Globalization, Technology, And Political Economic Change

The rate of economic and political change in recent decades has been dramatic. The Anglo-Saxon emphasis on neo-liberal economic ideology has drifted East, with the (Brown, 2000) ‘rise of China’ and other emerging economies. The trend in recent decades has focussed on the need to privatise great swathes of the economy and to reduce trade barriers, leading to less protectionism. This emphasis on private sector control became apparent in the 1980’s with (Hutchinson, 2008) ‘Thatcherism’ and ‘Reaganism’ seeking to reform the post-War consensus. The dramatic changes in America and the United Kingdom were not restricted to those economies however. The European

The world we live in today is going through enormous changes in economics, technology, culture, politics, etc. The effects of the changes are not so clear, since it is hard to predict how each sector would affect the other and how society will be affected. However, analyzing past and present occurrences provides some information for experts to interpret society’s reaction in the future to different transformations. Globalization can be seen as a process in which societies around the world come together and expand through the combination of different forces. This paper will explore the effects of globalization on US companies, US society and economy, and the implications for other countries in the post-industrial world.

So far Thomas Friedman has identified three eras of globalization. Globalization 1.0 lasted from 1492 (when Columbus set sail to the ‘new world’) to 1800. Friedman describes this as when we “shrank the world from a size large to a size medium” (9). This era began discovering new lands and set up trade with outside civilizations. Globalization 2.0 lasted from 1800 to 2000 when the world transformed to a “size small” due to the industrial revolution and the expansion of multinational corporations. And finally, globalization 3.0 when the world went flat because of remarkable technological advancements. Other nations, including those in the third world category, are finally able to access vast amounts of knowledge, and their previously closed off economies are now open to provide more work for their people. The economies of these nations exploded from a large labor force and exportation, but the American economy didn’t do as great. From 2000 to 2014, the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 US metropolitan areas. Global commerce has been dominated by transnational companies that do not care for individual countries, but rather cheap wages and productivity, which undeveloped nations have. Jobs that require high school diplomas, or are plain simple, are either sold off to another country or automated. Automation is the replacement of human beings with robots or machines in order to reduce salary expenses and

US globalization changed not only the United States, but the world, since anybody can sell to anyone, anywhere in the world. It has opened opportunity to many people across the globe that would have never been able to have a successful business without it. Another way it has changed is in the way people communicate with each other. People can immediately talk to somebody in another country, or post to a social website, reaching many people at once and instantaneously, globalization has definitely made the world a lot smaller.

The same goes for trading our current trade laws restrict us from reaching our full potential. U.S. trade as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of every other developed country in the world. As the forces of globalization have reshaped the global economy, there has been increasing resistance to trade liberalization

With globalization on the rise, many immigrants are migrating to America to follow the American dream; however, many xenophobes in America are against this. They promote hate crimes, therefore, the destruction of other races and religions that are not like their own. Recent rises in immigration to the United States has seemed to spark some hate crimes around the country; especially after the September 11th attacks occurring in 2001. Many people today still have a hard time accepting this movement. A lot of white Americans are not accustomed to other cultures, leading to very sheltered lives. Then, all of the sudden there seems to be this culture shock, and everyone is freaking out in their own ways, some more violent than others.

Technology consists of society's pool of knowledge concerning the industrial, organizational, and medical arts. It is made up of knowledge concerning physical and social phenomena, knowledge regarding the application of basic principles to work in the relevant fields or professions, and knowledge of the rules of thumb of practitioners and crafts men. Although the distinction between science and technology is imprecise, it is important. Science is aimed at understanding, where as technology is aimed at use. At the outset, it is worth noting that changes in technology often take place as a consequence of inventions that depend on no new scientific principles. Indeed, until the middle of the nineteenth century, there was only a loose connection

Throughout the past century, the modern international system has been characterized by dominant practices in all of its distinct sectors. In the economic sector, capitalism has been a key economic activity since the 16th century in the form of mercantilism (Encyclopædia Britannica Online 2014). Since then, capitalism has evolved to become the principal economic model in the modern international system in the form of neo-liberal capitalism. For this reason, it has been shaping, and continues to shape, societies on a global scale.

There was a time in America when people from all classes saw rising incomes from a growing economy. During the era known as The Great Prosperity, lasting from 1947-1977, the American economy grew extraordinarily due to an innovation in assembly line mass production that was first used by businessman Henry Ford. Henry Ford believed that his workers at the Ford Motor Company should be paid an income that enabled them to purchase the products that they made. Through this concept of Fordism, workers in the manufacturing sector of the economy were paid decent wages, and as the economy grew, middle class wages rose as well, and income inequality fell significantly. These higher wages induced increased consumption of goods and services, thus stimulating

There is controversy over when globalization began because there is no crystal clear start to globalization. Some people believe that globalization started when the Buddhist leader Chandragupta combined aspects of trade, religion, and military to create a protected trading area. Others believe that globalization began under Genghis Khan’s rule. The Mongolian warrior-ruler created an empire that had trade integrated into it. There are also some experts that believe that the rise of globalization was linked to 1492, the year Christopher Columbus made his first trip to the New World.

Due to the rapid process of globalization, the issue of whether socio-economic institutions and policies are converging or diverging across different nations has become controversial. Various literatures on comparative institutional studies has been developed, in which the Varieties of Capitalism approach by Hall and Soskice (2001) is one of the most significant concepts that is being widely discussed. According to Hall and Thelen (2005), the ‘varieties of capitalism’ is a firm-centered approach where firm is placed as a key actor and is being considered relational. It emphasizes the concept of institutional complementarities, which ‘…one set of institutions is complementary to another when its presence raises the returns

A recent trend in the consumer marketplace is the ability for a customer to share their personal belongings, such as their homes, apartments, automobiles, tools, bicycles, driveways, clothes, accessories, and so on. This new-shared economy is a multibillion-dollar business and is growing unremarkably. The sharing concept has created markets out of things that would never have been considered to be moneymaking assets before. These new money making concepts are disrupting our traditional economy. Regular businesses have to figure out how to compete. Is this shared economy creating new value for the consumers or is it just replacing existing business? This is what is on the minds of analysts.

There has been a great deal of discussion in recent years about globalization, its impact has been both praised and criticized. Globalization is defined as the process enabling financial and investment markets to operate internationally, largely as a result of deregulation and improved communications. I believe the technological advances have had a positive impact on globalization. The use of cellular/mobile phones and the internet have allowed easier access to conduct business anywhere in the world.

The rise of globalization following WWII generated three important factors that define today’s world. McNeill and McNeill agree with Pollard, Rosenberg, and Tignor that multiple economic changes, such as the creation of financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contributed to the globalization of the world economy. Carter and Warren further this argument by claiming that globalization has caused shifts in the modern economy, namely the rise of Asian economic powers. However, all three historians agree that the rise of globalization goes hand in hand with the rise of inequality in today’s world. Gaps in power, wealth, and access to information have only widened due to the trend of globalization. The final key factor defining our world today are the ongoing processes affecting development countries. McNeill and McNeill argue similarly to Carter and Warren that the end of imperialism generated new nations who quickly realized the free market was a pathway to stability. However, Pollard et al. and McNeill and McNeill place importance on financial institutions like the IMF forcing developing nations to reform their economies to be subservient to the world’s economy. Together, these historians argue that the trend of globalization following WWII caused factors like the modern global economy, the rise in inequality, and the development of new, decolonized nations to be key determiners in the world today.

Economic globalization has become the most important feature and a general trend of present world economic development. Globalization is a phenomenon and also a process of development of mankind and human society (Hamilton, 2008). It is the essential feature of the modern age. Globalization is the cross-border flows of capital and goods, including capital, labour, technology and natural resources (Bożyk, Misala & Puławski, 2002). Economic globalization is a historical process, and the germination of it could date back to the 16th century. After the industrial revolution, capitalist commodity economy, modern industry and transportation have been developing rapidly. The world market was fast expanded and the foreign trade was