Critical Review: Globalisation: Good or Bad?

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Critical Review

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Globalisation : Good or Bad?

Word count: 1053

"For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technology is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." --Thomas Friedman, New York Times, March 28, 1999

“Globalization- Good or Bad?” is text about whether Globalization is good or bad, at the end the author answer to the question saying that even there might be some adverse effects, globalization is good. Globalization is a complex and controversial issue, an all-encompassing concept, an all round process of international trade between countries, it is also said that it is the new buzzword that has come to dominate the world since the nineties of the last century. As an issue it has some benefits and some costs, it will always have cheerleaders and opponents, and some people will be in a middle opinion. As Friedman says: "Globalization can be incredibly empowering and incredibly coercive. It can democratize opportunity and democratize panic. It makes the whales bigger and the minnows stronger. It leaves you behind faster and faster, and it catches up to you faster and faster. While it is homogenizing cultures, it is also enabling people to share their unique individuality farther and wider."

To begin with, I agree that world poverty and income inequality fell over the past two decades. During the 1980s and 1990s, many countries decided to abandon protectionist policies and implemented large-scale trade reforms. “Vietnam is a good example - it cut poverty in half in a decade. Integration raised the prices for the products of poor farmers - rice, fish,...