Globalization

When reading the final chapters of the book, I was thinking about the good and bad of Globalization. When you look at the numbers it shows that Nation-States that are open to individualism and global free trade seem to raise all levels of their citizens. It also shows that those nations that are able to raise their GDP because of their policies regarding global trade have as a side effect a larger gap between the socioeconomic upper class and the lower class. It is true that even the lower class is better off than they were before but they are not as enriched as the upper class of people who seem to be better situated to take advantage of the situation. This widening gap is what has caused all of the protests from the anti-globalists that recently have been protesting, sometimes violently, at the global organizations meetings. I have had different discussions with people coming from different sides of the argument. I come from a supply side economic theory which says that a rising tide raises all boats. I also look at it that there definitely needs to be a good amount of checks that should be adhered to and enforced so that businesses and people do not do anything that is unethical. One of the big problems is that even though there are international groups that are in place to make sure that everything with regards to the globalization is done correctly, they are also part of the problem as they can be influenced into doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason also. I do believe that the people do have some power regarding when they see businesses performing improperly and that is the new power of the internet and the power of financially hurting the business. It is now much easier to organize people to boycott businesses if they are found to be doing something unethical and the government or the global organizations will not do anything about it. People have the power it is just a matter of how they get organized and are able to use it.   

Two world wars and one great depression during the last 100 years

The most recent century shaped the world in many different ways. The world has undergone two world wars and one worldwide depression. The first war was designated as the Great War and was supposed to be the war to end all wars. After the war a worldwide depression set in during the 1920’s leading up to the next Great War, World War 2. After World War 1 and the Russian revolution in 1917, communism rose to become a political and social system favored by some countries. The countries did not believe that free market capitalism was the way for them to get out of the depression so they looked to socialism and communism as the collective to raise them up. Some countries put their trust with charismatic leaders who were able to gain absolute power over the nation at that time. Two countries that bought into the Nationalist Fascism movement were Italy and Germany. Germany and Italy along with Japan signed a tripartite pact in September 1940 which came to form the Axis powers. It was these three nations that went to war with the rest of the world. During this war the nature of who was targeted changed from those directly involved in the war to every citizen of the country. During the war there were large amounts of indiscriminate bombing that took place over cities and not military targets. Great Britain along with the United States and Russia formed the Allied forces that fought the Axis powers assault on the world. The end of the war happened as Russia and the United States were able to defeat Germany and the United States dropped the first atomic bomb used during warfare. Post World War 2 a cold war formed between the western world of democracies and the communist countries which centered on Russia.