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.