Globalization

What are some positive aspects of globalization? How does globalization impact your life? In your blog feel free to reflect on the negatives as well, many of which were pointed out inthe readings for the week.

I greatly appreciated the critique by Vandana Shiva on globalization and agriculture especially in India, one of the greatly disproportionately unindustrialized countries today. Obviously globalization on paper as an idea looks greatly efficient in an economic sense. In this sense, each country should produce what they can do so the most efficiently, and then trade for the rest, meaning they should stick to those products which they have a comparative advantage producing. This in theory is correct, but as Vandana pointed out, homogenizing cultures, and attempting countries to take on practices which do not serve them is hardly worth what is being lost to some. I like to look at it like investing, would you put all of your money in one high risk stock portfolio? You could, but you'd have a lot to lose, it would be smarter to invest in a variety of ways, bonds, stocks, mutual funds. In this comparison, small and large commercial farms across the globe could be the answer. Certainly I feel that leaders of the world need to unite in that we are all of the same human species, and have similar needs when it comes to nutrients. Working together to achieve some amount of economic efficiency while preserving the cultural diversity would be a great goal, one that is likely already being sought after.