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Globalization (Globalizing)
According
to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word
"globalization" was first employed in a publication
entitled Towards New Education in 1930, to denote a
holistic view of human experience in education. An early
description of globalization was penned by the founder
of the Bible Student movement Charles Taze Russell who
coined the term 'corporate giants' in 1897, although it
was not until the 1960s that the term began to be widely
used by economists and other social scientists.
The term
has since then achieved widespread use in the mainstream
press by the later half of the 1980s. Since its
inception, the concept of globalization has inspired
numerous competing definitions and interpretations, with
antecedents dating back to the great movements of trade
and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the
15th century onwards.
The United
Nations ESCWA says globalization "is a widely-used term
that can be defined in a number of different ways. When
used in an economic context, it refers to the reduction
and removal of barriers between national borders in
order to facilitate the flow of goods, capital, services
and labour... although considerable barriers remain to
the flow of labor... Globalization is not a new
phenomenon.
It began
towards the end of the nineteenth century, but it slowed
down during the period from the start of the First World
War until the third quarter of the twentieth century.
This slowdown can be attributed to the inward-looking
policies pursued by a number of countries in order to
protect their respective industries... however, the pace
of globalization picked up rapidly during the fourth
quarter of the twentieth century..."
Globalization refers to the increasing unification of
the world's economic order through reduction of such
barriers to international trade as tariffs, export fees,
and import quotas.
The goal is to increase material wealth, goods, and
services through an international division of labor by
efficiencies catalyzed by international relations,
specialization and competition. It describes the process
by which regional economies, societies, and cultures
have become integrated through communication,
transportation, and trade.
The term is most closely associated with the term
economic globalization: the integration of national
economies into the international economy through trade,
foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, the
spread of technology, and military presence.
However, globalization is usually recognized as being
driven by a combination of economic, technological,
sociocultural, political, and biological factors. The
term can also refer to the transnational circulation of
ideas, languages, or popular culture through
acculturation. An aspect of the world which has gone
through the process can be said to be globalized.
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