Question

Part 1 - Present one recent instance (within the last 50 years only) whereby a language, custom or national culture has been lost or diminished by the elimination or blurring of an existing border via globalization. (Please select non-U.S. examples)

Part 2 - By extension, how have global oligopolies benefited from the decrease in local competition?

Answer 1

Part 1

                                    Globalisation refers to a recent global phenomenon wherein there has been an increased international trade and with advancement of technology has caused the global world to be reduced to a single market by virtual elimination of the borders. With the advancement of globalization, there has been an improvement in the way the international market have been functioning. Although it has resulted in many advantages for many countries, it has had serious effects on the national culture and customs along with implications n the local markets. The following has been identified as the effects of globalisation on local markets which has in turn caused changes to the national cultures due to changes in the consumption patterns. The example of influence of the Chinese market in the global scenario has been discussed.

· The Chinese economy is largely dependent on the export potential of the nation and thus globalization brought in much of an advantage to the nation.

· The technological progress made by China has been tremendous and especially in the mobile manufacturing sector has been incomparable.

· With loads of mobiles manufactured by China, it were exported to many nations across the globe at a lower price which helped it to replace many local mobile manufacturers within no time.

· The introduction of online markets like Amazon, Flipkart etc has affected many local markets to its disadvantage and hence has been detrimental in changing the consumption patterns and behaviours of many nations.

· The introduction of international products in to many local markets have made significant changes to the National culture too of many nations.

· Thus, globalisation has caused significant changes to the cultures of many nations with detrimental impacts on the local economy of many countries.

Part 2

                                    An oligopoly market refers to such a market wherein a few large firms have significant influence over the industries and manufacturing units of an economy. With much influence on the market mechanisms, an oligopoly could act as a monopoly if they collude and can act as a perfectly competitive economy in case of competitions between them. In general, in an oligopoly market the firms are expected to collude so as to maximise their profits in the market. With agreements made in pricing and distribution, they act as Cartels in many instances and thus affects the local markets to a great extent. Moreover, the lesser competition of local markets have also helped the oligopolies to grow. The following arguments states how the oligopolies have benefited from lesser local competition.

· Like a monopoly, an oligopoly grows with lesser barriers to market entry and hence a lesser competitive market would enhance the entry of such oligopolies in the market.

· With lesser competition, the goods in such local economies would be of lower quality which would give an added advantage to the oligopolies which are generally bigger firms to get the hold of the market by selling additional high-end quality goods in the initial stage to the consumers.

· It would be easier for the oligopoly to enter the market without much loss of profits as the pricing mechanism in such a less competitive economy would be generally lower.

· After entry in to the market system, they would collude and set the pricing mechanism for the market which would force the consumers to accept them as the local competitors now finds it difficult to re-enter the market system.

· Thus, with the above mechanisms, the oligopolies would get the hold of the market and it can be seen that the lesser local competition remains the major factor that has caused this to happen.