The first major protest in Seattle, Washington against the World Trade
Organization (WTO) and its role in promoting economic globalization came
as a surprise to many, considering the positive impacts globalization
was supposed to bring. According to Stiglitz, this was the first step in
a widespread recognition that globalization was all "too good to be
true." Along with globalization comes a myriad of concerns and problems,
says Stiglitz.
The first concern being that the rules governing
globalization favors developed countries, while the developing countries
sink even lower.
Second, globalization only regards monetary value of items, rather than other factors involved; one being the environment.
The
next concern is how developing countries are controlled by
globalization and the negative effects it can have on their democracies.
Developing countries borrow a large amount of funds from other
countries and the World Bank which essentially causes them to give up
the benefits of their democracy because of the strings attached to the
loan repayment.
The fourth concern regarding globalization is the
notion that it does not live up to its original expectations.
Globalization was advertised to boost countries economically; however,
it has not shown improvement in developed nor developing countries.
Last
but not least, the new system of globalization has basically forced a
new economic system on developing countries. This new economic system is
seen as the "Americanization" (Stiglitz, Page 9) of their policies as
well as culture. This has caused quite a bit of resentment and financial
damage.
In addition to these concerns, Stiglitz highlights that
individual persons and whole countries are being victimized by
globalization.
Globalization had succeeded in unifying people from
around the world — against globalization. Factory workers in the United
States saw their jobs being threatened by competition from China.
Farmers in developing countries saw their jobs being threatened by the
highly subsidized corn and other crops from the United States. Workers
in Europe saw hard-fought-for job protections being assailed in the name
of globalization. AIDS activists saw a new trade agreement raising the
prices of drugs to levels that were unaffordable in much of the world.
Environmentalists felt that globalization undermined their decade long
struggle to establish regulations to preserve our natural heritage.
Those who wanted to protect and develop their own cultural heritage saw
too the intrusions of globalization.
— Stiglitz, 2006, p. 7
Stiglitz
then goes on to provide an overview of how we might "reform"
globalization, by noting representatives of the world's national
governments attended the Millennium Summit and signed the Millennium
Development Goals, pledging to cut poverty in half by 2015.
Additionally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had previously been
focusing more on inflation, rather than employment and income; however,
they have shifted their focus in hopes of reducing poverty. Stiglitz
states that countries who seek financial assistance have in the past
been asked to meet an outrageous number of conditions, in exchange for
the aid. This was one of the most common complaints towards the IMF and
the World Bank. They have heard these complaints and have since greatly
reduced the conditionality. The G8 group met for their annual meeting in
2005 and had agreed to write off debt owed by the 18 poorest countries
in the world as an attempt to help with the global poverty issue. As
regards the aspiration to make trade fair,
originally, opening the
market was done in hopes of helping the economy; however, the rights
between the developing and developed countries have been skewed, and
the last trade agreement actually put the poorest countries in a situation in which they were worse off than to begin with.
Stiglitz
focuses on the limitations of liberalization briefly to say the results
of liberalization never lived up to the expectations; the developing
countries were not able to follow through because their economic and
political systems simply could not cope with the pressures.
Finally,
Stiglitz also argues that protecting the environment is one of the most
important issues and countries must work together to lessen the effects
of global warming. Successful development in countries such as India and
China has only increased energy usage and also the use of natural
resources. People from all over the world must adjust their lifestyle in
order to reverse the effects of global warming.
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