Richard Falk / Globalization From

Richard Falk / Globalization from Below the controversial term of globalization mainly refers to a succession of improvements in relation to international reforms in economy that promote a global centre of funds by influencing countries in joining their potentials. One of the greatest achievements of globalizing the economy has been the faster developing of Southern Economies due to the improvement of their relations with the northerners. As the process took place in the Third-world countries, its benefits have been debated since it encouraged progress among the aristocracy with no regards to the demoralizing consequences it had on the lower classes. Several countries attempted to combat economic globalization through different means and methods but their endeavors have ended in failure sooner or later, leaving them aspiring for foreign investors.

One of the main reasons for which globalization is being denounced is because it is being exploited by the international market without any intervention from the corrupt authorities, regardless to how it affects the masses. This type of globalization had a comforting impact on economy by boosting its growth, but a devastating aftermath on the less fortunate one for the public. Richard Falk branded this side of globalization as "globalization-from-above."

This pattern of development is identified here as "globalization from above," a set of forces and legitimating ideas that is in many respects located beyond the effective reach of territorial authority and that has enlisted most governments as tacit partners."

Falk, 130)

Society has set free a number of factions hostile to the concept of globalization generating movements like environmentalism or localism that are protesting against globalization and the repercussions it has on either people or nature and have had numerous triumphs in their struggle.

Along the flaws it has, globalization is recognized for the improvement it brought in educational and political actions internationally, the progress being made mostly with the help of civil demonstrations.

Falk labels this beneficial side of globalization as "globalization from below":

It is this latter aggregate of phenomena that is described here under the rubric of "globalization from below."[...]

The idea of normative potential is to conceptualize widely shared world order values: minimizing violence, maximizing economic well being, realizing social and political justice, and upholding environmental quality."

Falk,130)

Globalization from above owes most of its negative aspects to the neo-liberal tendencies it often promotes counter to the more democratic tactic used with globalization from below.

Neo-liberalism supports a set of policies meant to reject the concept of progress of any sort on a social level and to defend the interests of the prosperous people in the state. The public seldom reacts to the harm it undergoes from neo-liberalism due to the fact that the process is being endorsed by state leaders for the profits it brings them.