A Globalising World

 
The world is changing like never before. Globalization is affecting every aspect of our
lives. It affects our culture, our economy, and even our politics. We face new challenges
and old challenges dressed up in new clothes. As economies become more intertwined,
we find that they can also become more vulnerable to unexpected shifts and new forms of
opaqueness. This isn’t a reason to turn away from globalization, but it is a reason to be
vigilant. This essay will look at the way countries have become more dependent on other
through the process of globalization.
Of course, with current economic events shaking the world economy, we begin to
see some of the potential negative effects of globalization for various countries’
economies. In a recent visit to the United States, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was
keen to point out that the problems started in the U.S. as the result of bad regulations and
greed. He said that the “global banking collapse needed a global solution. He called for
the same standards in banking ‘of remuneration, accountability, transparency and
disclosure all round the world’, saying this would lead to a restoration of confidence in
banking.”1
 The problems point to one of the serious drawbacks of globalization: when
you open your economy up to the other economies of the world you can get very rich as
long as they do well—but you also become very vulnerable to their problems too.
1 Patrick Wintour. “Brown to visit Obama.” The Guardian. March 3, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/03/gordon-brown-barack-obama 
Some may argue that all of these changes are just a paler version of a
2
longstanding trend towards liberalizing world markets. They might say the turn of the last
century showed more dramatic shifts in the world economy, etc. But those changes were
happening from a much lower baseline. These current changes are drive by technology
our grandfathers could only imagine. In the words of one observers, these changes show
“qualitative differences from that of previous epochs. Most notable are: real-time world
financial markets; the speed of economic exchange; the scale of gross economic flows of
goods and short-term capital; the institutionalization of economic relations at an
interregional level . . . [it is] deeper today.”2
Economic integration has many consequences: some relating to culture and
society, some relating to security. If you’re economic interests are shared, you must share
the work in defending them against people who would do you wrong. In many respects
the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, proved to be a
globalizing events, further accelerating changes that were already underway.3
 The attacks
led to the Global War on Terror and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The result is
that almost every country in the world has new burdens and responsibilities, as well as
new benefits because of the intertwining that comes with globalization.
2 A.M. McGrew. “The logics of globalization.” in J.Ravenhill ed. Global Political Economy. p 13. 
Works consulted
McGrew, A.M.. “The logics of globalization.” in J.Ravenhill ed. Global Political
Economy. p 13.
Wintour, Patrick. “Brown to visit Obama.” The Guardian. March 3, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/03/gordon-brown-barack-obama
Works consulted
3
Beck, U. (2000), What is Globalization?, Ch. 1. ‘The World Horizon Opens Up: On the
Sociology of Globalization’, Cambridge: Polity Press.