Culture vs. Unity?

Over the last few weeks, my colleagues have pointed out certain aspects of the globalization language issue. If we are as one, should we not speak as one? Should there not be some language that all will know and communicate with? However, there is a certain concern hinted at in these posts – the future of culture. All humans live differently – it is a fact. On the global scale, will we continue to do the same or be crushed with a forced conformity? Will we become a supreme version of the “nicely tossed salad” like the community I came from almost was, or will we be a large“melting pot” like America seems to be? Plainly stated, the question is this – will globalization assist or destroy cultural diversity?

In my hunt for an answer, I came across a site titled “The Globalization Website” (how awfully convenient!) with an entire SECTION on the matter. Clearly, I was not alone in my concern. They had various concerns listed in neat little bullet-point style, simplifying what was too complex for me to explain (at 11:30 on a Monday Night after a concert). For simplicity, I shall repost this chart. Hooray for sources!

There are many reasons to think that globalization might undermine cultural diversity:

* multinational corporations promote a certain kind of consumerist culture, in which standard commodities, promoted by global marketing campaigns exploiting basic material desires, create similar lifestyles–”Coca-Colanization”
* backed by the power of certain states, Western ideals are falsely established as universal, overriding local traditions–”cultural imperialism”
* modern institutions have an inherently rationalizing thrust, making all human practices more efficient, controllable, and predictable, as exemplified by the spread of fast food–”McDonaldization”
* the United States exerts hegemonic influence in promoting its values and habits through popular culture and the news media–”Americanization”

But there are also good reasons to think that globalization will foster diversity:

* interaction across boundaries leads to the mixing of cultures in particular places and practice–pluralization
* cultural flows occur differently in different spheres and may originate in many places–differentiation
* integration and the spread of ideas and images provoke reactions and resistance–contestation
* global norms or practices are interpreted differently according to local tradition; the universal must take particular forms–glocalization
* diversity has itself become a global value, promoted through international organizations and movements, not to mention nation-states–institutionalization

Okay, there ends the stolen work. But it makes you think about the question a little more thoroughly. In reality, it really depends who is running the entire globalization train. One nation should not be above others and established as a leader in this eventual merger, but I am afraid it is the only way this can happen. Financially, one nation will be the richest and take the reigns to “help the rest of the world,” therefore imprinting it’s face on the world as the creators of this “great union.” Hopefully, a number of nations will all contribute equally to create a semi-demonationalocracy.

How do we prevent one nation from ruling the world? Everybody’s going to want a higher say in things. We can look at the UN as an example. It is the “town meeting hall” of the world, but at the beginning of the Cold War, it – the PEACE KEEPING BODY – became a battleground for the Soviets and the Americans. What happens if we find ourselves in another power struggle? What happens if the world polarizes and we become two vast forces, both wanting to destroy the other?

…but enough doomsday talk. Perhaps we’ll work it out fine, and perhaps this will open cultural boundaries instead of crushing them. Perhaps we will all learn to respect differences on a global scale at some point, but in our current state, we have a lot of issues to work out before we can create any sort of Utopia.

More? Take a peek at…
- http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/issues05.html
- http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/index.htm

You’ll find more links on those two sites, if you want to explore.

A Good Distortion.

Society, culture, transportation, economics, politics, the environment, communication, languages, tourism, finances, education, and the list can go on and on. All of these things have at least one thing in common: they’ve all felt the impact of globalization at one point or another.

Having said that, could you imagine other aspects of life that globalization has shaken up? I’m sure it’s possible—there are many. Nonetheless, would you ever have considered art? I’ve got to say, I’m very much into art, and not once did the repercussions globalization had on art enter my mind. Sure, art is a big part of culture, but I think it deserves special recognition. It also allows for further distortion of globalization, leading us further away from the popularized economics and politics behind it.

Art was, at one point, one of the more important things in our lives, and today it continues to have importance, although, admittedly, its influence has been diminishing. Even so, art has the ability to impact people grandly. In its most basic stage, art is an ability we as humans have to create, something that is very appealing to most.

So, what does this have to do with globalization? Quite a bit.

Globalization and technology alike have forced many artists to reconsider the world of art—especially here in the U.S. As we’re well aware, globalization seems to be charging at us from many different ways at full force. This drive has led new art collectors to spring up from varied parts of the globe. As a result, the steady hold that America and Europe have on the art world is crumbling.

As curators Chrissie Iles and Philippe Vergne rightly express it, “The definition of what constitutes American is in dramatic flux. Artists are moving around the world with an ever greater fluidity.” (Globalization, Technology Changing the Art World)

Leaving ownership of the art world aside, the way art is perceived is also taking a drastic change. That’s nothing new to us; we’ve seen it happen before. Artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are great indicators of that, changing American perception of art from flawless and classy paintings to stylized soup cans and comic strips. These acts blurred the set definition of what art was making it harder for people to distinguish what art was.

Recently, with the internet having a strong foundation and the emergence and rise of digital culture, our boundaries on art are being further distorted—and not in a bad way. This broadening of the boundaries have flattened and banished the beliefs that only delicate paintings, detailed statues, and skilled sketches are the only real types of art. As a result of this, a digital recreation of an everyday object can rival a beautifully drawn sketch of a panda in popularity and superior reception.

Prostructuralism—a belief which taught many generations to ‘view art as epiphenomena of language, culture, and desire’—seems to be sprouting once more and taking the globe by storm under the guidance of globalization. (The Work of Art in an Age of Diversity and Globalization)

Personally, I think that the effects of globalization are far reaching even though they may sometimes be more harmful than helpful. Nonetheless, in this case, I think it’s safe to say that globalization has done our world a great favor. By expanding the boundaries of art through its effects on culture, technology, communication, and society, globalization has allowed for new forms of art to emerge and grow popular. With this new type of emerging art, come new aficionados, as well. This might be problematic for curators and museum directors at first, seeing as they must expand their collections to satisfy a new group of devotees while still keeping their traditional art-lovers content, but, I feel that soon these problems will straighten themselves out.

Afterwards, we’re left with a world once again interested in the ‘finer things in life’. And for those fearing great change, there are no worries. In a way, this is a return to our roots—one of the rare outcomes of globalization.

– Mario

        

Not satisfied?

Visit ‘Art in the Era of Globalization’ for further coverage on the subject.

Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?

As my esteemed colleague Mario mentioned in a previous blog post, the idea of a common world language is one that is becoming increasingly more popular as time wears on and the world becomes more and more based on global standards and economies. In business operations, the language barrier is quite possibly the most prominent difficulty of transaction; naturally, when one party does not speak the language of another, problems emerge. While the idea of establishing a common language might be considered a relatively new one by some, the theory is, in fact, over a century old, and it is known by the name Esperanto.
The language itself is, to my Midwest comrades, at least, relatively unknown; if you, reader, also find yourself unenlightened in regards to the language known as Esperanto, allow me to digress while I fill in the shades of grey in the back-story. Esperanto is what is known as an international auxiliary language, created by Polish ophthalmologist Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof in the years of the late 1870s and early 1880s; he published his first opus of grammatical ins and outs in 1887. Zamenhof’s theory was that Esperanto would be a second language for people of different native tongues, and would be a means to allow them to communicate while maintaining a sense of cultural identity in their native language. The language soon took off, gaining popularity primarily in regions of Eastern Europe and the areas controlled by Russia. However, the language was not popular with everyone; in fact, Joseph Stalin called it the “language of spies,” and banned its use in his territories in the years spanning 1937 to 1956. This Communist leader is now dead, and Esperanto continues to rise to popularity, with a push by such organizations as EsperantoUSA. These pro-Esperanto societies cite a variety of important arguments in their push to establish Esperanto as the primary method of neutral communication across the globe. Two of the most commonly cited, and my personal favorite, are that…

= Esperanto is an easy language to learn. Unlike English, French, or Japanese, for example, words are made from common roots and are phonetic. Some even claim that it is up to four times easier to learn than the average Romance, Oriental, or Slavic language.

= The language is neutral, and is not the official spoken language of any particular country.

The last piece of information is one that is quite essential in the formulation of my opinion as to the viability of Esperanto as an international, one world language. In selecting a language to serve as the common-communication tongue, those selecting would be wise to take heed of the messages sent by the selection of that language. For example, by naming Arabic as the language of choice, the impression accidentally received by the general populace is that a certain trait of Arabic culture, or of the structural components of the language itself, is superior to that of the culture of England, or Spain, for example. The bureaucrats of Spain, furious at this apparent snubbery, directs their anger toward Saudi Arabian despots and the international relations of the world become suddenly icy and complicated due to this anger, precisely the effect that a language such as Esperanto hopes to avoid. However, I also find myself wondering if establishing a neutral language, such as Esperanto, as the main language of communication won’t achieve a similar effect; that is, will countries feel slighted by the idea that their language “wasn’t good enough” to be the international communication language? My instinct is to say no, and hope that the leaders of said countries would have the presence of mind to see reason and understand that such a choice would be made merely to aid the speed of communication, and ease thereof, in business and international relations. However, if we are not mature enough to keep the decision process from becoming a mudslinging one, I would come to the conclusion that we are not yet ready for a common language at all.

For the limited few of you waiting on this blog post, please forgive my delay; I’ve been without Internet + computer for the past few days.

So Much for Structure.

As I sat down at my Macintosh G5 computer, cup of Starbucks coffee in my hand, iPod charging, and Architecture In Helsinki CD blasting in a $5000 home stereo system, I suddenly realized how much the cursed system of capitalism had done for me… and how much it had destroyed everybody else. Returning from a concert at Skelletones, I had just had my own brush with the lower echelons of society, seeing the occasional homeless fellow or drunkard ask me for change and stomping of furiously when I instead offered them a muffin. A new thought occurred to me. EVEN THE POOR in our land can be picky. They’ll take your change, but be grumpy if you offer them the food they say they’re going to buy. In case you didn’t get the implications, the fellows I encountered most likely intended to use this change to fuel the bad habits that made them poor in the first place. I wondered, then, about our poor little world, and wondered how the Third-World countries got by when a nation semi-puppeteered by greed was supposedly the leader on a global scale.

I was intrigued. I decided it would make a good topic for my next globalization blog.

What I learned made me sick. There is a term called Structural Adjustment. This term is a super-simplified way of describing how the rich nations of the world cause poverty by loaning money. BUT WAIT, you say! Causing poverty by loaning money? ABSURD! That’s what I would have liked to have believed.

The policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, international organizations that make loans, cause developing nations to be dependant on the big rich guys, like us. What we do is set up things called Structural Adjustment Policies, commonly known as SAPs. Irony, anybody? Get it? Or is it just me? These ensure that the money is used in the most American way possible. Privatization and Deregulation, Poverty Reduction and Great Walrus Bacon! Before I go on “Doctor Seuss-ing” the terms that these policies throw around, I should explain them. Well, except for Great Walrus Bacon. The SAPs don’t actually have any specific requirement on what food a nation must eat, but as soon as we become a dictatorocracy, a.k.a. a world run by one sinister democracy forcing everybody to think like them, then we’ll address that.

AHEM. We’ll consult Wikipedia for these.

- Privatization: the incidence or process of transferring ownership of business from the public sector (government) to the private sector (business). In a broader sense, privatization refers to transfer of any government function to the private sector including governmental functions like revenue collection and law enforcement.

- Deregulation: a process by which governments remove, reduce, or simplify restrictions on business and individuals with the intent of encouraging the efficient operation of markets.

- Poverty Reduction: Well, this one is more general. We think by removing trade barriers, etc., we’re helping out. What about the Progressive Era in America? Anybody remember that? You know, how we became a world power…? Nobody?

The point is, we tell them how to use the money. And then we throw things in to make sure they pay us back, meaning they can’t use the money to assist their health care systems, educations systems, poverty relief systems, etc.

As much as I hate to be right, I fear that it’s pretty hard to deny that we’re not exactly directly improving the stability of little countries with our funds. In fact, the dependence and forcing of our ideas onto other nations may only throw them into more of a problem. In a world that’s slowly becoming one sort-of united entity, we need to point out the flaws in our current plans and work on new ones. Ideas, anybody?

To learn more, or hear my point from the view of smart people, visit:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_adjustment
- http://www.imf.org/external/standards/index.htm
- http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/SAP.asp

HINT: The last one is the most important.

There was another link there, but WordPress didn’t like my link and made it ugly. I don’t like it when my posts look ugly, not that I’m a post-narcissist or anything. However, if you want it, search World Bank Policies. You should find it.

Thanks for tuning in once more to my misplaced ranting skills.

- The Alchemist Saint

A Common Tongue.

Some models of Honda automobiles are designed in Japan and assembled in the United States with American labours and with parts manufactured in Europe. Is this Honda a Japanese car?

The question posed is an interesting one. In truth it’s a global car coming from a Japanese company which has become a global company. So, can said car be labeled as Japanese, American or European? Well, yes. It could be labeled an American car solely because it was assembled by American workers, or it could be labeled a European car for the simple fact its parts were manufactured there. Then there’s the instance in which labeling it Japanese is appropriate, it was after all designed by the Japanese, no?  Now the question is are any of these tags sufficiently describing the car? Definitely not—neither of these tags effectively tells us what we need to know. This is troubling, for many reasons.  

Concentrating on cars can be a bit misleading on my part, after all, you tend to think of cars as part of markets and, overall, the economy. However, I’m choosing to once again steer away from that path, for the most part. Before being able to tackle the economics behind globalization at full force, I find it better to concern myself with the social and cultural barriers that oppose it, and one barrier in particular—language.

Surely, you’ve at least once stumbled upon the thought of a universal language across the globe. Nonetheless, you’ve probably ridiculed the idea, thinking it was an impossible thing to carry through. Today, in a moment when the not so modern thought of globalization is taking the world by storm, we find that this idea isn’t as ridiculous as we originally thought. In fact, the intertwining of countries has inevitably caused us to pick up a few traces of a foreign language here or there and with the things expected up ahead, any language you can learn is beneficial to you. According to the Cilbane Group, the creation of, funding for, and distribution of translated information has become quite a dominant theme in Washington.

That’s to be expected as the spread of ideas to foreign places can’t all be in English—or can it? Many scholars believe that English is becoming the ‘language of globalization’. Facts and figures can advocate this train of thought, but they can only go so far. It is estimated that about eighty-eight percent of information on the internet is presented in English, while only about seven percent is in German, and the remaining amount is split between various languages.

The importance of language barriers between countries can be taken a step further as China did in 2006. According to Language of Globalization (March 3, 2003), in China, the lack of translators has been seen as a “major obstacle to China’s economic development.”

Consequently, before facing many of the economic problems associated with globalization, first we must find a way to break down cultural and social barriers—especially language barriers. This may sound a bit oversimplified, and that’s because it is. With a global problem facing us, we’ll often come up with solely theoretical solutions—many of which won’t work well when trying to be implemented or a few that are just too vague. That’s a problem in its own, but then there are also those who don’t want change. For instance, Impact of Globalization gives you the perspective of conservative Arabs on globalization as well as other perspectives. From the view point of these Arabs, many of the changes that globalization calls for aren’t possible for their culture to adhere to.

As far as my opinion goes, I think that globalization can break the existing language barriers if it is introduced with effective social, economic and educational support. That’s easier said than done but it could potentially mold today’s individual cultures into a seemingly universal one. That’s not to say the individuality of each culture needs to be diminished, but there must certainly be change. It’d be better to focus on harmony among cultures and societies rather than sameness among them all.

Reading, writing, and arthimetic.

Frequently, within the context of globalization, a sizeable percentage of the news reports are negative. An even greater percentage of these same reports refer to the economy, as if that was the only component to the wide spectrum of topics that are blanketed by the term “globalization.” However, the word entails more than dollars, cents, and stocks, and one of the often-overlooked portions of this same concept is education.
The majority of educational systems in the world remain set by an individual country, such as England’s national education requirements, or a certain region within that country, such as America’s individual state tests and standards. However, as the economy becomes increasingly based on one common set of standards, it is time for one common set of educational standards, ones that will prepare students of the world to respond to the challenges and demands of this global economy. In response to such a demand, a set of standards and a program to prepare students to meet those standards was created: the International Baccalaureate. In fact, our own fair establishment has, of late, voted to implement this program of education for the academic years following this one (City High Times, Winter 2008). The advantages of such a program are numerous, especially in light of the increasing call for higher American education to respond to the eclipsing of the abilities of our own red, white, and blue workforce by those of foreign interests.
What is the International Baccalaureate? This question often resounds from the mouth of those hearing the term, or its shortened form (IB), for the first time. The International Baccalaureate describes its program simply as such:

“The International Baccalaureate (IB) offers high quality programmes of international education to a worldwide community of schools. Our three programmes for students aged 3 to 19 help develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world. There are more than 602,000 IB students at 2,257 schools in 126 countries.”

By creating a standard of education that can transcend the boundaries of modern nations, we have initiated a method of advancing those educated under this program through a common educational standard. Students taking part in a program that is not only applicable in one country, but in a plethora of nations, will find that they have a clear advantage over those educated by a level of education specific to one region.
To best understand this, let us examine the hypothetical case of a girl we’ll call Rebecca. Rebecca’s parents, when their daughter reached the age of three, enrolled her in a school offering the International Baccelaureate program. Throughout the years, Rebecca completes the program, receiving good grades and a level of education that earns her an admission letter from Yale University. However, Rebecca’s dream has always been to apply to somewhere more exotic—a locale far from that of her small city—so she also applies to The University of Cape Town and The University of Hong Kong. The two schools, noting that Rebecca’s educational background includes a program that goes above and beyond that of the typical American education, both accept her eagerly, and she chooses to attend the college located in China. Given her International Baccalaureate standing and credit earned, she has credit already for a year of her studies at the college; by the time she graduates, three years later, she has been offered a job at American companies operating in China and Chinese companies operating in America. In addition, her studies abroad have prepared her to speak Mandarian Chinese fluently, which makes her an even more alluring candidate for more prestigious and higher-paying positions. She is prepared to face a global economy and a globalizing world as a whole, all thanks to her International Baccalaureate education.

My take? I applaud the International Baccalaureate program. It seems to be a rigorous and lengthy course to pursue, but, ultimately, one with a plethora of benefits to the diploma holder. Furthermore, instead of finding that American education standards come up short to those of, say, the Chinese or Japanese results, a common—yet optional—common curriculum would allow students enrolled with more flexibility in college choices and, in the end, job opportunities. However, I would caution those who would wish to make the IB program standard in all schools, in all countries. The program works best in Westernized countries, and in areas with access to sufficient technology to complete the advanced coursework required for such a program. Furthermore, the possibilities of this adapting to underprivileged and struggling districts are slim; those districts need to be brought up to traditional educational standards before they can be expected to maintain the rigorous standards of the IB program.

Want to Know More? Here’s Where I Found Out About the IB Program

This site
This other site
Oh, yeah, and this place, too

The Other Side.

“Globalization could be the answer to many of the world’s seemingly intractable problems. But this requires strong democratic foundations based on a political will to ensure equity and justice.” – Sharan Burrow, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)

We all tend to hear the term ‘globalization’ and think solely of the economics that it encases, but hardly do we ever venture past this realm of thought. While it’s true that economics is a major part of globalization and that part of what makes globalization so controversial are the economics that lay behind it, in reality, globalization is much more than just the intertwining of the economies of different countries. Globalization also encompasses things such as politics, socialization, culture and the environment in particular. It is here that I will to tend to focus as trying to tackle all of the aspects of globalization would not work out so well.

I find it bad enough we do not know much about problems as enormous as those associated with the environment as a whole, but, on top of that, we choose to ignore them. It is no secret that there are issues embedded in globalization as a whole, and yet, we tend to avert our eyes from said problems when they annoyingly stare us in the face. The situation gets worse when these problems are ignored on a global scale.

 

Take, for example, President Bush who has stated that he is a strong supporter of globalization in the form of a free trade agreement among the Americas. Although he recognizes the economic and political aspects behind globalization, he refuses to acknowledge the environmental issues globalization could help stop. According to an article in May 2001 by the David Suzuki Foundation, a foundation focused on stopping Global Warming, “President Bush is a firm opponent of globalization in the form of the Kyoto Protocol—the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.”

President Bush rejects the agreement because addressing global warming could hurt the U.S. coal and oil industry and, potentially, the U.S. economy—this being cited as his reason although global warming is estimated to have tremendous negative environmental, social, and economic impacts on the entire world. While economic globalization can actually be a threat to the world economy in the near future, environmental globalization is advocated as the only true solution to the global problem that is climate change.

Possible methods of doing away with global warming can be enacted—but only on a global level. An article by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006 stressed that the first step to stopping global warming was a global environmental tax on greenhouse gas emissions. In order for this to happen, however, it is assumed that most, if not all, the countries of the world are on boat with the idea. When it comes to reality, on the other hand, it’s a different story. With many developing countries clearly not interested in partaking in the Kyoto Protocol without the participation of the U.S., realizing the project may prove much more difficult than it does on paper.

Why do these developing countries refuse to join the fun and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? Simply because they feel it is unfair that countries such as the U.S are allowed to pollute more per capita. Likewise, corporal United States also sees it unfair to reduce their greenhouse emissions when the developing countries don’t do the same.

In comes the global tax that, ironically, resolves its own problem. Said tax would make everyone pay equally for the social cost that is required for every greenhouse gas emission—theoeretically that is.

Even though everything may look as if it could be resolved as simply as is implied, the truth is that a great amount of work will be needed to put the notion suggested above—and many others—into place to solve our environmental issues. In fact, the world has its work cut out for it…and it will need the collaborative efforts of an “environmentally globalized” world to lessen the load.

The Children of Globalization

The Children of Globalization
Outsourcing Concerns and the Fate of the Next Generation

“I think there’s going to be an enormous shift of occupations. Most jobs are going to change. They’ll survive, but they’ll change.” – Alvin Toffler

It’s a fairly common notion that our children are our future. We raise them, nurture them, and educate them, all with the hope they’ll find a path to success in life. We train our kids to hunt the long-sought American Dream. However, the quest to prepare our children for success in the future is growing more and more complicated in a world of expanding globalization and technology. Do you remember when your parents asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up? How can we do that now with such ease when many of the jobs of the future don’t even exist yet, or will at least undergo drastic changes before the children are old enough to work in them?

Reporter Hannah Clark at Forbes.com jokingly poses this semi-apocalyptic scenario: “It’s 2026. You lost your cashier job five years ago, when Wal-Mart Stores switched to automatic checkout. A job at the post office lasted only a few years, since no one sends mail anymore. Then came the avian flu, decimating populations around the world. Your new office job shut down because everyone was afraid of getting sick. What’s next? Be a quarantine enforcer! These crucial public servants patrol the streets in quarantined neighborhoods, ensuring no one leaves, except in a hearse. With your gas mask and bio-hazard suit, you wait for a signal from blighted households before calling the morgue. No matter how the economy changes, at least one skill will always be in demand: dealing with the dead.” Though proposed in a semi-humorous light, the scene addresses some important issues. Currently, we can walk the aisles of grocery stores, gather our goods, and see the spectacle of machines in the place of humans. That’s right: The Automated Checkout. When I was younger and first discovered these machines, I felt a slight confusion. “What happens to the humans when the machines replace the other cashiers?” I wondered. Did the other humans just go away? (Hint: The answer is no). These people are now out of the job because the machines are much more cost-effective.

Another key concern is the outsourcing of jobs. Before we’re all replaced by machines (which, as Battlestar Galactica fans will note, sounds a little too familiar), we will replaced by other humans willing to work for slightly lower wages… or vastly lower wages in some cases. Many factories have been moved over to China, taking jobs away from the less skilled of the American public and putting them in the hands of the exploited Chinese. Is it right that we should be able to a) exploit another country to make our goods for us and b) do so at the loss of American jobs? Perhaps this is absolutely fantastic for the big-wigs, but we all know how well that worked out in the Great Depression. With the majority of a country poor, there will be a huge call for a solution. In the off chance we get another president like FDR who can enact countless reforms to alleviate the struggle, we will still have many issues to handle. The times have changed from the 1930’s to today. Our economy has evolved and is so integrated into the rest of the world that, unless everybody decides to work together, no reform on American soil will fully save us. Whatever the matter, people are beginning to see outsourcing as an important problem. Even the UN has recognized globalization as a concern.

The outsourcing of technological jobs, however, should be an even greater concern. The two foes of our children’s future employment, technology and outsourcing, are an even greater threat combined. Tim Weber of BBC puts it like this: “Once upon a time the solution seemed to be straightforward. ‘Move up the value chain,’ we were told. Get high-tech skills and let cheap workers in developing countries get their hands dirty. Apart from the fact that his advice never quite worked for many people in manufacturing jobs, it’s also out-of-date. These days engineers in China, India and elsewhere are just as qualified and innovative as those in Silicon Valley or Silicon Glen. Designers in South Korea can be just as hip and cutting edge as those in Turin or Toronto.” Therefore, we have a problem. Even the most education and training here in America will not guarantee our kids a job, because computer-based jobs can be easily shifted down the wire to people who are willing to work for less.

When our children rise up to claim the jobs that haven’t been taken by technology, outsourcing, or technological outsourcing, what’s left? Maybe Hannah Clark wasn’t so far off when she proposed the job of dealing with the dead. The entertainment industry could go either way – people could be so desperate to forget the economic plight that they’ll be greatly invested in entertainment, or will concern themselves only with the essentials and many profitable industries (such as those of music and film) will become obsolete. What other jobs can our children take on? What is left? And how do we prepare them for this great unknown? Fortunately, Hannah Clark has other solutions besides the handling of the deceased. “Technology will create new jobs as well. Out-of-work “top gun” pilots may find jobs captaining dirigibles… Hollywood’s woes may be solved by holography. Since consumers are perfectly happy watching DVDs at home on big flat-screen televisions, box-office receipts have slipped and movie moguls are scrambling. But eventually, Barker says, film companies will start producing three-dimensional holographic movies that require equipment too expensive and complicated to set up at home… Alternative energy will create dozens of new careers in the next two decades. Hydrogen fuel could be cost-competitive with gasoline if refueling stations were mass-produced, according to a study conducted by Ford. The hydrogen at these stations would be produced on-site, so managers would need an entirely different set of skills than those required in today’s gas stations… teleport repairmen could replace auto mechanics… These things are not outside the realm of possibility.”

So, what steps can we take to make sure our children are ready for evolving jobs? We have to learn how to adapt our education system and ourselves to train children to adapt to whatever coming change they might face. If they can master the art of learning and know how to be prepared for the exponential changes that are bound to come, then we can be slightly more at ease when glancing into the uncertain void of the future. Perhaps great things will come, and maybe our panic is only found since we are in a transition stage. As long as we can teach our children to learn and adapt, we can face the future and boldly go where economics and society have never gone before.

Want to learn more? Here are the articles I stole thoughts and quotes from:
• http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/20/jobs-future-work_cx_hc_06work_0523jobs.html
• http://electmikecrane.com/2006/july/globalization.php
• http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/gashc3778.doc.htm
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7214523.stm

Moving out.

“Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology,” according to the website globalization101.org, a project of the Levin Institute of the State University of New York (SUNY). This definition wraps up a serious, widespread issue in a nutshell.
Seeing as how the issue is too broadly based to devote adequate depth to all of the problems at hand in one blog post, I have selected the subtopic of outsourcing on this occasion, and specifically its effects on world economics.

Outsourcing: to purchase goods or subcontract services from an outside supplier or service, or paying another company to provide services which a company might otherwise have employed its own staff to perform (dictionary.com).

In Michigan in particular, when we turn on the six o’clock news, or open up the local paper over a bowl of Cheerios on a Sunday morning, we view headlines that are riddled with stories of outsourcing, such as the notorious Electrolux exodus from Greenville in 2005, costing the small town 2,700 jobs. Similar stories often occur in the automotive industry; some, such as Lee Russ (link) claim that General Motors has even embarked on a question to “rid itself of all domestic workers,” sending the jobs to be performed at a lesser cost in countries such as Mexico or China, to name a few. Companies such as Boeing frequently say they have “no choice” when outsourcing, citing the desire to remain competitive and have the most productive workers possible, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligence. The same article quotes Gus Faucher, a senior economist at Economy.com, as backing Boeing’s claim with the proclamation, “We should not view this as something that is revolutionary. It is more evolutionary. To a large extent, it is inevitable.”

I beg to differ with Faucher. Outsourcing is not “evolutionary”; it is destructive to economies.

In the name of building up an economy–whether it is that of the US by companies purportedly saving funds, or helping that of a developing nation, such as poverty-riddled India–outsourcing occurs. Jobs are shifted from one place to another without creation of more positions, meaning that unemployment rates of the world do not decrease as a whole, but rather temporarily decrease in one location at the expense of another. For example, Forrest Research analyst John McCarthy says that three million positions in the US service sector will find their way to foreign countries in the years between 2000 and 2015, an astounding 200,000 jobs every year. Yes, this will decrease India’s unemployment rate of 7.8%, but will cause disastrous effects to our own unemployment rate. All the process really does is shift problems temporarily. The reason I say “temporarily” is that recent reports at the New Economist Blog, as of October 13, 2007, have pointed out that, due to recent Indian wage increases, the same jobs that were outsourced from America are now being outsourced from India to American states like Idaho or Georgia!

In addition, a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2004 showed that outsourcing reaped few benefits for firms involved. Only 47% of the 77% of American companies who have outsourced in recent years and participated in the poll claimed to have seen even a moderate savings from their outsourcing. An astonishing 31% said they had seen little to no benefit, 9% might be breaking even with no gain or loss of funds, and another 4% who participated said that outsourcing had even caused them to lose money!

Outsourcing. In the name of globalization, of spreading the wealth and making up some of what American companies had lost, they have embarked on a risky experiment that is soon proving to be counterproductive. When they return to American soil in search of willing, cheap workers–as they did abroad in years past–they will find that gone are the desperate families who would have groveled for a minimum-wage job.

Left, instead, is a culture of distrust and bitterness.

Welcome. Bienvenue. Bienvenidos.

You are reading the opening post of the City High Seventh Hour Globalization Blog, created for the Miske-Cochran Modern Problems Class, as an assignment for the final semester of the 2007-2008 school year.

In case you couldn’t tell, our topic for this semester is globalization. That is, we will be discussing, in a series of blog posts, outsourcing, China, and the world as a whole, by drawing on a variety of sources, often brought to us by Google Reader and including, but not limited to, CNN, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, and assorted other newsmedia.

Each one of the three of us will bring a unique perspective to this blog, as we are each natives of a different North American country: Canada, The USA, and Mexico. Our global backgrounds give us experience and opinions on the issue of globalization, even though we are only high school students.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the City High Globalization Blog.