Multilingualism and the emergence of lingua francas
Main articles: Multilingualism, Lingua franca, and List of lingua francas
Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.[95] Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness.[96] Thanks to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is getting more and more frequent, and triggering therefore the need to acquire more and more languages.
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.[97]
Today, the most popular second language is English. Some 3.5 billion people have some acquaintance of the language.[98] English is the dominant language on the Internet.[99] About 35% of the world's mail, telexes, and cables are in English. Approximately 40% of the world's radio programs are in English.
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual.[100] Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing, and relexification. The most common products are pidgins, creoles, code-switching, and mixed languages.
Politics
Main article: Global politics
The United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
In general, globalization may ultimately reduce the importance of nation states. Sub-state and supra-state institutions such as the European Union, the WTO, the G8 or the International Criminal Court, replace national functions with international agreement.[101] Some observers attribute the relative decline in US power to globalization, particularly due to the country's high trade deficit. This led to a global power shift towards Asian states, particularly China, which unleashed market forces and achieved tremendous growth rates. As of 2011, China was on track to overtake the United States by 2025.[102]
Increasingly, non-governmental organizations influence public policy across national boundaries, including humanitarian aid and developmental efforts.[103]
As a response to globalization, some countries have embraced isolationist policies. For example, the North Korean government makes it very difficult for foreigners to enter the country and strictly monitors their activities when they do. Aid workers are subject to considerable scrutiny and excluded from places and regions the government does not wish them to enter. Citizens cannot freely leave the country.[104][105]
|
|
|
Media and public opinion
Main articles: Media (communication) and Public opinion
A 2005 study by Peer Fiss and Paul Hirsch found large increase in articles negative towards globalization in the years prior. By 1998, negative articles outpaced positive articles by two to one.[106] In 2008 Greg Ip claimed this rise in opposition to globalization can be explained, at least in part, by economic self-interest.[107] The number of newspaper articles showing negative framing rose from about 10% of the total in 1991 to 55% of the total in 1999. This increase occurred during a period when the total number of articles concerning globalization nearly doubled.[106]
A number of international polls have shown that residents of developing countries tend to view globalization more favorably.[108] The BBC found a growing feeling in developing countries that globalization was proceeding too rapidly. Only a few countries, including Mexico, the countries of Central America, Indonesia, Brazil and Kenya, where a majority felt that globalization is growing too slowly.[109]
Philip Gordon stated that "(as of 2004) a clear majority of Europeans believe that globalization can enrich their lives, while believing the European Union can help them take advantage of globalization's benefits while shielding them from its negative effects."[110] The main opposition consisted of socialists, environmental groups, and nationalists.
Residents of the EU did not appear to feel threatened by globalization in 2004. The EU job market was more stable and workers were less likely to accept wage/benefit cuts. Social spending was much higher than in the US.[111]
In a Danish poll in 2007, 76% responded that globalisation is a good thing.[112]
Fiss, et al., surveyed U.S. opinion in 1993. Their survey showed that in 1993 more than 40% of respondents were unfamiliar with the concept of globalization. When the survey was repeated in 1998, 89% of the respondents had a polarized view of globalization as being either good or bad. At the same time, discourse on globalization, which began in the financial community before shifting to a heated debate between proponents and disenchanted students and workers. Polarization increased dramatically after the establishment of the WTO in 1995; this event and subsequent protests led to a large-scale anti-globalization movement.[106] Initially, college educated workers were likely to support globalization. Less educated workers, who were more likely to compete with immigrants and workers in developing countries, tended to be opponents. The situation changed after the financial crisis of 2007. According to a 1997 poll 58% of college graduates said globalization had been good for the U.S. By 2008 only 33% thought it was good. Respondents with high school education also became more opposed.[107]
|
|
|
According to Takenaka Heizo and Chida Ryokichi, as of 1998 there was a perception in Japan that the economy was "Small and Frail". However Japan was resource poor and used exports to pay for its raw materials. Anxiety over their position caused terms such as internationalization and globalization to enter everyday language. However, Japanese tradition was to be as self-sufficient as possible, particularly in agriculture.[113]
The situation may have changed after the 2007 financial crisis. A 2008 BBC World Public Poll as the crisis began suggested that opposition to globalization in developed countries was increasing. The BBC poll asked whether globalization was growing too rapidly. Agreement was strongest in France, Spain, Japan, South Korea, and Germany. The trend in these countries appears to be stronger than in the United States. The poll also correlated the tendency to view globalization as proceeding too rapidly with a perception of growing economic insecurity and social inequality.[109]
Many in the Third World see globalization as a positive force that lifts countries out of poverty.[114] The opposition typically combined environmental concerns with nationalism. Opponents consider governments as agents of neo-colonialism that are subservient to multinational corporations.[115] Much of this criticism comes from the middle class; the Brookings Institute suggested this was because the middle class perceived upwardly mobile low-income groups to threaten their economic security.[116]
|
|
|
Although many critics blame globalization for a decline of the middle class in industrialized countries, the middle class is growing rapidly in the Third World.[117] Coupled with growing urbanization, this led to increasing disparities in wealth between urban and rural areas.[118] In 2002, in India 70% of the population lived in rural areas and depended directly on natural resources for their livelihood.[115] As a result, mass movements in the countryside at times objected to the process.[119]
Internet
Main articles: World Wide Web and Internet
See also: List of countries by number of Internet users
Both a product of globalization as well as a catalyst, the Internet connects computer users around the world. From 2000 to 2009, the number of Internet users globally rose from 394 million to 1.858 billion.[120] By 2010, 22 percent of the world's population had access to computers with 1 billion Google searches every day, 300 million Internet users reading blogs, and 2 billion videos viewed daily on YouTube.[121]
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks.[122]
Population growth
Main articles: World population and Overpopulation
The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine and the Black Death in 1350, when it stood at around 370 million.[123] The highest rates of growth – global population increases above 1.8% per year – were seen briefly during the 1950s, and for a longer period during the 1960s and 1970s. The growth rate peaked at 2.2% in 1963, and had declined to 1.1% by 2011. Total annual births were highest in the late 1980s at about 138 million,[124] and are now expected to remain essentially constant at their 2011 level of 134 million, while deaths number 56 million per year, and are expected to increase to 80 million per year by 2040.[125] Current projections show a continued increase in population (but a steady decline in the population growth rate), with the global population expected to reach between 7.5 and 10.5 billion by 2050.[126][127]
|
|
|
World energy consumption & predictions, 1970-2025. Source: International Energy Outlook 2004.
With human consumption of seafood having doubled in the last 30 years, seriously depleting multiple seafood fisheries and destroying the marine ecosystem as a result, awareness is prompting steps to be taken to create a more sustainable seafood supply.[128]
The head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, stated in 2008 that the gradual change in diet among newly prosperous populations is the most important factor underpinning the rise in global food prices.[129] From 1950 to 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the world, grain production increased by over 250%.[130] World population has grown by about 4 billion since the beginning of the Green Revolution and without it, there would be greater famine and malnutrition than the UN presently documents (approximately 850 million people suffering from chronic malnutrition in 2005).[131][132]
It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain food security in a world beset by a confluence of "peak" phenomena, namely peak oil, peak water, peak phosphorus, peak grain and peak fish. Growing populations, falling energy sources and food shortages will create the "perfect storm" by 2030, according to UK chief government scientist John Beddington. He noted that food reserves were at a 50-year low and the world would require 50% more energy, food and water by 2030.[133][134] The world will have to produce 70% more food by 2050 to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people and as incomes rise according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).[135] Social scientists have warned of the possibility that global civilization is due for a period of contraction and economic re-localization, due to the decline in fossil fuels and resulting crisis in transportation and food production.[136][137][138] Helga Vierich predicted that a restoration of sustainable local economic activities based on hunting and gathering, shifting horticulture, and pastoralism.[139]
Health
Main articles: Global health and Globalization and disease
SARS checkpoint at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport's International Arrivals in Terminal 1
Global health is the health of populations in a global context and transcends the perspectives and concerns of individual nations.[140] Health problems that transcend national borders or have a global political and economic impact, are often emphasized.[141] It has been defined as 'the area of study, research and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide'.[142] Thus, global health is about worldwide improvement of health, reduction of disparities, and protection against global threats that disregard national borders.[143] The application of these principles to the domain of mental health is called Global Mental Health.[144]
The major international agency for health is the World Health Organization (WHO). Other important agencies with impact on global health activities include UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations University International Institute for Global Health and the World Bank. A major initiative for improved global health is the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the globally endorsed Millennium Development Goals.[145]
International travel has helped to spread some of the deadliest infectious diseases.[146] Modern modes of transportation allow more people and products to travel around the world at a faster pace, but they also open the airways to the transcontinental movement of infectious disease vectors.[147] One example of this occurring is AIDS/HIV.[148] Due to immigration, approximately 500,000 people in the United States are believed to be infected with Chagas disease.[149] In 2006, the tuberculosis (TB) rate among foreign-born persons in the United States was 9.5 times that of U.S.-born persons.[150] Starting in Asia, the Black Death killed at least one-third of Europe's population in the 14th century.[151] Even worse devastation was inflicted on the American supercontinent by European arrivals. 90% of the populations of the civilizations of the "New World" such as the Aztec, Maya, and Inca were killed by small pox brought by European colonization.
Sports
1996 Summer Paralympics
Main articles: Olympic Games and List of world championships
Globalization has continually increased international competition in sports.
The FIFA World Cup is the world's most widely viewed sporting event; an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup held in Germany.[152]
The Ancient Olympic Games were a series of competitions held between representatives of several city-states and kingdoms from Ancient Greece, which featured mainly athletic but also combat and chariot racing events. During the Olympic games all struggles against the participating city-states were postponed until the games were finished.[153] The origin of these Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend.[154] During the 19th century Olympic Games became a popular event.
Global natural environment
Main articles: Global warming, Climate change, and Deforestation
Plot based on the NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) data set.
Environmental challenges such as climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution and over-fishing of the ocean, require trans-national/global solutions. Since factories in developing countries increased global output and experienced less environmental regulation, globalism substantially increased pollution and impact on water resources.[155]
State of the World 2006 report said India and China's high economic growth was not sustainable. The report stated:
The world's ecological capacity is simply insufficient to satisfy the ambitions of China, India, Japan, Europe and the United States as well as the aspirations of the rest of the world in a sustainable way[156] In a 2006 news story, BBC reported, "...if China and India were to consume as much resources per capita as United States or Japan in 2030 together they would require a full planet Earth to meet their needs.[156] In the longterm these effects can lead to increased conflict over dwindling resources[157] and in the worst case a Malthusian catastrophe.
Burning forest in Brazil. The removal of forest to make way for cattle ranching was the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from the mid 1960s. Soybeans have become one of the most important contributors to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.[158]
The advent of global environmental challenges that might be solved with international cooperation include climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread of invasive species. Since many factories are built in developing countries with less environmental regulation, globalism and free trade may increase pollution and impact on precious fresh water resources.[155][159]
International foreign investment in developing countries could lead to a "race to the bottom" as countries lower their environmental and resource protection laws to attract foreign capital.[160][161] The reverse of this theory is true, however, when developed countries maintain positive environmental practices, imparting them to countries they are investing in and creating a "race to the top" phenomenon.[160]
The distances are shrinking between continents and countries due to globalization, causing developing and developed countries to find ways to solve problems on a global rather than regional scale. Agencies like the United Nations now must be the global regulators of pollution, whereas before, regional governance was enough.[162] Action has been taken by the United Nations to monitor and reduce atmospheric pollutants through the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Air Initiative, and studies of air pollution and public policy.[163]
Global traffic, production, and consumption are causing increased global levels of air pollutants. The northern hemisphere is the leading producer of carbon monoxide and sulfur oxides.[164]
Changes in natural capital are beginning to erode the economic logic of one major aspect of economic globalization: an international division of labor and production based on global supply chains.[165] Over time, peak oil and climate change will result in “peak globalization,” measured in terms of decreasing ton-miles of freight transported, particularly across oceans and continents. The economic logic of the comparative advantage of global supply chains will be overcome by both increasing transportation costs and interruptions and delays in the transit of freight.[166]
China and India substantially increased their fossil fuel consumption as their economies switched from subsistence farming to industry and urbanization.[167][168] Chinese oil consumption grew by 8% yearly between 2002 and 2006, doubling from 1996–2006.[169] In 2007, China surpassed the United States as the top emitter of CO2.[170] Only 1 percent of the country's 560 million city inhabitants (2007) breathe air deemed safe by the European Union. In effect, this means that developed countries may "outsource" some of the pollution associated with consumption in countries where pollution-intensive industries have been moved.
A major source of deforestation is the logging industry, driven by China and Japan.[171]
Societies utilize forest resources in order to reach a sustainable level of economic development. Historically, forests in earlier developing nations experience "forest transitions", a period of deforestation and reforestation as a surrounding society becomes more developed, industrialized and shift their primary resource extraction to other nations via imports. For nations at the periphery of the globalized system however, there are no others to shift their extraction onto, and forest degradation continues unabated. Forest transitions can have an effect on the hydrology, climate change, and biodiversity of an area by impacting water quality and the accumulation of greenhouse gases through the re-growth of new forest into second and third growth forests.[172][173]
Without more recycling, zinc could be used up by 2037, both indium and hafnium could run out by 2017, and terbium could be gone before 2012.[174]
In 2003, 29% of open sea fisheries were in a state of collapse.[175] The journal Science published a four-year study in November 2006, which predicted that, at prevailing trends, the world would run out of wild-caught seafood in 2048.[176] Conversely, globalisation created a global market for farm-raised fish and seafood, which as of 2009 was providing 38% of global output, potentially reducing fishing pressure.[177]
The global trade in goods depends upon reliable, inexpensive transportation of freight along complex and long-distance supply chains. [178] Global warming and peak oil undermine globalization by their effects on both transportation costs and the reliable movement of freight. Countering the current geographic pattern of comparative advantage with higher transportation costs, climate change and peak oil will thus result in peak globalization, after which the volume of exports will decline as measured by ton-miles of freight.[179]
Global workforce
Main article: Global workforce
The global workforce is the international labor pool of immigrant workers or those employed by multinational companies and connected through a global system of networking and production. As of 2005, the global labor pool of those employed by multinational companies consisted of approximately 3 billion workers.[180]
The current global workforce is competitive as ever. Some go as far as to describe it as "A war for talent."[181] This competitiveness is due to specialized jobs becoming available world wide due to communications technology. As workers get more adept at using technology to communicate, they give themselves the options to be employed in an office half way around the world. These newer technologies not only benefit the workers, but companies may now find highly specialized workers that are very skilled with greater ease, as opposed to limiting their search locally.
However, production workers and service workers have been unable to compete directly with much lower-cost workers in developing countries.[182] Low-wage countries gained the low-value-added element of work formerly done in rich countries, while higher-value work remained; for instance, the total number of people employed in manufacturing in the US declined, but value added per worker increased.[183]
Imported crude oil as a percent of U.S. consumption.
In 2011, the United States imported $332 billion worth of crude oil, up 32% from 2010.[184] Chinese success cost jobs in developing countries as well as in the West.[185] From 2000 to 2007, the U.S. lost a total of 3.2 million manufacturing jobs.[186] As of 26 April 2005 "In regional giant South Africa, some 300,000 textile workers have lost their jobs in the past two years due to the influx of Chinese goods".[187]
International migration
About 85% of Dubai's population consists of migrant workers, a majority of whom are from India.[188]
Main articles: Immigration, Emigration, Foreign worker, and List of countries by net migration rate
Many countries have some form of guest worker program with policies similar to those found in the U.S. that permit U.S. employers to sponsor non-U.S. citizens as laborers for approximately three years, to be deported afterwards if they have not yet obtained a green card.
As of 2009, over 1,000,000 guest workers reside in the U.S.; the largest program, the H-1B visa, has 650,000 workers in the U.S.[189] and the second-largest, the L-1 visa, has 350,000.[190] Many other United States visas exist for guest workers as well, including the H-2A visa, which allows farmers to bring in an unlimited number of agricultural guest workers.
The United States ran a Mexican guest-worker program in the period 1942–1964, known as the Bracero Program.
An article in The New Republic criticized a guest worker program by equating the visiting workers to second-class citizens, who would never be able to gain citizenship and would have less residential rights than Americans.[191]
Migration of educated and skilled workers is called brain drain. For example, the U.S.welcomes many nurses to come work in the country.[192] The brain drain from Europe to the United States means that some 400,000 European science and technology graduates now live in the U.S. and most have no intention to return to Europe.[193] Nearly 14 million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2010.[194]
Immigrants to the United States and their children founded more than 40 percent of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies. They founded seven of the ten most valuable brands in the world.[195][196]
Reverse brain drain is the movement of human capital from a more developed country to a less developed country. It is considered a logical outcome of a calculated strategy where migrants accumulate savings, also known as remittances, and develop skills overseas that can be used in their home country.[197]
Reverse brain drain can occur when scientists, engineers, or other intellectual elites migrate to a less developed country to learn in its universities, perform research, or gain working experience in areas where education and employment opportunities are limited in their home country. These professionals then return to their home country after several years of experience to start a related business, teach in a university, or work for a multi-national in their home country.[198]
A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. Remittances are playing an increasingly large role in the economies of many countries, contributing to economic growth and to the livelihoods of less prosperous people (though generally not the poorest of the poor). According to World Bank estimates, remittances totaled US$414 billion in 2009, of which US$316 billion went to developing countries that involved 192 million migrant workers.[199] For some individual recipient countries, remittances can be as high as a third of their GDP.[199] As remittance receivers often have a higher propensity to own a bank account, remittances promote access to financial services for the sender and recipient, an essential aspect of leveraging remittances to promote economic development. The top recipients in terms of the share of remittances in GDP included many smaller economies such as Tajikistan (45%), Moldova (38%), and Honduras (25%).[200]
The IOM found more than 200 million migrants around the world in 2008,[201] including illegal immigration.[202][203] Remittance flows to developing countries reached $328 billion in 2008.[204]
A transnational marriage is a marriage between two people from different countries. A variety of special issues arise in marriages between people from different countries, including those related to citizenship and culture, which add complexity and challenges to these kinds of relationships. In an age of increasing globalization, where a growing number of people have ties to networks of people and places across the globe, rather than to a current geographic location, people are increasingly marrying across national boundaries. Transnational marriage is a by-product of the movement and migration of people.
Support and criticism
Reactions to processes contributing to globalization have varied widely with a history as long as extraterritorial contact and trade. Philosophical differences regarding the costs and benefits of such processes give rise to a broad-range of ideologies and social movements. Proponents of economic growth, expansion and development, in general, view globalizing processes as desirable or necessary to the well-being of human society[205] Antagonists view one or more globalizing processes as detrimental to social well-being on a global or local scale;[205] this includes those who question either the social or natural sustainability of long-term and continuous economic expansion, the social structural inequality caused by these processes, and the colonial, Imperialistic, or hegemonic ethnocentrism, cultural assimilation and cultural appropriation that underlie such processes.
As summarized by Noam Chomsky:
The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist." This is simply vulgar propaganda, like the term "anti-Soviet" used by the most disgusting commissars to refer to dissidents. It is not only vulgar, but idiotic. Take the World Social Forum [(WSF)], called "anti-globalization" in the propaganda system – which happens to include the media, the educated classes, etc., with rare exceptions. The WSF is a paradigm example of globalization. It is a gathering of huge numbers of people from all over the world, from just about every corner of life one can think of, apart from the extremely narrow highly privileged elites who meet at the competing World Economic Forum, and are called "pro-globalization" by the propaganda system.[206]
Proponents
In general, corporate businesses, particularly in the area of finance, see globalization as a positive force in the world. Many economists cite statistics that seem to support such positive impact. For example, per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth among post-1980 globalizing countries accelerated from 1.4 percent a year in the 1960s and 2.9 percent a year in the 1970s to 3.5 percent in the 1980s and 5.0 percent in the 1990s. This acceleration in growth seems even more remarkable given that the rich countries saw steady declines in growth from a high of 4.7 percent in the 1960s to 2.2 percent in the 1990s. Also, the non-globalizing developing countries seem to fare worse than the globalizers, with the former's annual growth rates falling from highs of 3.3 percent during the 1970s to only 1.4 percent during the 1990s. This rapid growth among the globalizers is not simply due to the strong performances of China and India in the 1980s and 1990s—18 out of the 24 globalizers experienced increases in growth, many of them quite substantial.[207]
Дата добавления: 2018-04-05; просмотров: 310; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!