NEGATIVE IMPACT

THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION:
See also: Alter-globalization, Participatory economics, and Global Justice Movement

Globalization has been one of the most hotly debated topics in international economics over the past few years. Globalization has also generated significant international opposition over concerns that it has increased inequality and environmental degradation. In the Midwestern United States, globalization has eaten away at its competitive edge in industry and agriculture, lowering the quality of life in locations that lack the opportunity to adapt to the change.Sweatshops

A maquila in Mexico from its own soil, large corporations see an opportunity to take advantage of the "export It can be said that globalization is the door that opens up an otherwise resource-poor country to the international market. Where a country has little material or physical product harvested or mined economic globalization are recorded as being the expansion of businesses and corporate growth, in many poorer nations globalization is actually the result of the foreign businesses investing in the country to take advantage of the lower wage rate: even though investing, by increasing the Capital Stock of the country, increases their wage rate.poverty" of such a nation. Where the majority of the earliest occurrences of

Economic liberalization

The world today is so interconnected that the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the U.S. has led to a global financial crisis and recession on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. Government deregulation and failed regulation of Wall Street's investment banks were important contributors to the subprime mortgage crisis.

A flood of consumer goods such as televisions, radios, bicycles, and textiles into the United States, Europe, and Japan has helped fuel the economic expansion of Asian tiger economies in recent decades. However, Chinese textile and clothing exports have recently encountered criticism from Europe, the United States and some African countries. In South Africa, some 300,000 textile workers have lost their jobs due to the influx of Chinese goods. The increasing U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.4 million American jobs between 2001 and 2008, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).^[ A total of 3.2 million – one in six U.S. factory jobs – have disappeared between 2000 and 2007.

Brain drain

Opportunities in richer countries drive talent away from poorer countries, leading to brain drains. Brain drain has cost the African continent over $4.1 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually. Indian students going abroad for their higher studies costs India a foreign exchange outflow of $10 billion annually.

Environmental degradation

Burning forest in Brazil. The removal of forest to make way for cattle ranching was the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from the mid 1960s. Recently, soybeans have become one of the most important contributors to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

The World watch Institute said the booming economies of China and India are planetary powers that are shaping the global biosphere. In 2007, China overtook the United States as the world's biggest producer of CO₂. At present rates, tropical rainforests in Indonesia would be logged out in 10 years, Papua New Guinea in 13 to 16 years. A major source of deforestation is the logging industry, driven spectacularly by China and Japan. Thriving economies such as China and India are quickly becoming large oil consumers. China has seen oil consumption grow by 8% yearly since 2002, doubling from 1996–2006. Crude oil prices in the last several years have steadily risen from about $25 a barrel in August 2003 to over $140 a barrel in July 2008. State of the World 2006 report said the two countries' high economic growth hid a reality of severe pollution. The report states:

The world's ecological capacity is simply insufficient to satisfy the ambitions of China, India, Japan, Europe and the United States as well as the aspirations of the rest of the world in a sustainable way

Without more recycling, zinc could be used up by 2037, both indium and hafnium could run out by 2017, and terbium could be gone before 2012. It is said that if China and India were to consume as much resources per capita as United States or Japan in 2030 together they would require a full planet Earth to meet their needs. In the long-term these effects can lead to increased conflict over dwindling resources and in the worst case a Malthusian catastrophe.

Food security

The head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, stated in 2008 that the gradual change in diet among newly prosperous populations is the most important factor underpinning the rise in global food prices. From 1950 to 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the world, grain production increased by over 250%. The world population has grown by about 4 billion since the beginning of the Green Revolution and most believe that, without the Revolution, there would be greater famine and malnutrition than the UN presently documents (approximately 850 million people suffering from chronic malnutrition in 2005).

It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain food security in a world beset by a confluence of "peak" phenomena, namely peak oil, peak water, peak phosphorus, peak grain and peak fish. Growing populations, falling energy sources and food shortages will create the "perfect storm" by 2030, according to the UK government chief scientist. He said food reserves are at a 50-year low but the world requires 50% more energy, food and water by 2030. The world will have to produce 70% more food by 2050 to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people and as incomes rise, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned. Social scientists have warned of the possibility that global civilization is due for a period of contraction and economic re-localization, due to the decline in fossil fuels and resulting crisis in transportation and food production. One paper even suggested that the future might even bring about a restoration of sustainable local economic activities based on hunting and gathering, shifting horticulture, and pastoralist

Disease

Globalization, the flow of information, goods, capital and people across political and geographic boundaries, has also helped to spread some of the deadliest infectious diseases known to humans. Starting in Asia, the Black Death killed at least one-third of Europe's population in the 14th century.^] Even worse devastation was inflicted on the American super continent by Europe. For instance 90% of the populations of the civilizations of the "New World" such as the Aztec, Maya, and Inca were killed by small pox brought by European colonization. Modern modes of transportation allow more people and products to travel around the world at a faster pace, they also open the airways to the transcontinental movement of infectious disease vectors. One example of this occurring is AIDS/HIV. Approximately 1.1 million persons are living with HIV/AIDS in the United States, and AIDS remains the leading cause of death among African American women between ages 25 and 34. Due to immigration, approximately 500,000 people in the United States are believed to be infected with Chagas disease. In 2006, the tuberculosis (TB) rate among foreign-born persons in the United States was 9.5 times that of U.S.-born persons.