Its Place In The Global Economy example essay topic

Moving towards a global society with a local focus. With the growing trends towards the global community it is becoming more and more necessary for us to find the balance between the global and the local. They say that all you need to look at to see what the current trends and drives are in a society all you need to do is take a look at their advertising. Catch slogans like, Help your small business take its place in the global economy, use brand X, are all indicators that we are headed towards the globalisation of well, the globe.

Until recent years even though we were all part of the collective of the planet earth, we were essentially locally driven. Things that happened on the other side of the planet really didnt make all that much of a difference in our own part of the country. Now however with the advent of the international news networks, and the ever more interconnectedness of our societies, if the Tokyo stock exchange has a bad day, you can expect that there will be trouble in the business sectors of metropolitan Vancouver. In the age of corporate downsizing, companies are doing anything but.

The proposed merger of the Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank, is evidence enough of this. Staff and branches are cu under the guise of streamlining and downsizing. Companies are leaner, meaner, and bigger. The Chairman of the Bank of Montreal, Matthew W. Barrett stated that The merger of Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada will create a financial institution that will serve Canadians better at home as well as abroad. Governments are also moving toward the land of mergers and up sizing. The proposed creation of the European union is evidence of that.

The question one almost needs to ask though is why Is this trend towards globalisation bringing us closer an closer to the McWorld (ch 2) where corporations reign supreme and you can have your materials quick and to go but you had better get out of the way when you have your order, since the business isnt about people, its about products, and the power of your market share. In the age of the multinational you can do whatever you want if your big enough. The environmental laws in one country dont let you produce something cheaply enough Thats ok, just find another country that has more relaxed laws, or is willing to look the other way for the right price, and open a branch office there. The commercialisation of the planet seems as inevitable as the march of time. What is the power of the Pentagon compared with Disneyland's Can the sixth Fleet keep up with CNN McDonalds in Moscow and Coke in China will do more to create a global culture more than military colonisation ever could. It is less the goods than the brand names that do the work, (Ch 2, Jihad vs. McWorld) The results of this globalisation have for the most part been rather grim.

However one of the main reasons for this is the spirit in which this globalisation has taken place. The act of the globalisation of our countries and our economies have been made in the interest of entities other then the common man and woman. For the most part the drive towards globalisation has been driven by economics. One prime example of this drive for global economics has been the Free Trade Agreement, or FTA for short. The FTA was an agreement that was take the economies of Canada, and America, and tie them together in an economic union that would be beneficial to both countries.

Promises of the new age of economics abounded and the agreement was passed. The results of the FTA have not lived up to those promises though. When Canadians were told to stand up like real men in a tough world, and make more concessions to American capital. We did it, but the outcome was not where new what we were promised. Canada ended up with the progression towards becoming a warehouse economy.

In the first three years of the FTA (1989-1992), Canada lost about 600,000 jobs and 1000 factories, its merchandise trade surplus with the US declined by over $6 billion, and its global balance of trade in goods and services went form a surplus of about $13 billion to a deficit of about $10 billion. Most of the lost jobs have been prime manufacturing jobs. Since 1990 Canada has lost jobs at triple the US rate, and the unemployment insurance bill has risen by $7 billion... Mulroney became the most unpopular leader in modern Canadian history (Ch 14 Quebeckers, Mohawks and Zulus: ) For what benefits did we adopted this What economic benefits has the average Canadian seen Inflation still goes up. Merchandise still costs more, and nothing really new and exciting has happened to our economy. You would think that if it cheaper to make shoes in Mexico then shoes would cost less.

Why dont they Answer that question and you will find the answer to we have trade agreements that are this devastating in the first place. On of the other results of this movement towards the goals of the corporate and away from the individual is the reason for the growing unrest amongst the underclass of Canada and the US. With this movement the mobility of the underclass has been limited. There is no longer the hope of a bright future for their children. Parents who were part of this underclass had the bright hope and future of allowing their children and families to move out of the lower class and on upward into the middle class of society. The normal upward movement that was for a long the solvent for discontent has been arrested.

The underclass has become a semi-permanent rather than a generational phenomenon. There has been surprisingly little comment as to why minority communities in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and elsewhere (Toronto), once poor but benign and culturally engaging, are now centres of terror and despair. The reason is that what a favouring upward step in economic life has now become a hopeless enthralment. (Ch 13, The Culture of Contentment) What we are seeing now is the discontentment of the population with the current forms of government and the commercialisation of our politics. Politics is no longer driven by a concern for the people, it is driven by economics. From the start of the first election fund raiser to the passing of various laws in order to appease your campaign supporters, people now perceive government as a unfortunately necessary evil.

Something to be put up with, because someone has to run the country. It is in a sense a moral crisis of the government. Citizens feel let down by their governments and are disgusted with what they see within them. Moral crisiss reveal as their second dimension, a distrust of political representatives regardless of ideology. The moment of opportunity for the non political politician arises. In this respect the moral crisis might seem to constitute a reaction by civil society against its political class.

(Ch 3, Democracy and Its Discontents) A nice thing about moral crisiss though is that they often come right before a significant change in the structure and make up of a society. When people begin to tire of the political class revolution often comes into being. While I think that it is safe to assume that we will not be marching our political leaders off to the guillotine in a revolutionary French change of power any time soon, it is fairly safe to assume that large changes are on the way for government and society, if not due to this discontent, then out of necessity for us to come to a new political state that will work in the global order. One of the other current trends that we are facing in this McWorld as it is progressing right now is the dawning age of Rights Talk. The focus of the people of our country has moved from, what we owe to our society to what does society owe me Perhaps in a reaction to the advent of McWorld people are focusing on self more then anything else. The reason can be many things, from the influence of American culture to the possible belief that the only way to maintain ones individuality in the dawning of the new corporate age is to constantly be on the look out for your rights and to make sure that you do something about it anytime you feel that your rights are being violated.

I am not trying to say that human rights are not a very important and a positive concern for society, however we have moved past the realm of human rights and into the realm of MY RIGHTS. People have forgotten that the rights of a Canadian come after the fulfilment of ones responsibilities in the Canadian constitution, and the courts for the most part have allowed that to happen. Whether out of a belief that rights are paramount over all, or a fear that they will also come under fire for violating someones rights. The problem with the current view point on rights is that it is one that has no room for compromise, there is a winner and a loser, and the winner has no room for the loser in their society. Society needs to come back around to the reality of human rights. Jane Jacobs, delights in telling how, when she became a citizen of Canada, she was instructed by the judge that the most important thing about being Canadian is learning that the most important thing about being a Canadian is learning to get along with ones neighbours...

The universal Declaration of Human rights, Everyone has duties to the community, and that everyones rights and freedoms are subject to limitations for the purposes of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (Ch 12 Rights Talk) So where do we go from here if we are to move into a productive and fair society for the future and bring Canada into the next millennia The dawning of the network world may be part of that solution, a continuation of global politics and power that maintains a concern for the local. A movement for the metropolitan society towards a more cosmopolitan. The phrase think globally, act locally holds new meaning for the future of our country.

The successful government of the future will be one that is able to make itself an aggressive and progressive force in the global society. It makes sense to protect the neighbourhood. It is not misguided to think that local and national governments are still good tools for that. (Ch 14 Quebeckers, Mohawks and Zulus) The incorporation of human rights into this Brave New World is only just and fair. Yet it will be only just and fair if we can find the balance between the rights of the individual and the responsibilities of the individual in this new world.

No longer can we put our selves before our neighbours and everything else and hope to have a society that has concern for its citizens, one that is not a faceless McWorld. What we need to realise is that we are the people who steer that McWorld. If we continue to place our individual rights before the rest of society than a society that is concerned for its citizens will never materialise.

Bibliography

Bateman, Martin, Thomas, Braving the New World. Toronto, International Thomson Printing. 1995.