Globalisation
Globalisation is a term used to describe the process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of several factors; improvements in transport, freedom of trade and improvements of communications. As a result the phrase 'the world is getting smaller' is often used to describe the free flow of ideas, people good services and capital.
World Economic System
The world economic system in modern society has been identified as having three different co-existing economic systems; market, planned and mixed economic systems. The economy of a country is also define by its development;
Various factors have contributed to construct global inequalities which has created LEDCs and MEDCs. This can be illustrated by the world map shown below:
Global inequality refers to the disproportionate distribution of aspects such resources, wealth and food across the worlds citizens which creates disparities in the standards of living between countries across the world. A major factors that impinges on global inequality is trade (which is the movement of goods and services between different countries) because it is a form of income for countries and source of jobs. Therefore trade practices, the actions of multi-national companies, aid programmes and the actions of consumers need to be assessed to determine whether and how they may affect global inequalities.
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Trading Practices
The World Trade Organisation
The World Trade organisation (WTO) is a global international organisation dealing with the rules of trade between nations. By the end of 2000 there were 139 members of the WTO and 30 countries waiting to join.
What does the WTO stand for?
What does the WTO do?
Decisions are supposed to be reached through consensus, so everyone should come to an agreed outcome. Where this is impossible, the majority can make decisions. If a member country believes another is acting unfairly or breaking the rules they can take their case to the WTO. However once the case is referred to the WTO both members are bound to accept and act on the decisions made.
Trade is a very complex issue but the rules established by the WTO aim to distinguish between what is fair and unfair, how governments can respond, particularly by charging additional import duties calculated to compensate for damage caused by unfair trade. |
Free trade vs Fair trade
Many countries belong to free trade groups. The purpose of these free trade groups is to encourage trade between particular countries, one of the largest trading groups is the EU. The system works on the basis of prices of goods being determined by the amount that people want to buy and sell. However many people have argues that the free trade system favours richer countries as it uses raw material of the LEDC which have to export them as low prices. Therefore as a result small local businesses and co-operatives have suffered.
Fair trade has been identified as an alternative and fairer trading system as an alternative to Free trade. Fair trade is said to be promote and benefit produces as the system ensures that most of the price consumers pay goes to the producer. The Fair trade agreement and organisations aim to improve staff conditions by ensuring they receive a fair wage, have good working conditions and are free to defend their rights, if they wish by forming trade unions. |
Case Study of a Fair Trade Campaign
Impact of Multi-national companies
Multi-national companies are defined as enterprise that is managed from one county (home) but operates in several countries. These companies have over recent years developed steadily and operated within the market economy and firmly believe in free trade. While multi-national companies may be operated by a small number of people the largest can match and sometimes exceed the size and scale of many countries in terms of wealth, power and trading. Multi-national companies have been identified as impacting 'global inequality' in both a positive and negative manner.
The negatives have raised from the way in which these companies have grown; by natural growth and merger. Through the production of goods that sell well companies are able to expanded by reinvesting the profits back into the company for further development and production of new consumer good. This form of development is identified as a natural growth. The problem with this is that while the company (which operates mainly from MEDCs) may be advancing the wealth and profit gained circulates within the company itself. Therefore there is limited money being invested in the LEDCs economy, where the companies are operating from, therefore the LEDCs do not have the means to develop their countries further perpetuating global inequalities. |
Multi-national companies also expand through mergers whereby they join other companies that produce similar services or goods. Mergers allow multi-national companies to relocate their operation in various countries around the world. When relocating companies are searching for locations that provide good transport networks and cheap labour in order to lower cost and increase their production and profit. As previously stated, companies in their determination and pursuit of profit fail to provide its workers with their rights.
This video highlights how the multinational company SABMiller has had a positive impact on LEDCs that they operate from.
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On the other hand multi-national companies also aid in improving global inequality in various ways. The first is that the companies by carrying out production in LEDCs create job opportunities for local people. Those companies you operate on fair trade system would also contribute to improving the standard of living and life opportunities of its employees in LEDCs through for instance providing health care and decent wages (all of which aid in reducing global inequality). Multinational companies can also be seen to encourage LEDCs to develop their own industries and provides infrastructure to accelerate the process and speed to development. |
Aid
Aid has been identified as a another method that can be employed to utilise to improve global inequality. Aid is the transfer of money, goods and skills from one country (the donor) to another (the recipient). Aid is usually a form of donation which is free but can also be given on conditional terms e.g. setting deadlines for projects which the money has been donated to. There are three different types of aid all of which operate in differing way and provide varying amounts of support.
Contemporary Global Economic Agendas
In contemporary society there are various global economic agenda that aim to tackle global inequality, such as United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and G8. The focus here is going to rest on the United Nations.
The United Nations
Almost every nation in the world belongs to the United Nations, where 192 countries have become member. All members have a voice and can promote their views through various voting processes. By joining the UN, countries are also agreeing to accept the UN charter. The UN is not a world government and also does not possess any power in law making. However, it does, aid in resolving international conflict and formulates policies on matters that impact everyone.
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In 2000 the UN took a major steps which intended to promote the closing of the development gap. World leaders agreed to promote eight Millennium Goals which all encouraged and supported further development of LEDCs. The deadline for the achievements of these targets was set at 2015.
UN Aid Agencies
Aid plays a very important role with the work of the UN and two types of aid are supplied; relief and developmental.
The UN provides and offers relief aid to countries from two different sources; from its funds and also distributes funding given by individual countries during emergency situations or events. Whereas developmental aid, which is intended for the purpose of longer-term projects, are normally supported by NGOs. UN agencies include;
The UN provides and offers relief aid to countries from two different sources; from its funds and also distributes funding given by individual countries during emergency situations or events. Whereas developmental aid, which is intended for the purpose of longer-term projects, are normally supported by NGOs. UN agencies include;
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What are the challenges of the global interdependence and how might they be tackled?
Globalisation has been argued as creating what is known as 'global interdependence' which refers to countries relying on each other. This dependency can come in all forms from resources such as food, oil or water to aid relief and allies in war. Global independence does create challenges on a number of levels and there have been some solutions put forward to tackle them.
Teaching Ideas
Starter:
Provide students with a world map which they then have to mark where certain items have been made. You could get students to mark their own items of clothing or alternatively students could be provided with a sheet of items. Providing sheets with items allows the opportunity for differentiation, where higher ability students could be given a map without labels while lower ability students could have maps that provide more information such as the continents and so on. This task should allow pupils to consider how globalisation work and start to discuss some points of positive and negative effects this could have.
UN: project the image of the UN and ask students to think about what the symbol represents. Aspects which should be focused on are the olive branches which represent peace and the map of the world. The teacher should point out the symbolism of why the world map shows the countries from above (aims to represent all countries and show they are all equally important- not just one country in the middle). Discussion should follow on to what the symbol tells you about the work the UN does.
Fair trade: Display the logo of fair trade and ask students to think about what the symbol is and represents.
Ask students to list the differences between developing (LEDCs) and developed countries (MEDCs).
Main Activity
http://www.simsweatshop.com/game/ play the sweatshop game online to help students understand the working conditions of some workers in LEDCs. Begin to understand how fair trade may aid these workers.
Class activity which introduces the idea of fair trade and encourages students to think about the motives behind the fair trade movement. Students will be asked to work in groups to play complete the activity 'The Banana Split'. Provide students with cards of the different groups involved in the banana chain; buyers, shipper, wholesaler/importer, ripner, grower, retailer and plantation owner. The students first task is to put these groups into the order they believe they take in the banana chain. The second task is for students to use their 1p notes to work out how much of the 30p goes to each part of the chain. After this activity it would be the ideal opportunity to introduce Fair trade, its aims, and benefits it has. Then the banana chain can be revisited to demonstrate the money distribution if the banana was fair trade.
Ask students to investigate a global issue. Some suggestions could be provided such as; earthquakes, global warming, poverty, famine and draught. Based on their research they would be required to prepare a presentation (five minute talk, PowerPoint or even a role play/advertisement) outlining what and why this is a global issue, what is being done to improve this and what and how others can help.
Class discussion around the statement 'Countries should not be allowed to be members of the UN if their populations' human rights are not respected.' Students should be provided with current examples of such countries. Discussions should be focused around the idea that you can influence people more if they are in an organisation. But excluding them might put pressure on the country to improve.
Plenary
Ask students what they could do to become an active member of 'global society' and whether they would, after everything they have learnt, be taking any action. (Answers could range from giving donations to global charities or even being active in combating environmental issues e.g. littering in the community or school)
Homework Task
Ask students to make a list of Fair trade products that are sold in their local supermarket. This can lead to discussion of whether it was easy or hard to find fair trade products, the price difference. Also to talk about if students will be willing to purchase fair trade products.
Provide students with a world map which they then have to mark where certain items have been made. You could get students to mark their own items of clothing or alternatively students could be provided with a sheet of items. Providing sheets with items allows the opportunity for differentiation, where higher ability students could be given a map without labels while lower ability students could have maps that provide more information such as the continents and so on. This task should allow pupils to consider how globalisation work and start to discuss some points of positive and negative effects this could have.
UN: project the image of the UN and ask students to think about what the symbol represents. Aspects which should be focused on are the olive branches which represent peace and the map of the world. The teacher should point out the symbolism of why the world map shows the countries from above (aims to represent all countries and show they are all equally important- not just one country in the middle). Discussion should follow on to what the symbol tells you about the work the UN does.
Fair trade: Display the logo of fair trade and ask students to think about what the symbol is and represents.
Ask students to list the differences between developing (LEDCs) and developed countries (MEDCs).
Main Activity
http://www.simsweatshop.com/game/ play the sweatshop game online to help students understand the working conditions of some workers in LEDCs. Begin to understand how fair trade may aid these workers.
Class activity which introduces the idea of fair trade and encourages students to think about the motives behind the fair trade movement. Students will be asked to work in groups to play complete the activity 'The Banana Split'. Provide students with cards of the different groups involved in the banana chain; buyers, shipper, wholesaler/importer, ripner, grower, retailer and plantation owner. The students first task is to put these groups into the order they believe they take in the banana chain. The second task is for students to use their 1p notes to work out how much of the 30p goes to each part of the chain. After this activity it would be the ideal opportunity to introduce Fair trade, its aims, and benefits it has. Then the banana chain can be revisited to demonstrate the money distribution if the banana was fair trade.
Ask students to investigate a global issue. Some suggestions could be provided such as; earthquakes, global warming, poverty, famine and draught. Based on their research they would be required to prepare a presentation (five minute talk, PowerPoint or even a role play/advertisement) outlining what and why this is a global issue, what is being done to improve this and what and how others can help.
Class discussion around the statement 'Countries should not be allowed to be members of the UN if their populations' human rights are not respected.' Students should be provided with current examples of such countries. Discussions should be focused around the idea that you can influence people more if they are in an organisation. But excluding them might put pressure on the country to improve.
Plenary
Ask students what they could do to become an active member of 'global society' and whether they would, after everything they have learnt, be taking any action. (Answers could range from giving donations to global charities or even being active in combating environmental issues e.g. littering in the community or school)
Homework Task
Ask students to make a list of Fair trade products that are sold in their local supermarket. This can lead to discussion of whether it was easy or hard to find fair trade products, the price difference. Also to talk about if students will be willing to purchase fair trade products.