Question

Is globalization good for democracy or not? Explain Why with conservatives generally wanting to pull back into a more isolationist posture vs. more liberal people saying we are so intertwined as countries that it would be foolish to think we can be isolated?

Answer 1

The world is divided on whether globalization good for democracy. Those in favor of globalization helping democracy states that Globalization is steady rise in trans-border flows of goods, services, capital, symbols and cultural products that we have seen over the past three decades or so, has gone hand in hand with an equally steady expansion of democratic ideas around the world.

Those against Globalization are the conservatives generally wanting to pull back into a more isolationist posture states that benefit of Globalization have gone to multi-national corporation. As long as corporations function in one country, it works under the law of that country, i.e any taxation done by the national government hit the corporation in the same way as citizen and company there. On the other hand : a multi- national corporation can move its manufacturing, storage, shipping, administration etc. to a more beneficial place, i.e move to a place that charges the lowest taxes and weakest labor laws.This does not benefit the employees nor the customer of the organization but certainly good for the shareholders and the top management.

It get worse: government will entice international businesses to their country and do so by : paying large sums to get them set up; keep taxes low for such companies and make the labor condition poor enough , so that corporation can get away with lot of things. Since there will always be country that will bend to wishes to large corporations - read bribes etc - even more high moral political leaders will often find that they have to give in.

To fight this kind of things, governments will have to get together on a worldwide basis to get some ground rules.They should be willing to use sanctions against those who fail to cooperate.

More liberal people saying we are so intertwined as countries that it would be foolish to think we can be isolated.

Proponents of this view point to contagion of democratic transitions in the world over the past quarter century to the ability of technology to penetrate the most closed societies. Even the Orwellian North Korean government has gone online, though the country's broader population has no electronic access to the outside world.