Question

In the film “Darwin’s Nightmare” and in several other examples we’ve talked about the idea of there being “winners and losers” in the process of globalization. Using the example of the film or some other specific examples, identify globalization “winners” and, from the standpoint of the winners, explain why the losers should still feel positive about the process of globalization.

Answer 1

Introduction

Globalization in general terms refers to the process, whereby a country aims to consider the entire world as one free market and trade barriers such as tariffs, quotas etc. are all erased from such a society. Economists have for long argued that maximization of profits as well as of consumerism can take place, only when the world becomes one and countries are allowed to trade freely with one another thus, using each other’s advantages and allowing one another to grow at the same time.

The trend of globalization has been such that previously communist countries which were of the idea that protectionism wherein a country would oppose globalization and stick to domestic production and consumption have also realized its importance. Some key examples of it have been countries such as China and India, which were previously protectionist in terms of their approach towards globalization, and it is recently that the countries have embraced globalization and since then have become one of the key winners of it.

The following is the brief concept of winners and losers in the process of globalization, and why exactly losers should still remain positive about it.

Case Details: -

The key winners of the process of globalization are countries such as China, India and Bangladesh which have seen an influx of jobs once they embraced globalization as is. This stems from the fact the companies saw a huge potential in these countries and took their production process there because the labour force was much cheaper in these countries.

The huge production processes in countries such as China of technological giants such as Apple or the Indian technical support industry or Bangladeshi cloth manufacturing all are examples of countries winning as a result of globalization key contracts and production processes which otherwise would have stayed in countries such as the United States of America which is one country that has become a key looser due to the globalization process in terms of loss of jobs in these sectors.

Having said that, the developed countries such as the United States, United Kingdom etc. which have even lost jobs have positive things to look at. The key reason why these countries lost is because of higher labour costs. Once that the low-cost industries shifted to China or India, this meant that the jobs within these countries were then restricted to being high specialized ones which would allow for higher revenue making work within the same hours.

For example, designing, consulting etc all of these technical jobs are more profound in the developed parts of the world than India and China. This adds more value to the human resource, even if globalization made them losers for some time.

Further, the losers got a larger market to win at. They now can deal with a larger population and while they may have lost jobs in the manufacturing sector, their profits may still rise owing to the fact that they can sell their goods at different locations than being localized as they were earlier.

Conclusion: -

Thus, we can conclude by saying that some of the key winners of globalization have been countries such as India, China and Bangladesh, all of which have got critical contracts and production have shifted to these countries due to the low cost of labour.

On the contrary the losers have been countries such as the United States which has lost jobs as a result of the globalization process in areas which demanded lesser skills. However, the positive side is that the market for companies located in the developed world has extended and they now have a higher target market which can be catered to at a lower price point. Further, high skilled jobs bring in higher revenue per unit of time, and the country should largely see it as an opportunity to enhance the highly productive market and become winners instead.

Please feel free to ask your doubts in the comments section if any.