Impact of globalization on a local level

Introduction

American author and anti-globalization activist Kevin Danaher stated that “The global economy works for about twenty percent of the world, for about eighty percent it doesn’t” (Chong-ghee, 2017, para. 10), where 20 percent represents the developed economies of the world. Globalization has only been favoring the nations with a strong economy such as Germany, France, and China. But for the countries with a developing economy, it has only been a source of conflict, violence, and misunderstanding. Indeed, the above statement by the American author is undoubtedly true. Globalization has been a major trend in the twenty-first century, where the majority of developed and developing nations are adopting the policy of free-trade for economic enhancement. Several developing nations like Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia are adopting the rapid trend of globalization in the hope of stabilizing their economy and uplifting their local communities (Murakami, 2018, p. 3). However, even though there are some positive effects of globalization on local communities of a developing nation, its negative consequences outweigh the positive upshots. Globalization can bring rapid waves of development in third world countries but has devastating effects on their culture, society, environment and human health that cannot be disregarded.

Background

Globalization is the influence of international trade and multinational companies on an international scale (Pologeorgis, 2019, para. 2). The primary aim of globalization is to expose the developing country on an international level and utilize their raw resources in a productive manner. Globalization has a direct impact on the country’s economy because it acts as a catalyst to magnify the export rate of a certain nation. Apart from that, it assists to uplift the social status of people by providing employment opportunities and reducing the market cost of various products which is used in daily life. Likewise, it is also considered as an effective medium to promote culture from one country to another. Globalization is the only factor that helps to spread culture, traditions, and beliefs among several different nations (Kasongo, 2010, p. 309). Promotion of various cultures and traditions, either through the internet or various other mediums, eventually leads to increased cultural understanding among people. Nevertheless, this popular concept of globalization has not been ethically adopted in several developing nations such as Somalia, Sudan, and Nigeria. Due to that factor, globalization’s serious impacts on local communities of developing nations is increasing on a daily basis. As an instance, Ibrahim (2013) provides an example of various African country like Nigeria, Kenya, and Zambia to show the negative consequences of globalization in a country’s society, economy, and manpower. Sadly, his data provided him with the conclusion that globalization has influenced the negative trends in a society like prostitution, pornography, human smuggling, and the dumping of dangerous wastes like ammonia, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda waste by several foreign-invested firms (p. 88). The majority of the high stakeholders and the public are unaware of the severity of globalization. Kasongo (2010) states that globalization has several negative effects on the local culture and traditions (p. 313). Similarly, it is also rapidly deteriorating human health and the local environment (Rafat et al., 2013, p. 384; Randhir, 2016, para. 5). Likewise, it is one of those factors which ignites violence and conflicts among the community members (Guogis, 2013, p. 7). Hence, on observing the research and data from various political scientists and professors, it can be clearly stated that the negative aspects of globalization outweigh its positive consequences on local society.

Body

Positive aspects of globalization

Globalization is one of those factors which helps to strengthen the socio-economic condition of a particular nation. There are several positive factors of globalization on GDP and HDI of a nation that is helping the local community of the various countries to prosper economically and socially. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the evaluation of a nation’s overall economic activities whereas Human Development Index (HDI) is a tool which is a systematic way of checking the nation’s level of economic achievement (Amadeo, 2019, para. 1; Kenton, 2018, para. 1). There are several positive factors of globalization on GDP and HDI of a nation that is helping the local community of the various countries to prosper economically and socially. Globalization plays an important role in poverty reduction and economic upliftment by providing several employment opportunities to the local people. It has positive effects on GDP and HDI of a particular nation (Sapkota, 2011, p. 22). According to Pannilage (2016), globalization reduces the conservative perception of people and makes them more independent and modernized. In other words, globalization helps to reduce bad practices in society. It makes people aware of several types of superstitions prevalent in local society through various technologies and media like the internet, television, and radio. Along with it, people are also made financially independent from others with the help of various employment opportunities which is generated through the process of globalization. The author of this article also presented an example from Srilanka where the typical stereotypical society had been transformed into modern sophisticated society with the influence of globalization (p. 459). In brief, globalization helps to improve the socio-economic status of the people living in local communities through various forms of employment opportunities and awareness campaigns.

The negative impact of globalization on local culture and society

However, globalization severely deteriorates the culture and traditions of local communities and creates conflict among the people. It has been weakening the culture and traditions in the African community which has greater importance in the local African society. For example, the industrial revolution in central Africa introduced western cultures as the western investments were significantly increased at that instance of time. Western cultures had a great influence among the youths of the local African society. Eventually, both the western and African cultures got mixed up which possessed a great threat on the self-identity and existence of local African culture. Eventually, African cultures began dying out which had an adverse effect on the self-identity of African nations (Kasongo, 2010, p. 313). Likewise, globalization divides society among the classes. The people with a considerable amount of wealth are considered as winners whereas the people with fewer resources are entitled losers. Guogis (2013) argues that such a division among the society members may bring out conflicts and violence between the two groups of people. For example, globalization favors people with a considerable amount of resources and wealth like landlords and industrialists. It assists them to be more wealthy with the aid of foreign investments. The rule of the government slowly favors well-off people and people living in poverty will get more exploited by the governmental rules and the so-called “upper-class”. This creates a series of misunderstanding among the two groups of people which results in a series of civil war and conflict (p. 8). Thus, globalization is responsible for devastating the local cultures and creating misunderstanding among the society members which may eventually lead to various forms of conflicts and violence.

The negative impact of globalization on human health and environment

Similarly, economic globalization is deleterious to human health and is responsible for devastating our ecosystem. As a result of increasing pollution by factories several vital resources like air, water and land are getting polluted and chemicalized. Rafat et al. (2013) state that due to this, the life expectancy of both men and women is decreasing at a rapid rate in developing countries. The authors are pointing out the fact that the average length of the life of both men and women in various developing nations are decreasing at a significant rate due to economic globalization. For instance, they conducted research on the impact of globalization on the life expectancy of both men and women. The research showed that the life expectancy of women is decreased by 0/003 units and that of men is decreased by 0/018 unit due to globalization (Rafat et al., 2013, p. 394). In addition to it, globalization has several negative consequences on the ecosystem. Water resources are getting polluted rapidly due to which several water species are in the phase of extinction (Randhir, 2016, para. 6). Similarly, the author also states that due to deforestation, there is less amount of fresh oxygen and the shelter of several wild-life is getting destroyed which is making our ecosystem more imbalanced (para. 8). To sum up, human health is being severely affected and our ecosystem is eventually getting imbalanced due to the negative consequences of economic globalization.

Discussion

Globalization has both positive and negative aspects but evaluating the research and pieces of evidence from various academic journals and professors above, it is clear that the negative aspects of globalization outweigh its positive aspects. Looking at the positive part of globalization, it can be one of the effective media for strengthening the economy of a developing country. It helps to increase the export rate and decrease the import rate which can directly strengthen the HDI and GDP of a nation. It increases the employment opportunity among the people and also reduces the price of various goods and commodities which is vital for daily life. Such trends of globalization uplift the social status of the local population and have a positive impact on local business and multinational companies. Sapkota (2011) urges that globalization is increasing the GDP of local communities of a developing nation at a rapid rate of 5%. Increase in GDP automatically uplifts the HDI since GDP itself is one of the three components of HDI (p. 15). Globalization can also be a mediator to remove various kinds of malpractices and misbeliefs from a society. It brings out sophistication and modernizes the local population through various electronic mediums such as radio, television, and the internet. Hence, globalization plays an important role in the overall socio-economic development of a developing country.

However, there are several obvious reasons why it is clear globalization does more harm than good. Firstly, the trend of globalization ignites several riots, violence among the community members as it divides the society into two classes “winners” and “losers” creating a huge socio-economic difference among the two groups. The domination of the superior group over inferior slowly results in decades of civil wars and unstable society. Congo, Burundi, South Sudan can be taken as instances to it. Kasongo (2010) states that globalization is also responsible for destroying local culture and traditions by replacing it with western culture. The primitive African cultures were eventually replaced with the western cultures which created a huge misunderstanding between the younger and older generations. The conflict was ignited within the family members due to the replacement of cultures (p. 315). But his argument is not applicable in developing nations of South-East Asia because, in spite of being highly influenced by globalization, there are many countries in South-East Asia like India and Nepal who are able to preserve and flourish their local culture all over the world. They were able to flourish their cultures and traditions all over the world despite adopting the policy of globalization for more than two decades. For example, countries such as India and Nepal made the whole world familiar with their culture through the movie industry. The Indian movie industry, Bollywood is now one of the second largest movie industries all across the world. Through their movie industry, they were able to showcase their cultures and traditions effectively which resulted in increasing cultural values even among the younger generations of local Indian society. Similarly, it is also one of the factors for devastating the ecosystem and deteriorating human health. Construction of several industries is responsible for air pollution, land pollution, water pollution, deforestation, and global warming. It is bringing out severe health problems in the human body like asthma, typhoid, and dysentery. Apart from that, due to the global warming ozone layer is depleting at a massive scale which is bringing out the problem of several skin cancers and irritations. On the other hand, it is also destroying the natural habitat of several aquatic and terrestrial animals which is making the ecosystem even more unbalanced. Randhir (2016) demonstrates an unfortunate fact about economic globalization where it shows that almost 53% of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited and 32% are overexploited. It is creating a disbalance in the aquatic ecosystem which may severely disturb both the terrestrial and aquatic food chain (para. 32). Hence, several developing nation should be aware of the negative consequences of globalization on human health and ecosystem to build a stable and peaceful society with a rapidly growing economy.

Negligence in the negative consequences of globalization might result in various environmental disorders and social instability. Thus, several NGOs and INGOs should be properly circulated in the developing nations to surveil the negative aspect of globalization and to promote the positive areas of it. The government can circulate such kind of social organization with the help of international development support agencies like UNDP. Ibrahim (2013) explains that such development agencies can provide developing countries with millions of funding for the protection of the environment, human health, and promote peace among the people (p. 91). Likewise, governmental agencies should also implement strict environmental rules and regulations to protect their environment and ecosystem. For example, India recently passed a constitutional bill that all the factory should be constructed at the location where the human population is less than a hundred thousand within five hundred kilometer radius. Similarly, they also imposed a strict fining system and longer prison sentences for those violating the environmental protection act. The whim of environmental conservation and afforestation were also fueled by a government’s initiative called “Swacha Bharat Abhiyan.” In doing so, developing nations can effectively filter the negative aspects of globalization and rapidly strengthen their economy taking the full advantages of globalization.

Conclusion

In conclusion, globalization is important for strengthening the economy and uplifting living standards of people in developing nations but its negative effects on culture, society, environment, and human health should be taken into account. Even though it helps to increase the GDP and HDI of a country, it severely degrades the ecosystem, human health, and community. It is also responsible for igniting violence among the people by dividing them into different groups and categories. According to Pannilage (2016), the policy of globalization should be adopted by every developing nation for their overall development and advancement because it enhances a country’s economy and uplifts life standard of the people (p. 458). However, proper precautions should be taken by the governmental officials and members of several developmental agencies before implementing the trend of globalization to minimize its negative effects and maximize the positive consequences. This paper creates awareness among the public and governmental officials about the negative consequences of globalization on the local community of developing nations. Such effects of globalization might affect the whole world in the foreseeable future. Some examples include depletion of the ozone layer due to harmful gases from factories, decreasing levels of oxygen due to excessive deforestation and various kinds of human health disorders such as asthma, typhoid, and dysentery (Randhir, 2016, para. 33). Apart from that, due to the ongoing conflict in developing nations, there is a high probability that the whole world will be affected by such disputes where the formation of Islamic states and Taliban are some of the instances to it. Globalization creates division among the people in the name of religion, financial status or culture which eventually ignites violence among the two different classes. Such violence has a higher probability of spreading all across the world and the whole world may get involved in it (Guogis, 2013, p. 10). On the other hand, our beautiful planet Earth is losing its beauty due to various types of pollution and environmental disorders. Likewise, various types of conflicts such as religious wars and cultural wars will arise at the international level and the happiness of the people from all around the world might get snatched forever due to the negative effects of globalization. Hence, in order to prevent the disastrous consequences of globalization various precautions such as proper policy-making, awareness campaigns should be considered by local governments, various social organizations, and public. Implementation of above-mentioned precautions by the governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations can lead to financially well-off and peaceful local societies. A well developed local community eventually strengthens the economy of a developing nation.

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