Pros of Globalization
• Productivity grows in countries that open up their markets and integrate with outside economies. Rich countries gain access to emerging economies. Poor countries gain access to wealthy economies where they can sell their goods and services.
• Lesser developed nations benefit from the increase in investment from foreign countries both financially and through jobs.
• The jettisoning of statist policies and their replacement by free-market policies in many Third World nations.
• The unprecedented number of nations submitting themselves to the exacting rigors and standards of the global marketplace, creating a more stable global economic system.
• Global competition and cheap imports help to keep inflation down.
• Open economies help to spur innovation and new ideas on a global level, creating an effective globalization of ideas and a revolution in information technologies.
• Through globalization, countries can specialize more in what they produce most effectively and efficiently.
• Shared financial interests mean that corporations and governments attempt to solve certain ecological problems.
• Globalization unleashes the forces of creative destruction, a process that conveys the essence of capitalism, which is the continuous change that includes improving production methods, exploring new markets, and introducing new and better products.
Cons of Globalization
• Wages and working conditions everywhere are pushed downwards as companies gravitate towards countries where there are low wages and the workers’ rights are kept to a minimum.
• The environment suffers, as production moves to places where they have less strict rules and regulations about controlling pollution, deforestation, and other environmental aspects.
• Many jobs are outsourced from more developed nations to lower wages economies, such as those in Indian and China, resulting in increased unemployment in the Western countries.
• Globalization means that economic problems in one part of the world can spread easily and create a worldwide recession.
• Many of the deals made by more economically developed nations with lesser developed countries are unfairly weighted in favor of the more developed nations. For instance, subsidies to agricultural production by the more developed nations are often kept, making the competition unfair.
• Globalization undermines national sovereignties and national governments, as individual countries become increasingly at the mercy of international markets, and multinational corporations grow more powerful and influential.
• Social welfare schemes are threatened as countries with no safety net and poor safety records undercut prices of goods and services.