AMELIORATION

741 words

To start off, globalization is not only a regional but also a global movement that

disseminates goods, professions, cultures, lifestyles, as well as information through

various media platforms. It contributes mostly to the restoration of a nation's economy

as well as an influence throughout almost every nation on a socioeconomic, industrial,

geopolitical, and psychological level. In this paper, we will delve into how globalization

developed over time, its sundry phases, and its repercussions of it.

Upon reading the article, I gained knowledge that globalization is not an

unprecedented occurrence. In accordance with Zinkina et al. (2019), the very first phase

of globalization took place during the late 18th century. In addition to that, it explains

how it is that trade volume has decreased dramatically more tremendously throughout

most of the world crisis than it did during the Great Depression in the early 19th century

(Eichengreen & O’Rourke 2009). Many are anticipating another phase of globalization

following the current crisis, as it is entirely plausible that such a destructive economic

downturn would have had fundamental consequences on the global economic system.

Furthermore, I've also noticed that globalization favours established and advanced

economies much more.

The only things that are still unclear to me are whether the topics I’m about to

mention are an advantage or a disadvantage of globalization. The very first issue that

came to mind was the loss of cultural identity. To my understanding, if globalization is

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future-proof and it makes it easier for us to access other cultures, then the loss of

cultural identity is a threat to some nations, right? For instance, this so-called “Korean

wave”. In Asia alone, K-pop has been dominating almost every type of market available

to us. It’s just a bit unclear to me, at least, if it is considered an advantage or a

disadvantage. Another thing would be ecological deterioration. Given it is a fact that the

transportation of goods from one location to another would necessarily entail roads or

railways, and this is also where climate change could come into the equation,

considering that by transporting products of any kind, may it be by an aircraft or by ship,

it would always make a significant contribution to climatic changes and global warming

as it is common knowledge that it would aggravate air pollution as well as marine

pollution.

Prior to being able to read the article, I used to think that globalization was the

reason for aggravating poverty. However, I was mistaken because each year, the

international ratio of poverty headcount significantly reduced from 35% to 10.7%

(Revenga & Gonzalez, 2017). Other than what was mentioned, it seems to me that it is

a prevalent misconception among those who are not familiar with globalization to think

that it could make developing countries much wealthier and more advanced in just a

snap. But even so, making a nation achieve the first world standard of living would take

quite some time. Lastly, I thought globalization is just nonsense and is not really worth

my time as an engineering student. I used to presume that this was exclusively for those

who are trying to pursue something political or economic career, but I was naive and

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unrealistic; for it is extremely advantageous to all kinds of professions in today’s day

and age that I could think of.

Of course, I’ve learned a lot just by reading a single article. However, questions

would certainly arise if one really does pay attention to something. Henceforth, first and

foremost, has globalization gone overboard, ever barely progressing sufficiently, or

moving in the incorrect direction? In addition to that, despite globalization's

effectiveness in alleviating poverty and inequality rates across continents, to what

degree could worldwide poverty emanate from the international economy? And why do

inequalities and poverty still continually increase?

Taking everything into account, in my viewpoint, globalization is not what we

initially assumed it must have been. We are all erroneous if we presume that

globalization only has advantages and does not have its disadvantages, because it

does. Being well-versed with globalization as college students could very well be

beneficial as we are now about to embark on our journey towards the real world since

we are currently in the last stages of our studies. As an engineering student, I certainly

think that I shall dive deeper into this subject as it is quite profound and intricate and

would definitely help me with my professional life in the near future.