Question

• Identify and discuss the ways in which globalization has impacted diversity within the United States.
• How has macro-level acts and legislation added to this social change, such as with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the development of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and various court cases.

Answer 1

Globalization refers to the process, whereby a country recognizes the fact that the entire global economy is one and wherein the demand and supply are also global in nature and cannot be restricted by protectionist measures. Economies that abide by the principles of globalization widely agree to the fact that placing trade barriers on one another only leads to lesser innovation and production capacity on one hand, and on the other unfulfilled demand and lesser supply in the market place.

Since the 1980's-1990's, most economies have grown in size, enabling themselves to earn more through globalization. Countries such as India and China have been pioneers in globalization and have enabled themselves to become exporting nations from ones which were only dependent on production of agriculture for a long time. Companies from United States have entered these economies and their labour force has expanded since then. The economic effect of this has been that the revenues for firm have increased and so has the customer satisfaction but another externality which is largely positive from globalization coming into existence is that diversity within organizations and in the United States as a whole has increased rapidly.

As globalization increases organizations enable themselves to have a diverse working population, which then translates into better working conditions, the creation of ideas which previously were very restricted and new growth regions which companies previously had not though about. In all it is a win win situation for both the labour force as well as for producers within the United States as they gain from more revenue on one hand and on the other a diverse work force brings in new ideas and productivity to the table.

Further, policies and macro-economic measures such as NAFTA or the New American Free Trade Agreement which was a trade agreement between Mexico, America and Canada and it enabled free trade without much restrictions among these countries meant, that goods and services were increased in terms of production and consumption as well. Further, the labour force interacted with one another as companies set their operations in all of the countries described, the end result of which has already been expressed in terms of increased revenue sources and better productivity and diversity of the labour force.

Thus, we can conclude by saying, that globalization and other macroeconomic policies which look at considering the entire world as one single market, enables a country to increase its exposure to other countries and hire people from across the globe. This helps in increasing consumer demand as well as overall diversity in all major nations of the world.

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