Is Globalization really that bad?

Have you ever envisioned a world without globalization?  What would America be like if we never outsourced our goods and services?  What would happen if certain diseases had never infected American citizens, but instead infected only people from another country?  What would our world be like if politics, economics, and culture were not globalized?  The effects would be simply unimaginable.  The potency and importance of globalization is immeasurable because it serves as the basis for America’s (and the world’s) overall development and progress.

            America’s outsourcing of goods and services is one of the main reasons why so many of us have iPods that are much more advanced and cheaper as compared to when they were first produced.  And remember those huge car phones back in the 90’s that used to be considered so incredibly high-tech, yet so expensive? I doubt that it ever occur to any adult at that time that a small, sleek mobile phone would be free with a wireless subscription in 2011.  One of the ways this type of technological progression can be made possible is through globalization.  As demand for technological products (such as the mobile phone) increases, new firms enter the market.  The industry expands, outsourcing becomes more and more prevalent, and production and resource costs lower.  Thus, such products like the iPod become available to more people.  With this said, outsourcing can positively impact other countries as much as they impact America.  An American company that establishes a large factory in Indonesia is going to provide many Indonesians with jobs and essentially experience significantly lower labor costs as compared to having a factory within the U.S.  Globalization, as presented as the method outsourcing, therefore, affects the world in so many positive ways.

            Aside from its heavy economic impact on the world, America also plays a fundamental role in medicine.  Imagine if millions of people suddenly died from an infectious disease that only prevailed inside of Africa, yet the disease wouldn’t affect anyone in America.  How fast would American researchers find a cure or treatment, given that a treatment is feasible?  I’m sure that if the disease had actually spread to America, not only would people in the U.S. be treated as soon as possible, but those infected in Africa would also be treated at a higher, faster rate.  This serves as another example of how globalization benefits everybody, even in other countries.

            Globalization is essential to the world’s development.  Without it, would there be any advancement in technology? I can’t possibly describe all of the positive aspects of globalization without writing nearly a book.  Globalization takes on many, many more economical roles than mentioned above, along with political and more cultural roles.  So should we pause globalization, given our economic condition today? What would happen if we stopped globalization?  Taking both the long-run and short-run into consideration, I’m not so sure limiting globalization would be the answer to solving the world’s problems.