Globalization is a beast fed by consumer-driven culture. It is neither globally beneficial or environmentally sustainable.
Most of the wealth in America is concentrated in the hands of the very people benefiting the most from globalization. Those who benefit the greatest from globalization sacrifice the least in helping other countries develop economically. Globalists profit from shifting wealth from country to country in a neverending quest for cheap labor and resources. Globalization is the new Southern plantation. Instead of forcing people to the fields from the other side of the world, we move the entire fucking plantation.
Cheap labor and maximized shareholder value is the endgame, not an altruistic need to give money to the poor.
Globalization is driven by a western culture enriched in debt and oblivious to responsible, sustainable living. It is more important to offer $2 t-shirts & .50 cent widgets at Wal-mart than stopping global warming. Crate after crate of poorly designed, cheaply made (and sometimes toxic) crap is shipped to the seemingly insatiable appetite of the West. Most of this stuff winds up in our landfills (or our environment) after it breaks or wears out prematurely. Workers who make our landfill mass are often paid a statistically low wage, and this occasionally includes children and prisoners.
American made products (like products of many nations prior to the recent globalization movement) are well designed, well made and generally last a long time. Clothes made from domestic textile mills were durable and often passed from generation to generation.
So while products may cost more to manufacture here, they generally last longer and create less landfill mass. In the greater scheme domestically produced goods cost substantially less.
The name of the game with globalization is profit, not quality. Could durable, well made products be made in China and elswhere? Of course! But that would cut into the bottom line - hence cheaply made crap with cheap labor. As long as profit is the primary driving factor this won't change.
Freighters carrying millions of tons of premature landfill mass to America every year belch tons of noxious and sulfur oxides into the sea and air.
Factories in poor countries often go unwatched by environmental protection agencies of local governments. Corporations in America are required to install scrubbers and filters, and to properly dispose of manufacturing byproducts. Moving operations to third world countries allows corporations to dodge this cost, while local residents reap the liabilities of polluted groundwater and toxic air.
Global corporations rely on transforming agricultural societies into exploitable industrial culture. Farms are requisitioned, land bulldozed and metal factories constructed. People working in the factories no longer own land so they are forced to work 12-14 hour shifts at what little wages are offered. Sustaining, environmentally neutral communities are disappearing in the name of increased product sales.
Globalization is not sustainable.
*Think* Globally
Act Locally
Localization is key. A return to self-sustaining communities and nations will ensure steady, responsible economic growth for all. Global trade is wonderful and needed, no sane person says otherwise. But unrestrained free trade results in the destruction of rainforests, dislocation of farmers from their lands, child labor, slave & prison labor, polluted ground water, oceans and atmosphere. All in the name of $2 t-shirts.
In time we will return to localization, whether from our own carefully planned economic development or global pandemic, depletion of oil, or other disaster.
In the meanwhile, globalization continues to act as a never-ending economic shell game... Where oh where will the next cheap labor pool form next. It creates wealth for a small few, provides a bare pittance to others, and depresses economies elsewhere. 20 years from now America will be the next Bangladesh, if globalists have anything to do with it.
Globalization is a viscous economic system designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. Their wealth comes at the expense of the environment.