MDS BAS 497

Warren

Andrew Warren
Sam Kelly
MDS BAS 497
14 December, 2014
Globalization and Fear
America does not need to be afraid of globalization. We just need to build the
infrastructure to make sure that we are still ahead of the curve no matter how this current
accelerated period of it plays out. We facilitated these global technological and economic
advances in in our attempts to profit from our own consumerist culture. Now that the rest of the
world is also profiting, we just need to accept global advancement as the price of progress, and
look ahead to what is next. Because that really is all that our competitors are doing, these
countries that used to beg us for money, and if we dont follow suit, they will just pass us up and
leave us behind in the dust.
The United States led the world for a long time technologically and economically. It took
a while for the rest of the world to catch up, but really it was inevitable. No country worth its salt
is just going to look on admiringly, and dream of what could have been for eternity. Until we all
become one global union with one currency and one government, all the countries on the planet
are essentially competing with each other, for everything. And this competition is a never ending
marathon, with the only possible finales being total destruction, or unification of those left
standing. Before the United States took the world leadership role, European nations swapped the
lead around, before that the Ottomans, China, Rome, and so on. These lead changes are typically

MDS BAS 497

Warren

accompanied by global upheavals, usually in military form. But the modern race doesnt need to
be a nasty competition.
Globalization or, Americans call it, Help!! Theyre catching up to us! Do something
quick!!!, is a complex process which leads to an increasing connectedness and interrelatedness
in the political, economic, social and cultural, technological, and environmental domain on many
different scales.(Figge and Pimm 2014) Because of the internet, satellites, cheap travel and
shipping, any business can now be an international business, and goods services and data can go
anywhere in little or no time. This is causing globalization to accelerate at a pace that is alarming
to some. This acceleration is bringing very different cultures into closer contact than ever before.
Some of these cultures may blend and merge, or at least coexist, to result in positive outcomes
and new traditions, while incompatible ones with conflicting values will bring about clashes and
discord and sometimes outright war.
From the point of view of most developing nations, and especially China and India, this
is an exciting time. Modernizations abound, from simple indoor plumbing in some areas to a
burgeoning space program in others. The developed world has long marveled at the populations
of these countries and assumed that just feeding all those people is going to take all their time
and energy and thus assumed they had a much longer way to go to catch up to the west. But these
countries are finally beginning to use the one thing they have in most abundance, their people.
By investing in their peoples education and thus their future, large parts of these countries are
moving into the modern age and be coming legitimate economic and technological powers.
Increasing their ability to manufacture their own consumer goods locally helps their wealth to
grow, while also exporting as much as they can to our voracious consumer culture.

MDS BAS 497

Warren

We have historically spent a lot of time fighting and hating Asian nations, and as a nation
are still a little wary of them, I think because their cultures are so different from ours. We also
live in a period where those in power or their parents experienced an all-out war with some of
these countries, and even the fear and hatred passed down from a parent who lived through this
can be difficult to let go of. The fear of what unknown perils lie ahead if we give these countries
a chance to get the upper hand on us economically or technologically. These countries have
advanced because they adopted the attitude of if you cant beat em join em, in the context
that they have studied our culture and methods and graduated from our universities to make it
easier to do business with us and facilitate our consumer culture so as to more easily profit from
it. Interestingly, they in turn receive backlash from their own populations because of the
increasing epidemic of Americanization around the globe as a result of the mixing of cultures.
The main down side of this Americanization being the blatant consumerism that is beginning to
cause problems here and abroad.
But in this way can learn from our global competitors. We see how these nations pulled
themselves up by the bootstraps and changed their courses, indeed in most cases we helped them
to do this. There is no reason why we cant formulate a plan for our continued success moving
forward. Implementing that plan in the current cultural climate may be difficult. Americans as a
whole need to take a more forward thinking approach to life. If we want to still be ahead when
our grandchildrens generation comes to power, we simply need to create the infrastructure that
can ensure that lead now.
For example, we can revamp our woeful public schooling system by learning from
Finland. All their primary school teachers need to have a masters degree in education, which the
government pays for. Children start school at age seven.

MDS BAS 497

Warren

Without exception, they attend comprehensives (schools) until the age of 16.
Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or
setting. There are no inspectors, no exams until the age of 18, no school league tables, no
private tuition industry, no school uniforms. Children address teachers by their first
names. Even 15-year-olds do no more than 30 minutes' homework a night.(Wilby 2013)
Yet their testing scores are among the highest on the planet, because they educated the teachers
then allowed them to do their jobs in whatever way the thought would fit each student. Teachers
dont get paid any more than they do here, but they have small class sizes and very high job
satisfaction.
Any change in the American mindset will certainly need to start with education but it
needs to give everyone a chance to succeed, not just the middle and upper classes where private
schooling sometimes start in the pre toddler stage.
The resources the affluent are pouring into their children are also driving a
growing divide between academic outcomes of the children of the well-to-do and those of
everyone else's kids. That widening academic divide means that kids who are born poor
and kids who are born rich are increasingly likely to stay that way once they reach
adulthood. (Garland 2013)
The fact that the majority of our children have an educational disadvantage as soon as
they are born is not conducive to the whole country moving forward and staying ahead of
countries with populations 5 times the size of ours. We, like our competitors need to start
investing in our people.

MDS BAS 497

Warren

So, in the end, globalization is nothing to be afraid of. Americans will decide as a nation
on the attitude with which we choose to meet the coming changes. We can fully invest in the
infrastructure to properly educate and prepare everyone in the coming generations. We can be
ready to meet new challenges head on, and to continue the innovation and world leadership that
brought us to this position we so desperately want to cling to. We can protect our borders without
becoming an isolationist backwater and we can fully engage in the global community without
selling off everything that we hold dear. But if we cant be open to learning new ways of moving
forward from the countries to whom we once gave our hand me downs, then we will be the ones
left begging in the dust.

MDS BAS 497

Warren

Works Cited
Figge, Lukas, and Pim Martens. 2014. "Globalisation Continues: The Maastricht Globalisation
Index Revisited And Updated." Globalizations 11.6 : 875-893.
Garland, Sarah. 2013. When Class Became More Important to a Child's Education Than Race.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/08/when-class-became-more-important-to-achilds-education-than-race/279064/
Wilby, Peter. 2013. Finland's education ambassador spreads the word
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jul/01/education-michael-gove-finland-gcse