GLOBALIZATION

GLOBALIZATION

1. It’s a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies and nations. Information technology is one of the tools that let this process happen driven by international trade and investment.

   • Among the features of Globalization we can find:
     • LIBERALISATION: The freedom of the industrialist/businessman to establish industry, trade or commerce either in his country or abroad; free exchange of capital, goods, service and technologies between countries.
     • FREE TRADE: Free trade between countries; absence of excessive governmental control over trade.
     • BORDERLESS GLOBE: Breaking of national barriers and creation of inter- connectedness; the ideal of 'borderless globe' articulated by Kenichi Ohmae.
     • CONNECTIVITY: Localities being connected with the world by breaking national boundaries; forging of links between one society and another, and between one country and another through international transmission of knowledge, literature, technology, culture and information.
   • Globalization implies effects in many aspects that affect every country that is part of this trend
     • REGARDING PRODUCTIVE ORGANIZATION: It is implying the massive destruction of the productive capacities that are in the hands of the great majority of the producers and workers of the peripheral countries; Small, Medium and Micro enterprises. Contrary to what is commonly thought, globalization processes are increasing the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries.
     • ABOUT THE NATION: Conformation of blocks in the process of globalization that alter global geopolitical security systems. The new international "regulatory" institutions of the global market driven by the most developed countries impose their legislation and their systems of sanctions. The decisions are made in the center, that is, they are local, but their scope is global.
     • CULTURE: Loss of Cultural Identity. The notion of "global culture" is generally associated with the spread of the values and lifestyle of the developed countries of the West. The possibility of the countries of the periphery of globalizing their culture is not so evident; Information highways can be two-way, but traffic is more intense in one direction.
     • CONSUMERISM: Global and local policies are moving on the basis of increased levels of consumption of materials, energy and services. However, this phenomenon has not been understood and its variables have not been clearly identified. The spread of high-level consumption practices across the planet has the potential to dramatically increase human impacts on both local and global resources, and contribute to continuing climate change .