Module 8

2. What factors contributed to economic globalization in the second half of the twentieth century?

Some factors were that capitalist victors from WWII were determined to avoid any return to such Depression-era conditions. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund laid the foundation for postwar globalization."Bretton Woods system" negotiated the rules for commercial and financial dealings among the major capitalist countries, while promoting relatively free trade, stable currency values linked to the US dollar, and high levels of capital investment.And technology contributed to the acceleration of economic globalization with containerized shipping, huge oil tankers, and air express services dramatically lowered transportation costs, and fiber-optic cables and the Internet provided the communication infrastructure for global economic interaction. The population growth in developing countries and neoliberalism favored free global movement of capital. Major capitalist countries abandoned many earlier political controls on economic activity in which leaders and businesspeople viewed the entire world as a single market. There was favoring the reduction of tariffs, the free global movement of capital, a mobile and temporary workforce, the privatization of many state-run enterprises, the curtailing of government efforts to regulate the economy, and both tax and spending cuts. The World Bank and IMF imposed free market and pro-business conditions on many poor countries if they were to qualify for much-needed loans and collapse of the state-controlled economies of the communist world. This can be found on pages 1024 and 1025 in the Strayer textbook with the evidence. 

3. In what ways has economic globalization more closely linked the world’s peoples?

Some ways were accelerating circulation of goods, capital, and people and the World Trade skyrocketed. "Foreign direct investment" to take advantage of cheap labor, tax breaks, and looser environmental regulations in developing countries happened during these times. 

Short-term movement of capital that investors spent to purchase foreign currencies or stocks likely to increase in value.Personal funds of individuals from international credit cards allowing easy transfer of money across national borders. Transnational corporations produced goods or delivered services simultaneously in many countries. Also, a vast movement of people from developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America to the industrialized world of Europe and North America to escape poverty. This evidence can be found on the starting page of 1026 in the Strayer textbook. The book was also mentioning money and goods achieved an “amazing global mobility in three ways which were mentioned in my earlier response to the question. The book also mentioned there was a factory in China or Mexico that helped with these acts of investment and then the rich countries started to take advantage of cheap labor and tax breaks. This resulted in making looser environmental regulations in these developing countries. A lot has happened during these times. 

5. What new or sharper divisions has economic globalization generated?

What was generated was the instability of this emerging world and the distribution of wealth between the rich industrialized countries and everyone else worsened the North/South gap.

These differences between the rich nations of the Global North and the developing countries of the Global South about the rules for world trade, availability of and terms for foreign aid, representation in international economic organizations, the mounting problems of indebtedness, and environmental and labor standards. The developing countries demanded a "new international economic order".Developing countries have contested protectionist restrictions on their agricultural export imposed by rich countries seeking to protect their own politically powerful farmers. Growing disparities among the developing countries themselves. Mounting income inequality and the erosion of the country's middle class. The divided northern part which has close business and manufacturing ties to the USA of Mexico from the southern part were supporters of anti-globalization opposed neoliberal globalization and growing international economic competition. A lot has happened in this section and the text Srayer showed us a lot of the evidence. The evidence can be found on the start of page 1029 and 1030 in the textbook. The text was also saying in the years of 1973-1974 the soaring oil prices contributed to a severe market crash and great hardship for many devolping countries. This evidence is found on page 1029 near the end.