Globalization Is Best Defined as a Process

Globalization is best defined as a process of increasing interdependence between all people in the world. From fashion to the environment to multiculturalism to musical fusion and more, globalization emerged as a significant, new worldview in the 1990s. Globalization has created a world market in which goods, money, and people cross international borders as freely as possible. Modern transportation and theology, including the Internet, played a key role in the facilitation of globalization during the 1990s. As a result, there are many different areas in which worldwide perspectives, influences, and interactions during this time period altered daily existence for Americans and other citizens of the world.

As a result of the globalization boom of the 1990s, we now live in a world in which markets, media, law, corporations, labor, scientific research and advocacy groups are international, multinational, and multicultural. This has resulted in an enormous increase in multiculturalism around the world. Thus, globalization has encouraged differences in our daily lives. For example, nearly every city in the world now provides its residents with a variety of food choices, including Spanish, French, Italian, Thai, Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican, Chinese and more.

In America, and many other nations, citizens have daily access to multiculturalism not only in restaurants, but also in areas of media, education, finance, technology, and religion. We are more likely to understand and accept people from various cultures than perhaps our grandparents were. The conception of multiculturalism is constantly enabling ways in which various cultures could further understanding and recognize one another.

One of the greatest outcomes of globalization is actually the one that made it possible- the rapid spread of technology (IMF, 2000). In the 1980s, businesses began investing in technology on a large scale. By the 1990s, most Americans owned personal computers. While global travel revolutionized our ideas on how accessible other countries are, the widespread expansion of the Internet during the 1990s enabled us to communicate between two or more points in the world within seconds.

This has implications for other technologies (IMF, 2000). The advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology mean that we now have an incredible understanding of and control over the fundamental building blocks of all living things. These advances allow us to invent new devices and systems with potential global effects on individual and public health, safety and way of life across the world.

According to the IMF (2000), the rapid growth of technology in the 1990s has many implications for people around the world today. "Information exchange is an integral, often overlooked, aspect of globalization. For instance, direct foreign investment brings not only an expansion of the physical capital stock, but also technical innovation. More generally, knowledge about production methods, management techniques, export markets and economic policies is available at very low cost, and it represents a highly valuable resource for the developing countries (IMF, 2000)."

While globalization has created many opportunities for people, USA Today writer Daniel Yergen points out that there is a dark side of globalization. According to Yergen (2003): "While the increased interconnectedness of countries and economies brings great benefits, it also opens the door to new dangers, such as financial crises, evolving diseases and terrorist acts. We have reaped the benefits of globalization, from higher economic growth and lower-cost goods to much wider opportunities and choices. Now bomb blasts in the Middle East and quarantined hospital wards in Hong Kong show us the risks of our highly interdependent world. We must learn to live with its perils."

Today, he says, it is apparent that end of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s created too much overconfidence about world security, as leaders became cocky that conflict would be limited and manageable. According to Yergin; "After all, globalization was bringing the world together. Borders were coming down, and the rewards could be measured in higher standards of living and less poverty around the world. America's foreign trade doubled in the 1990s; that growth, in turn, was one of the main motors for the creation of 17.5 million new U.S. jobs."

However, we now know that globalization is more successful during times of peace and stability, as it is based on openness and trust. Today, as a result of globalization in the 1990s, millions of Americans are living in a world of extreme caution, and businesses are wary of new ventures, choosing not to grow so that they can avoid various risks. For these reasons, the world's economy is weak.

For example, the global travel network, which boomed in the 1990s, has created an open door for the spread of diseases and terrorism. Twenty years ago, China's Guangdong province, the incubator of the deadly SARS disease, was shut off from the rest of the world by the Bamboo Curtain. Globalization has taken away that curtain, resulting in increased foreign trade with China. However, it has also resulted in the easy spread of SARS through our global travel network.

Today's terrorists are using the tools of globalization, including global transportation, communications, fundraising, money movement and diminished barriers, to their advantage. These terrorists are not only targeting specific people and groups, but also the global economy. According to Yergin (2003): "Osama bin Laden has said that "the hinges of the economy" are one of al-Qaeda's top targets. Certainly, terrorism's impact on the desperate financial plight of airlines shows what that can mean."