Result Of Globalisation Many Western Companies example essay topic

Globalisation, in other words internationalisation is a process that has been going on for hundreds of years ever since the times when the greek merchants were bargaining with other nations abroad and others transported spices and silk from Asia to Europe along the ancient "silk road". As time went on, man discovered new ways to travel around the earth and at the same time the transportation al revolution made it easier trade goods between continents. Basically as a result of globalisation people across the globe are able to enjoy and benefit from products and services originally developed in country far away. Globalisation nowadays gives an opportunity for one big free market open for participants.

Among others, a benefit from globalisation is free movement of people which allows people to travel from one country to another more easily and it makes it easier for example for foreign workers to seek jobs in other countries and work where they will. Globalisation has several other effects on working conditions and productional issues across the globe which this essay will now take a look at As another result of globalisation many western companies have moved some or even all of their production facilities and highly developed technologies abroad because it is a cheaper option for them as a result of lower labour expenses in third world countries, and also at the same time they are trying to take advantage of so called cheaper capital in those countries. It can be considered to have started right after World War ll when the expansion of American industry overseas begun. As is said by Mr Barry Bluestone and Mr Bennett Harrison in their book called "Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the 21st Century", by the American army having interfered the war going on in Europe it could be considered as pacification paving the way for investment. As the Americans, or any other right-wing regular armies through time, took part in wars at the same time they prepared the way for this kind of massive social change. The high and rapid development of technique enabled an easier and more importantly a cheaper way of transportation and in addition to that most of the western countries have lowered their customs expenses in order to make the moving of goods simpler.

However, the highest expenses are charged from apparel and grocery goods which are the main articles produced in the poorer countries and seldom can these producers afford to pay such amounts. The people in the poor countries can not grow wealth by selling their products to western civilization people and on the other hand people in western countries have to pay artificially higher price from clothing for example. Actually this process of moving operations overseas can be considered as rationalization of production on global scale, because it has to be only natural that companies tend to seek the best way to keep the profits going up and the costs down. They also say that as an inevitable result of enhanced global mobility a new capitalist world economy has emerged featuring some massive migration of capital coming from the industrialized countries to much lower cost production areas in the third world.

It is more logical to move the production where the disciplined and cheaper labour is instead of keeping the production where the capital situates. According to Mr Bennett and Mr Harrison, in poorer countries people are now more or less dependent of the jobs offered by the western companies, and they are ready to do their job without complains with a much lower salary than usually is reasonable, though the working conditions are in several cases not being well taken care of. This way the employers are squeezing as much productivity out of their employees as the available technology allows, in many cases driven by the constant competition with other companies. Naturally those who win expand commercial empires and gain wealth where as those who lose simply go out of business.

In the world market the competition is continuous due to oligopoly competition where competing companies are battling for their share of the market and in that battle almost anything seems to be allowed. At the same time when production centres are moved to more profitable areas, at the other end in western society companies are deindustrialising by closing factories and by other forms of economic divestment, and what formally was considered as the traditional first world manufacturing area nowadays almost ceases to be. Particularly nowadays in Finland for example several big companies are announcing of downsizing their operations and employees. But after all, the employers have every legal right to move their property from one point to another, to open and close operations and also to quest for cheaper and more profitable labour.

It is interesting to notice that products manufactured in the third world countries are still continued to market mainly in the western society, which can be considered to be quite controversial. For the last two decades of world experiencing globalisation the recent impacts on agricultural work has been anything but deniable. Instead of bringing the third world countries to a level where they would be able to compete in the world market with their own agricultural products the system has pushed up unemployment there, converting them into exclusively low-cost labour as mentioned before, including prohibited child labour. Moreover, the new kind of liberalisation seems to have destroyed civil society in some countries, and it is hardly surprising that the gap between the rich and the poor has widened as time has progressed. According to Richard Falk in his book "Predatory globalisation" he claims that in the early 1970's the gap between the incomes earned by the richest 20 per cent and the poorest 20 per cent stood at a factor of approximately 30%.

By 2001 the factor had increased to overwhelming 72%. Some of the separation may be caused by the phenomenal economic growth during recent years but, nonetheless, the percentage of poor people has also risen. It seems no surprise, that especially farmers and agricultural workers have suffered from the recent development. Over the past decade the employment performance has been far from satisfactory and making the situation better remains as one of the major challenges. Globalisation has led into massive downsizing in bigger global companies and also has is said to have put many agricultural workers out of work because of the changes in social structure. People in poorer countries get payed better doing productional work in some factories, yet the level of wages still remains very low in comparison to western civilization earnings.

A common worker in Europe will get even ten times better salary than a common worker in South-East of Asia. That is exactly why it is not that hard to understand why companies are throwing in efforts to move their production facilities to a place where people seem to be satisfied with unbelievably low wages and where professional unions are not in the way of maximal profitable business. Globalisation related to work and production gives many benefits but as shown in this essay, there are still almost as many flaws and opportunities for improvement. It remains to be seen how will the process continue in the future, and can we at the end make the best of it for all parties? Bluestone, B and Harrison, B. 1980. Capital and Communities: The Causes and Consequences of Private Disinvestment.

Washington D.C. : Progressive Alliance Falk, R. 1999. Predatory Globalization: A Critique. Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.