Impact Of Globalisation

Dixya Poudel

If we were to listen graciously to our parents and elderlies, we would realise how much the world has changed. Looking at the world from their perspective is an education in itself. Millennials can only wonder at the events that uprooted their parents’ world and planted in its wake a new world. At the same time, as the new generations grow up, the perspective of a millennial will surprise them too. What is thus passed from one generation to the next isn’t just hereditary trait; it is also science and technology, arts and culture and socio-religious norms.

Likewise, as globalisation extends its reaches today, the upcoming generations will inherit its outcomes. The dictionary defines globalisation as “the process by which businesses or other organisations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale.” It refers to the flow of technology, job opportunities, information, goods and services as well as financial trades which cross national borders and cultures. It has fostered interdependence among nations through the implementation of free trade. 

Foreign investments have increased leading to economic spurts in nations. Multinational corporations extend their reaches to developing nations, thereby increasing job opportunities. And culture influx means that people mingle with one another leading to cultural acculturation. It is seen in developing nations where western culture has left its impact. Fast food, fast fashion, western movies, shows, theatre and music are in vogue in most developing nations as their citizens take in foreign values. 

At the same time, eastern culture too impacts the western one leading to a fusion of socio-cultural norms, traditions, languages and customs. However, even though globalisation has brought forth advancement in the world, there are fallouts to open market, free trade and cross-cultural flows. Critics of globalisation have termed it as a corporate agenda wherein multinational corporations vie to infiltrate the global economy profiting at the cost of the poor, developing and improvised nations. International companies tend to dominate politics and governance as well. 

Further, the global world sees more financial volatility as financial crises extend from one region of the world to another. It is seen in the current global inflation, impacted by the pandemic and exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. The elites reap the benefits while the rest languish in the economic market as large companies exert undue influence over the economy of the developing nations. Despite the claim that new global order increases economic growth through free trade, such growths are quite uneven with most critics slamming it as an empty assurance. 

There was a time when people lived by without the current global order. They even survived without the reaches of the open trade across borders. Those who travelled throughout the world brought forth news of wonder from cross-continents, nations and societies. Life did go on then and it continues to go on even now. Only now, the economics is more pliant to changes according to the world market as nations and their citizens compete in a global village. 

It has made the world smaller while it becomes more uniform in nature with myriad cultures assimilating and diffusing globally. Many changes have occurred since the seeds of globalisation were first sowed. And even though changes are inevitable, globalisation has brought such changes at quite an unprecedented pace within a short duration.