Academic Discussion and Writing Has globalization gone too far, or is its progression beneficial to the global community? - revised -

Question   Has globalization gone too far, or is its progression beneficial to the global community?

 

 

☆Let’s think

1.        What is globalization? When did it start?

2.        What are the negative effects of globalization?

 

 

☆Ideas and Expressions

Benefits of globalization

1.        Products are distributed to countries far from the producers.

2.        Cultures around the world are shared, especially in developed countries.

3.        New cultures are created through fusion of different cultures. e.g. new type of food or music

4.        People travel or immigrate to other countries and have special experiences.

5.        Some countries in Global South developed through world trade.

 

Negative effects of globalization

1.        Poor countries have become poorer while rich countries have become richer through free trade. This is because rich countries buy raw materials from poor countries at low prices and manufacture and sell the products for high prices. Also, domestic products in weaker countries are replaced by imports from stronger countries like the US and Canada, whose prices are lower than domestic products due to lifting the customs duty.  e.g. NAFTA, Japan-USA FTA, etc.

2.        Workers in developed countries have lost jobs because their factories have been moved to developing countries, where human rights are violated by extremely low labor costs and poor working conditions.

3.        Monopoly of multinational corporations has occurred and small businesses have disappeared.

4.        Transporting products to other countries consumes energy and raises carbon foot prints, causing climate crisis.

5.        Economic refugees have increased and immigrants are discriminated against in other countries.

6.        Major cities around the world now look the same due to the development of the skylines with modern buildings, wiping out old traditional buildings.

7.        Indigenous cultures, including indigenous languages, are being lost as cultures and languages of the Western countries spread through globalization.

 

☆Sample Response

Globalization has intrinsically been bad to most people on the earth. It is the economic side of colonialism of Global South by the West. The non-Western countries that produce raw materials have been exploited by the Western countries for 5 hundred years since the beginning of the Age of Discovery. It has made the countries in Africa, Asia, and Laten America poor while the colonizers have prospered. People other than the ruling class in poor countries have suffered from enslavement. It is true that the development of transportation and communication combined with technological breakthroughs have made a number of the developing countries wealthier than before, but people in many countries, especially those in mineral-rich countries like Congo and Bolivia, still suffer from deprivation and violence manipulated by the West. People or countries that resist have been punished by colonizers, especially the USA, the most recent case being Palestine. All in all, globalization has been evil in nature from its inception. The silver line would be that the power-balance between Global South and Global North has started changing since the Ukraine War, and the birth of BRICS Plus has tipped it recently, giving the countries with natural resources their own economic self-determination. (201 words)

 

 

☆Sample Response Body Structure

Sample A

【Advantages of globalization】

【Disadvantages of globalization】

【Your opinion】

 

Sample B

【Advantage 1】

【Advantage 2】

【Counterargument-treatment: The reason why disadvantages do not matter so much】

 

Write your response in 10 minutes. Show each other your responses. Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s response.

 

                                               DRAFT