all to achieve common objectives, growth and economic development, through
the same path, liberal capitalism.

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Figure 11. GATT Figure 12. IMF

Source: Rook76 (1986) Source: Andrej Kaprinay, Ing. (s.f)

In 1967, the Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan published the book The Gutenberg Galaxy:
The Making of Typographic Man (1962). In that text, McLuhan first introduced the term, Global
Village, which refers to how the world has been reduced by extension to be almost like a village
thanks to technological advances in telecommunications. Thanks to McLuhan, the term
globalization was put in the international debate.

Figure 13. Globalization concept

Source: Maksim Kabakou (s.f)

Arriving the 70s and an American company invented one of the most innovative elements in
telecommunications, the microprocessor. With the microprocessor, Intel's contribution in 1971
allowed people in the world to access computer equipment in their homes. The global
information network came to life.

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Figure 14. microprocessor

Source: Yra1105 (s.f)

Two years later, in 1973, a group of countries protest for the support of Western powers, mainly
the United States to the state of Israel, and cancel oil production. The Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Figure 15. OPEC

Source: Olekcii Mach (s.f)

They led the first energy crisis globally by putting two present elements: first, the power is
questioned so far Western hegemonies to unveil its dependence on oil; on secondly the world
perceives the need to start thinking of alternative sources of energy for industry.
From this need, and after the first signs of detriment in the atmosphere and the ozone layer, in
1979 the first World Climate Conference was held. In that space, it becomes aware that the world
has no borders, that the events that happen in every corner of the planet will have repercussions
throughout the globe. In addition, surges, making use of information technology and
telecommunications, an international movement of social and environmental activism, Green
peace.

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Figure 16. World Climate

Source: Vaclav Volrab (s.f)

“January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet. Prior to this, the various
computer networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other. A new
communications protocol was established called Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol
(TCP/IP). This allowed different kinds of computers on different networks to "talk" to each other.
ARPANET and the Defense Data Network officially changed to the TCP/IP standard on January 1,
1983, hence the birth of the Internet. All networks could now be connected by a universal
language”. (Online Library Learning Center, 2016)

Figure 17. Internet

Source: Macrovector (s.f)

In 1989, after ten years have waged a war in Afghanistan, wear inside the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union is noticeable. On November 9th of the same year, the armed guards on the wall that

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divided Berlin abandoned their guard post. The Germans using their own hands tear down the
wall that separated them from each other for more than three decades .The fall of the Berlin
Wall, mark the end of an era of tensions between East and West, between communism and
capitalism.

Figure 18. Berlin wall fall

Source: Neftali77 (1990)

While it was not until 1990 that the Soviet Union is dismantled, the moment was recorded in the
depths of the universal memory as the end of the Cold War, Berliners were tearing down the huge
wall. At that time, capitalism and liberal democracies are the economic and political systems that
shape the today's world. As the successor of GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade,
in Montevideo, in the Uruguay Round the World Trade Organization is created.

GLOBALIZATION AND COMPETITIVENESS 13


Figure 19. World Trade Organization

Source: Yuriy2design (s.f)

At the end of the millennium, in 1999 a group of activists founded the first anti-globalization
movement. In this case, there is a paradox: The anti-globalization movement is one of the most
globalized elements today, in addition of using all elements of both cause and consequences of
globalization, as its platform for interaction.

Figure 20. Anti-globalization movement

Source: Radiantskies (s.f)

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Reaches 2000, a new millennium and a new century began with an event that no one imagined,
not even the writers of science fiction thought that could happen the events on the morning of
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 in New York City. The world became more insecure place and a
"global crusade" was deployed against terrorism. Advances in security were undermined by a
scheme similar to the age of terror, but now the enemy could be anywhere on the globe.

Figure 21. No terrorism

Source: Ostapenko (s.f)

In 2009, an unprecedented crisis keeps on tenterhooks citizens of the world, generating more
panic than the same financial crisis since the real estate bubble occurred in the United States. A
global pandemic, Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 threatened to end the lives of thousands of
people around the world. Again, interdependence in trade and high interaction of people with
the increased travel around the world, meaning that globalization threatens a citizen of the world.

GLOBALIZATION AND COMPETITIVENESS 15


GLOSSARY

TERM DEFINITION

ACCELERATED Speeded up, as of an academic course

The new-found affluence of the young workers in the IT sector has in


turn changed attitudes to wealth and consumption in India - with
ABUNDANT WEALTH
educated young people for the first time being able to afford such
luxuries as motor cars and home ownership.

CONSUMPTION The act of using something up

Come out into view, as from concealment emerging market


EMERGE
countries like India and China.

ECONOMIC GROWTH Steady growth in the productive capacity of the economy

All institutions and procedures for bringing buyers and sellers of


FINANCIAL MARKETS
financial instruments together

INFLATION The act of filling something with air

1. The objects of commerce; whatever is usually bought or sold in


trade, or market, or by merchants; wares; goods; commodities.
MERCHANDISE Spenser.
2. The act or business of trading; trade; traffic.

Anything that is generally accepted as a standard of value and a


MONETARY SYSTEM
measure of wealth in a particular country or region

MULTIDIMENSIONAL having or involving or marked by several dimensions or aspects

MULTINATIONAL Involving or operating in several nations or nationalities

OUTSOURCE Obtain goods or services from an outside supplier

An exchange where security trading is conducted by professional


STOCK MARKET
stockbrokers

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Positive changes in economy and society, giving a quality of life for
SUSTAINABLE
individuals without compromising the ability of future generations
DEVELOPMENT
to also have a good quality of life.

TARIFF A government tax on imports or exports

TRADE BARRIER Any regulation or policy that restricts international trade

An international organization based in Geneva that monitors and


WTO
enforces rules governing global trade

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Meacham, J. (2016, August 08). Brainyquote. Retrieved from


http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jon_meacham.html
Online Library Learning Center. (2016, August 09). Online Library Learning Center. Retrieved from
A Brief History of the Internet: http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_02.phtml

FIGURES

Ximagination (s.f) Hombre de negocios asiático mirando inteligente con los vidrios que sostienen
un globo en la oficina [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
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sunyuan007 (s.f). camello en la ruta de la seda [Foto de archivo]Recuperado de


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riSearch=43907410&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=49675859

Neftali77 (1992) CUBA - CIRCA 1992: Un sello impreso en Cuba muestra que el buque fragata de
Cristóbal Colón, [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=10748640&imgtype=0&t_word=10748640&t_lang=es&o
riSearch=49675859&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=10748640

Chelovek (s.f) Bandera de los Dutch East India Company. De Cerca.[Foto de archivo] Recuperado
de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=VOC+bandera&imgtype=0&t_word=voc+flag&t_lang=es
&oriSearch=VOC&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&sti=m2gddsexa2pzxh5pdd|&mediapopup=334276
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Jan Gorzynik (s.f) histórico tren a vapor pasa a través de los campos [Foto de archivo] Recuperado
de

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http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=15255168+++&imgtype=0&t_word=15255168&t_lang=e
s&oriSearch=3427643&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=15255168

Skdesign (s.f ) Cierre de rojo texto MOTOR DE VAPOR en el Tag Centro de nube de la palabra en
el fondo blanco. [Foto de archivo]Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=33999185&imgtype=0&t_word=33999185&t_lang=es&o
riSearch=15255168+++&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=33999185

Jiri Vaclavek (s.f) muy antiguo telégrafo aislado en el fondo blanco [Foto de archivo] Recuperado
de
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riSearch=33999185&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=12320196

Stuart Miles (s.f) Primera Guerra Mundial Significado acción militar y Globalise [Foto de archivo]
Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=47454272+&imgtype=0&t_word=47454272&t_lang=es&
oriSearch=12320196&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=47454272

Stuart Miles(s.f) Segunda Guerra Mundial Significado acción militar y Globalize [Foto de archivo]
Recuperado de
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PaylessImages (s.f) Bandera de las Naciones Unidas [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de


http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=46201290&imgtype=0&t_word=46201290&t_lang=es&o
riSearch=47454329&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=46201290

Rook76 (1986) URUGUAY - CIRCA 1986: sello impreso por Uruguay, demuestra Acuerdo General
sobre Aranceles Aduaneros y Comercio de la reunión del Comité, Punta del Este [Foto de
archivo]Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=14756541+&imgtype=0&t_word=14756541&t_lang=es&
oriSearch=46201290&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=14756541

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Andrej Kaprinay, Ing. (s.f) FMI - Fondo Monetario Internacional, Banco Mundial - Render 3D [Foto
de archivo] Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=38971713+&imgtype=0&t_word=38971713&t_lang=es&
oriSearch=14756541+&orderby=0&srch_lang=es

Maksim Kabakou (s.f) Concepto de negocio: libro cerrado con la gente de negocios Negro icono y
globalización de texto en el piso, fondo blanco, 3D [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
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yra1105 (s.f) Microchips y sellos de circuito a estilo vintage [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
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riSearch=56107489&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=36930797

Olekcii Mach (s.f) concepto de la OPEP, representación 3D aislada en el fondo blanco [Foto de
archivo] Recuperado de
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Vaclav Volrab (s.f) Planeta verde con árboles en la mano. [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=36479014&imgtype=0&t_word=36479014&t_lang=es&o
riSearch=55296546&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=36479014

Macrovector (s.f) Internet de las cosas computadora y reloj teledirigido elegante iconos planos
cartel composición abstracta ilustración vectorial aislado [Vectores]Recuperado de
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riSearch=36479014&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=36520326

Neftali77 (1990) Alemania - CIRCA 1990 una postal impresa en Alemania, se dedica a la del primer
aniversario de la caída del Muro de Berlín[Foto de archivo] Recuperado de

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http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=12531826&imgtype=0&t_word=12531826&t_lang=es&o
riSearch=36520326&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=12531826

Yuriy2design (s.f) Organización Mundial del Comercio – OMC [Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=38972868+&imgtype=0&t_word=38972868&t_lang=es&
oriSearch=12531826&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=38972868

Radiantskies (s.f) Nube palabra abstracta para el movimiento anti-globalización con las etiquetas
y términos relacionados[Foto de archivo] Recuperado de
http://es.123rf.com/search.php?word=17397615&imgtype=0&t_word=17397615&t_lang=es&o
riSearch=38972868+&orderby=0&srch_lang=es&mediapopup=17397615

Ostapenko (s.f) Sin el terrorismo. Detener el terror firmar contra el terrorismo insignia de
campaña en el mapa mundial. Piso 3d ilustración [Vectores] Recuperado de
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COMPLEMENTARY SOURCES

LANG, M. (2011). Globalization and Global History in Toynbee. Journal of World History, 22(4),
747-783.
http://loginbiblio.poligran.edu.co:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc
t=true&db=aph&AN=67497334&site=ehost-live

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