Globalization

I believe that there is little good to come from globalization. It just does not make sense to move factories out of the United States to other countries, when there are plenty of people here in need of a job. If there were not enough people here to fill all the available jobs, it would make sense to have factories in other parts of the world. However, that is not the case. Companies take advantage of people in poorer countries to save themselves money.

In a Bangladesh factory, young women are forced to work 15-hour days, 7 days a week sewing shirts for Disney. To meet deadlines they work at the factory up to 102 hours a week. These women are beaten, denied maternity leave, and fired when they reach 25 to 30 years old to be replaced by younger girls. Talking is prohibited and workers need permission to use the restroom where they are monitored and timed. Of course, there is no health care, sick time or pension. Workers are paid 5 cents for each $17.99 Disney Winnie the Pooh shirt they sew. Their wages amount to just 3/10ths of one percent of the retail price. Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO pays himself $133.4 million a year, which comes to about $63,000 an hour. A worker in Bangladesh, paid 12 cents an hour to sew Disney garments, would have to work 210 year to earn what Eisner does in one hour. After 8 years of abuse, the women dared to stand up for their rights. They publicly condemned the violations and asked that their rights be respected. Disney did not respond. Instead, they simply shut down the factory, leaving these women without a cent (Disney).

General Motors is the world's largest auto producer, and has built plants in over 25 countries. Their cost cutting, consolidation, and downsizing has led to plant closings and mass layoffs of autoworkers. Currently General Motors is meeting with the South Korean government-owned Korean Development Bank to take over the Daewoo Auto Company. Daewoo workers have been fighting back against the GM takeover. For several weeks, they occupied the plants with the backing of the Korean Confederation of Labor. That ended when government troops and police shot, tear-gassed, and beat them. They were forcibly removed from the plant and arrested along with hundreds of supporters outside the plant gates. In spite of the attacks, they are still picketing against GM's globalization policies to take over their auto plants (Daewoo).

The principal argument for globalization is the economic benefit. Proponents will claim that the overall economic gain outweighs the adverse impact to local jobs. However, there are significant costs that come with globalization. We need to ask ourselves why it is so much cheaper to move manufacturing facilities to other countries, especially third world countries. The answer is obvious; these economic gains come at the expense of our world's environment and the exploitation of people. People are forced to work in horrible conditions because of their desperate situation.

Disney and General Motors are just two examples of many. One negative effect we see here in the United States is the loss of local jobs. Companies prefer to manufacture products in other countries because they can pay exponentially less money, and pollute much more. Environmental regulations can be very expensive to follow; however, many other countries have more lax restrictions. Manufacturing a product in a foreign country doesn't only hurt our local workers; it also has a negative effect on the country they are operating. Many third world countries have such high unemployment that people will take any job they can get, even if it is for 12 cents/hour. It is almost impossible to form labor unions and demand a living wage because there are a hundred other people waiting to take your job. In many ways, it is similar to the industrial revolution our country went through. Horrid working conditions and insufficient pay are tolerated because the local economic conditions are so bad.

It is easy for companies to argue, "Yes, we are only paying them 12 cents/hour, but if we weren't here they wouldn't be working at all." That does not matter; it is still not justification for the exploitation of these people. These multinational companies can afford to pay these people a living wage and still be profitable. If there were regulations in place that required this, every company would be on a level playing field. It is even unlikely that the products would cost more; they would still be inexpensive to manufacture. The actual cost of product production in foreign countries is minute in comparison to the profit being made.

Our own free-market economy contributes to the exploitation of foreign workers. Companies will argue that they have to take advantage of foreign production, because they must stay competitive. How can a company producing shoes in the US, paying about $5-$10/hour, compete with another company paying less than $1/hour to have its shoes manufactured in a foreign country? It is this argument many companies use to justify their exploitation of foreign resources and workers. Our capitalistic economy is competitive by design, and companies that cannot compete will inevitably collapse.

Many people believe that globalization contributes to the "Americanization" of world culture. American companies move in and force their culture on the local people. One country particularly sensitive to this is France. Often McDonald's restaurants are vandalized in France because some French people see them as a symbol of Americanization. Disneyland Europe, was also extremely controversial when it was created. It was an American company taking advantage of the global economy by expanding to Europe. Many French people saw this as an attack on their culture, caused specifically by globalization.

The environmental impacts of globalization are considerable. One example of this is illustrated in the rainforests of